Article II. Attributes relative to the divine operations

According to the definition of self-subsisting Being, it is immaterial or spiritual and hence intelligent. The two great attributes of the divine Intellect are wisdom and providence. Free will is an absolute perfection which is the necessary consequence of intelligence. The act of the divine will is love, and its two great virtues are justice and mercy. If we pass from the immanent operations to discuss the immediate principle of God’s external operations, then this principle merits the name of omnipotence. All these operations constitute the divine life, the intimate nature of which is known to us only by revelation. It is in this order that we shall consider this second category of attributes so that we may show how they are deduced from Being itself.

49. Wisdom, foreknowledge, providence.

Under the general term “wisdom,” the word most frequently used in Scripture, we shall discuss the following: divine knowledge, determining its primary and secondary object; God’s foreknowledge of future contingent events; His providence.

Divine knowledge. All men flatter themselves that they know what wisdom is, even the sceptics who make it consist in doubting everything. Wisdom is a general view of all things. But it is possible for us to view all things from on high, to believe that all things proceed from a holy love, or are permitted by it and concur toward a supreme Good. On the contrary, it is possible for us to view all things from below, to believe that they are all the result of material and blind fate, with no end in view. There is an optimistic wisdom which shuts its eyes to the existence of evil, and there is a pessimistic and discouraging wisdom which sees no good in anything.

The characteristic of the wisdom which Scripture calls “the wisdom of the world” is to see all things from below. It judges all things in human life either from the worldly pleasures they afford or from the material interests they safeguard or from the satisfaction that our ambition or pride finds in them. Worldly-minded people are thus led to make the wisdom of this life consist in striking an average medium between true good and evil of too gross or perverse a nature. The wise man, so they say, must not go to excess in anything. Thus it often happens that such people call “good” what is indifferently so, and what is but a confusion of the ideas of good and evil. Under the name of tolerance, this “carnal wisdom” is as indulgent to vice as it is indifferent to virtue. It is particularly severe in its judgment of whatever surpasses it in ideal and seems a reproach to it; at times, it even expresses its hatred for eminent virtue, known as sanctity.

Such is the wisdom of the world; St. Paul says “it is foolishness with God” (I Cor. 3:19). It judges all things, even those the most sublime or the most necessary, such as salvation, by the vainest of things. St. Paul, having the divine wisdom in mind, adds: “If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise” (I Cor. 3:18).

What then is divine wisdom? It is a luminous and uncreated knowledge, which penetrates the whole being of God and which from its high abode, by its very purity, without suffering the least defilement, extends to everything which is and can be, however insignificant or bad the thing may be.

The ever self-subsisting Being, because absolutely immaterial or spiritual, is supremely intelligent. Immateriality is the principle of knowledge, and the greater the degree of immateriality, the higher is the form of knowledge. Plants have not knowledge; they are enclosed within themselves, since they are wholly material. Our senses have knowledge of the sensible qualities of external objects; they are susceptible of everything which pertains to the sensible order, because they are already to some extent immaterial. Our intellect knows things in a more perfect manner, and rises above the particular limitations of space and time: being, truth, goodness, and justice are its province. What enables the intellect to know these immaterial objects, unless it be its absolute immateriality ?

Dominating all things is the ever self-subsisting Being, absolutely immaterial, and independent of all limitations arising from matter, space, and time, independent, too, of all limitation caused by essence. In Him, there is nothing carnal, nothing corporeal. He is purely immaterial, therefore He must be supremely intelligent (Ia, q. 14, a. 1).

In attributing intelligence to God, do we imply an imperfection which is unworthy of Him? Undoubtedly in us, intelligence is a faculty, the principle of a multiplicity of transient acts; but it is really distinct from its acts and from its object. In us, wisdom is a habitual disposition of this faculty, one that is acquired by experience and reflection. In the divine essence there is nothing potential, nothing acquired, nothing multiple. All these imperfections are but created modes of intelligence and of wisdom, which in their formal concepts do not include these imperfections. If our intellect is only a faculty relative to being, that is because we are not the subsistent Being. In God His intellect is His very Being, which is always actually known to Him. It is not a faculty which is the principle of various acts, but is the eternal intellection of infinite truth.

This intellectual act, which does not proceed from a faculty, is not distinguished even virtually’ from the divine essence which is the thinking subject, nor from the divine essence which is the object known. Since it is pure actuality in the order of being, the divine essence is not in potentiality with regard to the act of knowing; it is this very act.2 On the other hand, since the divine essence is pure actuality in the intelligible order, by reason of its absolute immateriality it is not merely potentially intelligible, as if it had need of some idea which would express it, but it is of itself actually known.* Hence the divine intellection is identified with the divine essence which is the subject and primary object of the operation, “The absence of potentiality in each accounts for the absence of a duality consisting of a subject and object.” * This is the reply that can be made to Plotinus,

2“It must be said that the act of God’s intellect is His substance. For if His act of understanding were other than His substance, then something else, as the Philosopher says (Metaphysics, XII), would be the act and perfection of the divine substance, to which the divine substance would be related as potentiality is to act, which is altogether impossible, because the act of understanding is the perfection and act of the one understanding.” Ia, q. 14, a. 4.

8 See Ia, q. 14, a. 2: “Since therefore God has nothing in Him in potentiality, but is pure act, His intellect and its object are altogether the same; so that He neither is without the intelligible species, as is the case with our intellect when it understands potentially; nor docs the intelligible species differ from the substance of the divine intellect when it understands actually; but the intelligible species itself is the divine intellect itself, and thus God understands Himself through Himself.”

*See Ia, q. 14, a, 2: “For the reason why we actually fecl or know a thing is because our intellect or sense is actually informed by the sensible or intelligible¹

Fichte, and Spencer, who declare that the intellect implies a duality which is irreconcilable with the simplicity of the Absolute.

There is therefore absolute identity, without an intrinsically virtual distinction, between the divine essence (thinking subject) and the intellect, the idea, the intellection, and the divine essence as known. To admit in this case a virtual distinction, an intrinsic one which has its foundation in God, would be to say that one of these divine perfections can be conceived as being potential, having its foundation in the divine reality itself (cum fundamento in re) 5 species. And because of this only, it follows that sense or intellect is distinct from the sensible or intelligible object, since both are in potentiality.”

5 According to the common teaching of the Thomists, the only virtual distinction in God is that between those perfections which, as found in created things, according to their objective concepts, are distinct from each other and belong to different orders: such perfections are intellect and will. But there is no virtual distinction in God between those perfections which as found in created things, are distinguished only because of the potentiality implied. Such are essence and existence, or intellect and intellection. Since there is no potentiality in God, there is no foundation in Him for such a distinction. We can speak of an extrinsically virtual distinction, and that only, in so far as the pure actuality of God is equivalent, in an eminent way, to potentiality and act which are distinct in created things.

“In God there is a virtual distinction, one for which there is a real foundation, only between those perfections which, as found in created things, are distinguished formally or virtually, not simply because of the implied potentiality, as in intellect and intellection, but because of what is formally denoted by the objective concepts, which therefore belong to different orders, as is the case with the intellect and will.” Billuart, De Deo, diss. 2, a. 1, sec. r; diss. 5, a. 1, dico. 2; John of St. Thomas (on Ia, q. 14), disp. 16, a. 2, nn. 19, 20, 28, 33; Gonet, Clypeus thomisticus, disp. 2, a. 3, sec. 1; Salmanticenses, De Deo uno, tr. IV, disp. 2, dub. 2, nn. 21, 34; Contenson (De Deo, 1, diss. 2, ch. ii, spec. 2) admits that there is no virtual distinction between the divine intellect and divine intellection, but, in opposition to various Thomists, he thinks that a distinction must be made between the divine intellection and the divine essence as known. Billuart (De Deo, diss, 2, a. 1, sec. 4, obj. 3) sums up the more common teachiug of the Thomists when he says: “In every intellectual act the object of this act seeks to unite itself with the intellect, and the more perfect is the intellectual act, the more perfect is the union. Hence the divine intellection, since it is infinite and in the highest degree of actuality, reaches such a degree of eminent perfection and of simplicity as to be identified with

“Thus we see,” says St. Thomas, “that in God the intellect as knowing, the divine essence as immediately known, and His act of understanding are absolutely one and the same thing. Even when we say that God ‘has knowledge,’ we do not place any multiplicity in His being, and we do not destroy His supreme simplicity.” ®

From this we see that the knowledge which God has of Himself infinitely surpasses that which we have of ourselves. There is nothing obscure, nothing mysterious, for the divine intellect. Because of the numerous impulses more or less conscious which influence our judgments and our wishes, because of the graces offered and perhaps often refused, we remain a mystery, indeed, to ourselves. The most intelligent persons do not fully know themselves. “But neither do I judge my own self,” says St. Paul; “for I am not conscious to myself of anything. Yet I am not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord” (I Cor. 4:4).

It is the Lord who fully knows Himself as far as He is knowable. Not only does He exhaust by His comprehensive knowledge the infinite abyss of truth which He is, but His luminous thought so penetrates His Being, that it is identifed with Him, without any distinction between them. God is a purely intellectual and eternally subsistent scintillation. He is the highest and the uncreated spiritual light. Compared with it the sun is but a shadow, a dark stain. “For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the its object, without any virtual distinction for which there is a real foundation. This is what the holy Doctor expresses when he says (Ia, q. 14, a. 2): ‘Since therefore God has nothing in Him of potentiality, but is pure act, His intellect and its object are altogether the same.’ Therefore, there is not even a virtual distinction between them.”

€ “Thus it follows from all the foregoing that in God, intellect and the object understood, and the intelligible species, and His act of understanding, are entirely one and the same. Hence when God is said to be understanding, no kind of multiplicity is attached to His substance” (Ia, q. 14, a. 4).

light she is found before it. For after this cometh night; but no evil can overcome wisdom. For she is the brightness of eternal light” (Wisdom 7:26, 29, 30).

In so far as the divine essence explicitly contains in an eminent way all its attributes and the relations of the Trinity, it is the formal and primary object of divine knowledge.” This eminent knowledge of the divine Being embraces everything actual and possible. This constitutes the secondary object of His knowledge. With regard to this secondary object, a twofold distinction is made in the knowledge of God, one being called the knowledge of simple intelligence, and the other of vision.®

God’s knowledge of possible things is called His knowledge of simple intelligence, because it does not presuppose any act of the will or the actual existence of the object of this knowledge. God sees the infinite multitude of possible things in His essence as so many ways by which it is analogically imitable. Thus the artist who has conceived something ideal, imagines the various possible ways in which it can be realized.

God’s knowledge of what exists, what has existed, or what is yet to come into existence, is called His knowledge of vision, because, like vision, it is concerned with things, not merely pos-

T See Billuart (De Deo, diss. 5, a. 2, sec. 2), who rightly reconciles the apparently opposite opinions of certain Thomists. It would be an error to maintain with Durandus that the formal object of divine knowledge is universal being which is commonly predicated by way of analogy both of the uncreated Being and of the created modes of being. It was more or less a view that Rosmini held. (See Denzinger, nn. 1897, 1904, 1905.) No knowledge can be attributed to God which precedes the knowledge that He has of Himself, for nothing is prior or superior to Him.

It is not with a real universality of contents or of causality, but with a universality of the logical order, based entirely upon our imperfect mode of knowing things, that being in general is more universal than the uncreated Being. God does not know being in general, in the abstract way that we know it. He knows it in the concrete form, in so far as it is realized primarily in Himself and in created things by participation,

8 See la, Q. 14, a. 2, 9; De veritate, Q. 3, a. 3 ad Bum. Contra Gentes, Bk, I, chs. lx, Ixix.

sible, but really existing. This knowledge of vision is further distinguished in God, according as He approves of what is good and disapproves of all that is evil, merely permitting it. The reason for these distinctions is to be sought for in the objects of the divine knowledge and in our imperfect mode of knowing things. They in no way affect the unity of this knowledge which by a single act, absolutely simple, comprehends both the divine essence and all possible and created things.®

It is in Himself that God sees possible things, by reason of the infinitely variable imitability of the divine essence. To deny God this knowledge would be to deny that God comprehends Himself and His possibilities. It would be also a limited view and unworthy of God to say that He has merely a general, confused, or progressive knowledge of things. It embraces at once, without any reasoning, all the possible details of each individual thing; for these very details also remotely participate in the divine perfections, and are virtually contained in His omnipotence, which can bring them into being. Neither would God have a comprehensive knowledge of the nature of being, if He did not know all the possible modes of being, even each individual being (Ia, q. 14, a, 3, 5, 6, 7). But if it is in contemplating Himself that God knows all possible things, whence and how does He know all past, present and future things?

St. Thomas (Ia, q. 14, a. 8) answers this question by pointing out that the knowledge of God, far from being, like our knowledge, determined and measured by things, is the cause of things. It is evident that God cannot be informed, as we are, by the facts which we are obliged to wait for and to verify. The divine intellect cannot derive any knowledge from things, but, on the contrary, by its creative knowledge it gives existence to things. It is not, therefore, because things are or will be, that God knows them, but it is because He knows them and wishes them to be, that

they are and that they will be. Analogous to the practical knowledge of the artist by which he produces a work of art, the divine knowledge is the cause of things, in so far as the divine will is joined to it. “The knowledge of God is the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined to it” (la, q. 14, a. 8). This union of God’s knowledge with His will constitutes the divine decree!

Again, therefore, it is in contemplating Himself that God knows all things, past, present, or future. He sees them in all their details with the greatest accuracy; but especially He sees them, and can see them only from on high, in His all divine light, in their eminent cause. He knows them in their origin, which is by all means a more perfect way than knowing them immediately in themselves, in the obscurity of created light. In the City of God (Bk. XI, ch. vii) St. Augustine expresses this truth when he says: “In comparison with the Creator’s knowledge our knowledge is, so to speak, an evening knowledge. . . . The knowledge which the creature has, of itself is faded and obscure; known in God, as works of a skilled artificer, created things are incomparably more luminous.” St. Augustine delights in calling this knowledge which God has, morning knowledge, calling ours evening knowledge. He concedes both kinds to the angels; but only the more perfect belongs to God; the other is too obscure and in God would be an imperfection. This knowledge is inferior to divine contemplation."

Dionysius (De div. nom., ch. vii) speaks in the same way. He

10 This point is of the greatest importance for determining the precise meaning of the thirteenth article of this same question which concerns the foreknowledge of future contingent things.

11In like manner St. Augustine (Quaestiones, Bk. LXXXIII, q. 46) says: “Nor does God have intuitive knowledge of anything outside of Himself.” It is in this sense, we think, that Aristotle's passage in the Metaphysics (Bk. XII, ch. ix) must be understood. Several historians have put a wrong construction upon it, making out Aristotle's meaning to be that God has no knowledge of things in this world. See the commentary of St. Thomas on this passage, Bk. XH, lect. 2.

says: “Not each and every thing is submitted to God’s knowledge of vision, but He knows all things in that He knows them in their cause.” Concerning angelic knowledge 1? and God’s knowledge, St. Thomas says the same: “So we say that God sees Himself in Himself, because He sees Himself through His essence; and He sees other things not in themselves, but in Himself, inasmuch as His essence contains the similitude of things other than Himself” (Ia, q. 14, a. 5).!* In addition to this the Angelic Doctor says: “The authority of Holy Scripture seems also to uphold this opinion; for in Psalm 1o1, verse 20, it is said of God: “He hath looked forth from His high sanctuary,’ seeing all else, as it were, from His own lofty self.” 14

Various theologians, such as Vasquez, Suarez, and many Molinists depart from this sublime doctrine of St. Thomas.?® Vasquez believes it to be more perfect for God to know things immediately in themselves. This error is the very opposite to that of Malebranche, who says that in this life we see all things in God, Suarez and several Molinists, in order to safeguard their special theory about the foreknowledge of future free things, maintain that God knows created things in two ways: either in Himself, as in their cause, or in themselves immediately. The unanimous teaching of the Thomists is that it would be an imperfection for God to know created things in any other way than in Himself. In such a case His intellect would be immediately specified by a created object, and there would be in it a finite image of finite things, an image which would have to be de-

14 Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. xlix.

16 Cf. the Wiceburgenses, S.J, De Deo, disp. 3, a. 3, nn. 117-137. Also Suarez, De attributis Dei posttivis, Bk. II, ch. ii, n. 16 and De scientia Dei futurorum contingentium absolutorum, Bk. Il, ch. vii, n. 15. (These texts will be found infra, appendix IV, ch. i, a. 2.) These doctrines are refuted by the Thomists in their commentaries on the Summa, Ia, q. 14. See John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Gonet, Gotti, or Billuart (De Deo, diss. 5, a. 4).

4, ee rived from created things, like the image which determines our intellect to act (Ia, q. 14, a. 5 ad 3um). The infinite intellect would thus depend upon the finite.

In fact, God sees things of this world, not in the paleness of their created light, but in the brilliance of His light. On the other hand, we see spiritual things only in an inferior manner as reflected in material things. We know divine things only through the mirror of created things. It is what St. Augustine calls evening knowledge.

God sees Himself in an eternal morning light. He sees from on high all possible creatures in the clarity of His essence. Material things He sees in His absolute spirituality. Let us take the case of an artistic genius who has planned a masterpiece of art. He contemplates it in its ideal state, he hestitates to put it into effect, to materialize it in bronze or marble, because he knows that in its ideal state it will be always more beautiful than when it is materialized. How much more beautiful the Roman Campagna appeared to Raphael than as seen by us. Thus things of this world, whatever good there is in our lives, are incomparably more beautiful as seen by God in His divine light, than as they are in their contracted reality. It is not that God overlooks their defects, but it is only because of their very close and fundamental relations with the infinite Cause which they reveal, and with the ultimate end to which they all tend, that He can come in contact with these meager and finite realities. He sees them only as reflections of His perfections, in the divine idea by which they are directed to their ends.

Such is divine wisdom. It can see and judge all things only from on high, in their highest cause and in their ultimate end. It is influenced neither by the dazzling effects of fortune nor of talent. With divine wisdom it is charity that counts, that “pearl of great price.” Benedict Labre, who was clothed in rags but had the heart of a saint, was of far greater value before God than a

Caesar or a Napoleon in all the splendor of their worldly glory. Viewed in the light of earthly things, the Passion of Christ appears somber to us. Viewed from on high in the divine light, how radiant it must be! The divine wisdom sees everything as the reflection of the glory of “He who is.”

If God knows all things in Himself, then how does He know evil, which is absolutely foreign to Him and which He cannot cause? St. Thomas says: “God knows evil through the good of which it is a privation, as darkness is known by light. He would not know good things perfectly unless He also knew evil things.” How can anyone know what justice is, if he does not know what injustice is? The presence of sin in someone’s soul is known to God inasmuch as He permits this moral defect in which He cannot concur, and inasmuch as He concurs as first cause in the physical entity of the sin.?€ He cannot turn a created will away from Himself; ‘* but He is not bound to prevent the will, which is subject to defect, from falling into sin. Therefore, although He permits this failure, He is not responsible for it.18 As for the physical entity of sin, God can be the primary cause of this, just as a great painter, in using a poor brush, is the cause of its movement, but not of what is defective about it.!®

Therefore evil is known by God in His decree permitting though condemning it. He also envisages it in His sublime

16 Cf. Ia, q. 14, 2. 10; q. 19, a. 9; q. 23, a. 3: “The will to permit someone to fall into sin.” Ia Hae, q. 79, a. 1, 2. Consult the Thomist commentators, e. g., Billuart, De Deo, diss. 6, a. 4, obj. 3; diss. 8, a. 5; De peccatis, diss. 5, a. 9. See also John of St. Thomas on these same articles. Cf. Guillermin, O.P., art. “S. Thomas et le prédéterminisme” in the Revue thomiste, 1895, p. 568.

18 Ibid.: “God cannot be indirectly the cause of sin.”

19 Cf. la Iac, q. 79, a. 2: “Sin denotes a being and an action with a defect. This defect is from a created cause, the free will, as falling away from the order of the First Agent, God. Hence this defect is not attributed to God as its cause, but to the free will: even as the defect of limping is attributed to a crooked leg as its cause, but not to the motive power which nevertheless causes whatever there is of movement in the limping.”

motives for permitting it. He knows it in all its baseness and in all its bearings. Above all He perceives the final outcome of this defect, how evil, even in its most stubborn form, necessarily concurs with appealing force in proclaiming the absolute rights of the Good. The divine wisdom, without becoming obscured, knows, in the uncreated light, the blackest of crimes. Because of the very purity of this light, it sees through them. Thus the rays of the sun are not sullied by being reflected in muddy water.

Goa’s foreknowledge of future contingent things. What we have just said of God’s knowledge of things, may be applied to His foreknowledge of future contingent things and especially of free future actions. It is a defined dogma of the Catholic Church that God knows them from all eternity.?° St. Thomas (la, q. 14, a. 13) views this problem as a particular case of the general doctrine, established in the eighth article of the same question, that the knowledge of God is the cause of things. The Molinists, on the contrary, seek to separate the thirteenth article of St. Thomas from the eighth, as if God’s knowledge of future free actions were an exception to the general law that “God’s knowledge is the cause of things.”

Let us see what is stated in article 13. St. Thomas begins by connecting it with article 8. “Since, as was shown above,” he says, “God knows all things, not only things actual but also things possible to Him and to the creature, and since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things.

“In evidence of this we must consider that a contingent thing can be viewed in two ways; first, in itself, in so far as it is now in act, and in this sense it is not viewed as future, but as present;

20 The Vatican Council, quoting the text from the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:13), says: “All things are naked and open to his eyes, even those which are yet to be by the free action of creatures.”

neither is it viewed as contingent, as having reference to one of two terms, but as determined to one; and on account of this it can be infallibly the object of certain knowledge, for instance to the sense of sight, as when I see that Socrates is sitting down. In another way a contingent thing can be viewed as it is in its cause; and in this way it is viewed as future, and as a contingent thing not yet determined to one. Forasmuch as a contingent cause has relation to opposite things, then in this sense a contingent thing is not subject to any certain knowledge. Hence, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause only, has merely a conjectural knowledge of it. Now God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself. And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do, but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above (q. 10, a. 2). Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because He has the types of things present within Him, as some say, but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality. Yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes.”

Does this mean, as the Molinists would have it, that God’s knowledge which is the cause of all things is not the cause of future contingent things, or at least of the conditionally free acts of the future, and that here we have an exception to the principles regulating the divine knowledge in general?

In this case we should have to say that the principle of causality admits of an exception, and we should have to maintain that the conditionally free acts of the future do not come from God, the

First Being. Moreover, we should have to maintain that God’s knowledge is passive with regard to the conditionally free acts of the future, and that it is determined by them instead of determining them. Now there is nothing more absurd than to admit a passivity in pure Act. Finally, we should have to admit, as we shall see, that these conditionally free acts of the future have been all along infallibly determined of themselves, and this is the denial of freedom to these acts.

Moreover, we shall show that St. Thomas in various passages teaches most emphatically that God knows the free acts of the future in the divine decree by which they are made present to Him from all eternity.’ In the article we have just quoted, St. Thomas presupposes that the divine decree ?? is the cause of all things, past, present, or future; but as He is here concerned merely with God’s knowledge of the free acts of the future, he defers, until treating the subject of the divine will (Ia, q. 19, a. 8, 9; q. 22, a. 4), the question of how this divine will is infallibly efficacious without doing any violence to our free will.?*

In the Contra Gentes (Bk. I, ch. lxviii), St. Thomas reunites these two aspects of the question so as to prove that God knows the secret movements of our will. His answer is as follows: “God knows them in Himself in so far as He is the universal principle of all beings and of all modes of being. . . . Since the divine Be-

21 On this presentiality of future acts in eternity, cf. Cajetan’s commentary on the Summa, Ia, q. 14, a. 13; also John of St. Thomas in his commentary on the same article. Thus the divine decree is the medium in which God knows the free acts of the future. Their presentiality in eternity is not a medium, but a condition for this knowledge to be intuitive, See St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 2, a. 12 ad 12um.

221In article 8 of the same question, he says practically the same thing: “Hence His knowledge must be the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined to it. Hence the knowledge of God as the cause of things is usually called the knowledge of approbation.” This practical knowledge of God coupled with His divine decree is exactly what constitutes the divine decree.

23 See Billuart, De Deo, diss. 6, a. 4, sec. 11. An accurate estimate is given of the opinion of St. Thomas. See also Guillermin, art. “S. Thomas et le prédéterminisme” in the Revue thomiste, 1895.

ing is the first of all beings and the cause of all beings, so the divine intellect is the first of intellects and the cause of all created intellectual operations. In knowing His being, God knows, therefore, whatever there may be in being, and in knowing His intellect and His will, He knows all thought and all volition... . The control which our will has over its acts, and in virtue of which it can, as it chooses, will or not will, presupposes that it is not by its nature determined to a certain act, and excludes the violent effect of an external agency, but not the influence exerted upon it by the supreme cause from which both being and action proceed. Moreover, the universal causality of the First Cause extends to our free acts, so that in knowing Himself God knows them.” 24

We find St. Thomas teaching the same about the divine will,?®

24 Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. lxviii: “We must show that God knows our mind’s thoughts and our secret wills in their virtual causes, since He is the universal principle of being. For everything, in whatever way it exists, is known by God, inasmuch as He knows His essence, as we have shown above (ch. xlix) . . . God so knows other things in knowing His essence, as effects are known through their cause being known. Therefore by knowing his essence God knows all things to which His causality extends. Now this extends to the works of the intellect and of the will. ...

“Even as His being is first and consequently the cause of all being, so His act of intelligence is first and consequently the cause of all intellectual operation. Wherefore just as God by knowing His being knows the being of everything, so by knowing His act of intelligence and will, He knows every thought and will...

“The dominion which the will exercises over its own acts and by which it is in its power to will and not to will, removes the determination of the power to one thing and the violence of a cause acting from without; but it does not exclude the influence of a higher cause from which it has being and action. Thus causality remains in the first cause which is God, in respect of the movements of the will; so that God ıs able to know them by knowing Himself.” Cf. also Contra Gentes, Bk. II, chs. lxxxix-xci, xciv; and Summa, la Ilae, q. 109, a t.

25 Cf. Ia, q. 19, a. 8, where we read: “Since the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not orly that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills... . From the very fact that nothing resists the divine will, it follows that not only those things happen that God wills to happen, but that they happen necessarily or contingently ac-

His providence,?® His governance of the world,?? His knowledge of our secret thoughts.?®

How can God's eternal and infallibly efficacious decree leave the will free? St. Augustine (Liber de correptione et gratia, ch. xvi), in the explanation he gives of St. Paul’s words (Philip. 2: 13), “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish,” answers as follows: “Certainly we will, when we will; but He causes us to will what is good. . . . Certainly it is we who act when we act; but He causes us to act by enabling the will to act efficaciously. ... When He says: I will cause you to act, what else does this mean than that He will take away the stony heart which was the cause of your inaction, and that He will give you a heart of flesh which will be the cause of your acting? And what does this mean but that He will take away from you that hard heart which was the cause of your not acting, and that He will give you a docile heart so that you will act?” In the fourteenth chapter of another work, St. Augustine again writes: “God has power over the heart, moving it from within, and He draws human beings to Himself by their wills influencing them; if, therefore, when God willed to establish kings on earth, the wills of human beings are more in His power than in their own, cording to His will. See also De veritate, q. 24, a. 14: “Whether the free will can do any good deed without grace.”

26 See Ia, q. 22, a. a ad qum: “But since the act of free-will is traced to God as a cause, it necessarily follows that everything happening from the exercise of free-will must be subject to divine providence.” Also Contra Gentes, Bk. III, ch. xc.

2T See Ia, q. 103, a. 5, 6, 7, 8; Ia, q. 105, a. 4, 5: “God moves the will by an interior inclination of the will.” Also q. 106, a. 2: “And He alone can change this inclination, who bestowed on the creature the power to will.” Cf. De veritate, Q. 22, a. 8: “Every act of the will, inasmuch as it is an act, comes not only from the will as the immediate agent, but also from God as the first agent, who exerts a more marked influence. Hence, just as the will can decide otherwise, far more so can God do this. In article 9 of this question we read: “Only God can incline the will to something else, as He wishes, from whom it receives its inclination,”

28 See la, q. 57, a. 43 De malo, q. 16, a. 8, who else causes it that chastisement is wholesome and that the heart being contrite there should be amendment of life?”

St. Thomas likewise reconciles the infallibility of divine foreknowledge and the freedom of our acts by appealing to the transcendent efficacy of the divine will. He writes: “When a cause is efficacious to act, the effect follows upon the cause, not only as to the thing done, but also as to its manner of being done or of being. Thus from defect of active power in the seed it may happen that a child is born unlike its father in accidental points that belong to its manner of being. Since, then, the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for the building up of the universe. Therefore to some effects He has attached necessary causes that cannot fail; but to others defectible and contingent causes from which arise contingent effects.” 29

Under the leadership of a great general, the soldiers do not only what must be done, but as it must be done. “There is a way of doing things.” And the way of a great general passes on to his soldiers. Far more so is this, too, the case with God as regards those beings created by Him.

There is certainly a mystery in this; it is that of the divine action, between which and our own there is merely a similarity by way of analogy, it not being possible for us to know for certain the mode of the divine action. But who could demonstrate that there is any contradiction in maintaining that the Creator of the free will, who is more intimately associated with the will than freedom itself is, can infallibly move the will to determine itself freely to act? Infallibility is not necessity.*°

29 Summa, Ia, q. 19, a. 8: “Whether the will of God imposes necessity on the things willed.”

80 Thus in the case of a regularly constructed syllogism, in which the major is a necessary proposition and the minor is contingent, the conclusion follows

We often say: I will see you without fail tomorrow. And, without failing to do so, we accomplish freely what we previously decided upon doing. Why could not God make us do freely what He Himself from all eternity had decided upon our doing? Since our will has the unlimited range of universal good by which it is specified, why, under the influence of the divine movement, can it not retain a dominating and active indifference concerning particular good, this latter being deemed incapable of invincibly attracting it? The connection between our will and this finite good remains always something contingent. In willing this good, the will Aas the power not to will it. The will, by reason of its universality, goes beyond it.ë? It is that which makes the act terminating our deliberation a free act. “It would be absurd to say,” as Bossuet remarks, “that our own decision takes away our liberty. It would be no less absurd to say that God has taken it away by His decree. And just as our will in determining itself to choose one thing rather than another, does not take from itself the power of choosing between two things, we must conclude likewise that this decree of God does not do so.” 32

How could the divine motion destroy the contingency of the relationship existing between our will and a finite good, a con- infallibly though being at the same time in itself a contingent statement. In other words, there is necessity of consequence and not necessity of consequent, as in the following example: The virtuous person is deserving of credit. Now the Apostles were models of virtue. Therefore they were deserving of credit. See also q. 14, a. 13 ad 1um, 2um, and 3um.

81 There remains in the will a potentiality for the opposite. St. Thomas (Ia Ilac, q. 10, a. 4 ad rum) says: “The divine will extends not only to the doing of something by the thing which He moves, but also to its being done in a way which is fitting to the nature of that thing. And therefore it would be more repugnant to the divine motion for the will to be moved of necessity (that is without having it in its power to choose the opposite), which is not fitting to its nature, than for it to be moved freely, which is becoming to its nature.” On this subject see also the other texts of St. Thomas as given and explained by Billuart in his De Deo, diss. 8, a. 4, sec. 2, which is entitled, “Solvuntur objectiones ex laesione libertatis.” See also John of St. Thomas on the same subject in his De Deo.

82 Traité du libre arbitre, ch. viii.

tingency which arises from the will not being necessitated in making a decision? Not only does God safeguard the freedom of our act, but He brings it about with us when the deliberation has become a reality. The divine motion cannot do violence to our freedom, for it exerts its influence in conformity with the natural inclination of the will. First of all it takes the will on to its adequate object, which is universal good; and only after that does it direct the will toward an inadequate object consisting of some particular good. Viewed in the first way, the divine motion effects the freedom of the act. It exerts its influence interiorly in the very depths of the will taken in the fullest capacity of its willing. It carries it confusedly through all the degrees of good before inclining it to reach out for some particular good.**

If there were any contradiction in maintaining that God can move our wills infallibly and freely, then the necessary application of the principle of causality is what would involve us hopelessly in absurdity. Let us not forget that what comes first in liberty is not human liberty. The idea of liberty is applied only analogically to God and human beings. There is merely a similarity of proportion between created liberty and the absolute liberty of God. It is a particular case of the mystery of the coexistence of finite beings with the infinite Being. How can the finite being exist apart from the infinite Being? It can exist only on condition that it is caused by Him and remains absolutely dependent upon Him. How can a secondary liberty exist apart from the primary liberty? It can exist only on condition that it is caused and moved by the latter, so that the faculty of willing passes from a state of passive indifference to one of active indifference contained in the very choice made by the faculty. Thus all the perfections of this

83 See John of St. Thomas on Ia, q. 19, disp. 5, a. 6. We shall return to this subject in ch. iv, when we examine the antinomies with regard to freedom. See also appendix 4.

secondary liberty pre-exist eminently from all eternity in the primary liberty.

Why would God not have the power to produce infallibly in us and with us the freedom of our acts? It is certain that God cannot produce a vital act in a stone, since such an act must proceed from a vital power; but He can produce such an act in a living being. It is certain that God cannot produce in us a free act unless it be determined freely on our part. But why could He not move the will fortiter et suaviter, “vigorously and gently,” to determine itself to act? “If the will were so moved by another, as in no way to be moved from within itself, the act of the will would not be imputed for reward or blame. But since its being moved dy another does not prevent its being moved from within itself, it does not thereby forfeit the motive for merit or demerit” (Ia, q. 105, a. 4 ad 2um and 3um).

To maintain that God, as first cause, cannot produce with us and in us the free mode of our acts, is to maintain that a mode of being cannot be produced by the prime Being, who is the Creator of all the being there is outside Himself. Contrary to this, we must say with St. Thomas (Ia, q. 22, a. 4 ad 3um) that “necessary and contingent are consequent upon being as such. Hence the mode both of necessity and of contingency falls under the foresight of God, who provides universally for all being.” St. Thomas explains this point more clearly in his commentary on the Perihermenias of Aristotle (Bk. I, lect. 14), saying: “We must conceive of the divine will as existing outside of the order of created beings, as a cause which produces the whole of being, and all the differences or modes of being. Now the necessary and contingent are precisely the primary modes into which being is divided.” ®*

84“We must conceive of the divine will as existing outside of the order of beings, as a certain cause which permeates the whole of being and all its diferences. But the possible and the necessary differentiate being, and therefore the

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Bk. VI, lect. 3), St. Thomas uses the same formal expressions.

We may sum up all this teaching in the famous passage of the Summa (la, q. 83, a. 1): “Free will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be the cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature.” 35 According to St. Thomas, intrisically efficacious grace necessary and contingent in things originate from the will itself of God.”

St. Thomas says also (De malo, q. 6, a. 1 ad 3um): “God indeed moves the will irrevocably on account of the efficacy of the motive power, which cannot fail. But considering the nature of the will which is moved, in that it is indifferently disposed towards various things, it is not necessitated, but remains free. Since also divine Providence operates in all things, nevertheless we find contingent effects to be the result of contingent causes, in that God moves all things proportionately, each of them according to their mode of acting.”

35 Cf. Ia, q. 83, a. 1 ad 3um, “Movendo causas voluntarias, non aufert, quin actiones earum sint voluntariae, sed potius hoc in eis facit; operatur enim in unoquoque secundum ejus proprietatem.”

It is sometimes objected that St. Thomas (Ia Hae, q. 9, a. 6 ad 3um) wrote: “God moves man's will as the universal Mover, to the universal object of the will, which is good. And without this universal motion, man cannot will anything. But man determines himself by his reason, to will this or that which is true or apparent good. Nevertheless, sometimes God moves some specially to the willing of something determinate, which is good; such is the case with those whom He moves by grace.” The word “sometimes” signifies that at times the will is moved to a particular good, without its moving itself to it (Ia, q. 63, a. 5).

It cannot be concluded from this passage that the divine motion, according to St. Thomas, does not move our will to determine itself in making the choice, and that it directs the will only in willing universal good.

Opposed to this interpretation we have article 4 of the next question (i. e., Ia Ilace, q. 10, a. 4), the purpose of which is to state precisely the way in which God moves the will to act freely; and we have the principles and the numerous passages quoted from St. Thomas, which contain the same doctrine does not destroy the freedom of our acts, but is the cause of it.

When we come to speak of God's omnipotence (n. 52, c), we shall have to define more clearly the nature of the divine motion. We will also solve the objections made against Thomism on this point, when we discuss the antinomies with reference to freedom

This sublime teaching of St. Thomas finds its confirmation in the fact that, according to the Thomists, every other explanation of God’s foreknowledge of the future inevitably ends in contradiction. We speak here of a contradiction and not of a mystery, because these theories, instead of descending from universal and necessary principles to explain a particular and obscure case, propose from the outset a gratuitous solution that involves the very denial of the absolute universality and necessity of the principles.

To explain God’s foreknowledge of the free acts of the future, Molina proposed a theory that no one, so far as he knew, had ever taught. We would look in vain for such a theory in the writings as that found in the article just mentioned. Finally, the authentic interpretation of this text is given us by St, Thomas in Ia Iae, q. 111, a. 2, entitled: “Whether grace is fittingly divided into operating and co-operating grace.” In it he says: “The operation of an effect is not attributed to the thing moved, but to the mover. Hence in that effect in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover, the operation is attributed to God, and it is with reference to this, that we speak of ‘operating grace.’ But in that effect in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is not only attributed to God, but also to the soul; and it is with reference to this that we speak of co-operating grace.”

Canon 20 of the Council of Orange (529) says: “God does many good things in man, which man does not do (operating grace). But there is no good work done by man which God has not assisted him in doing (co-operating grace).” And canon 22 states: “No one can claim as his own anything except lying and sin.” (Denzinger, 193, 195.) God's concurrence in the natural order is required for merely naturally good acts.

36 “Haec nostra ratio conciltandi libertatem arbitrii cum divina praedestinatione, a nemine quem viderim hucusque tradita: no one, so far as I can see, has ever proposed this method of ours of reconciling free will with divine predestination.” Concordia liberi arbitrii cum divina praescientia, q. 23, a. 5. The Jesuits, Vasquez and Fonseca, also acknowledge that this theory is not to be found in the writings of the Church Fathers, or in those of earlier Scholastics.

of earlier theologians or of the Church Fathers. Molina says: “God has a very profound and unfathomable comprehension of each free will. He sees clearly what each free cause would do of its own accord in such and such circumstances, and even in an infinite number of circumstances. This view which God has, we call “middle knowledge.” **

This knowledge is called middle by reason of its proper object, which is the conditional future or the conditionally free act of the future. It is intermediate between the purely possible which is the object of God’s knowledge of simple intelligence, and the contingent future which is the object of God’s knowledge of vision. By this middle knowledge, according to Molina, God knows, previous to any predetermining decree, how a free will would act if placed in certain circumstances, and how in certain other cases it would decide otherwise. After that God decides, according to His benevolent designs, to render this free will effective by placing it in those circumstances more or less favorable or unfavorable to it.

So then, according to Molina, God by His “supercomprehensive knowledge of secondary causes,” sees in the free cause itself, that in certain circumstances this cause will act in such a manner, and that it will determine itself to act in this way. This divine foresight is not the result of a more or less probable conjecture, but is an infallible knowledge of the conditional future.

To this the Thomists have always replied ** that the middle knowledge conceived to safeguard the freedom of the human will, virtually implies the denial of it. How can God see in a cause, which by its nature is undetermined as to whether it will act or not, that it will de facto act? The supercomprehensive knowledge of a See Dummermuth, O.P., S. Thomas et doctrina praemotionis physicae (1886), ý B Concordia, q. 14, a. 13, disp. 52,

38 Cf, John of St. Thomas, Salmanticenses, Gonet, Gotti, Billuart (De Deo, diss. 6, a. 4, sec. 1); H. Gayraud, Thomisme et Molinisme, p. 119.

cause cannot enable anyone to see in it a determination which is not there. And if, in reply, we are told that this determination is known through the circumstances in which the free will would be placed, the theory ends fatally in Determinism, which is the denial of free will. The foreseeing of the circumstances may enable one, indeed, to form conjectures, but not to have an infallible knowledge of the conditionally free acts of the future. Cardinal Mazella, S.J., admitted this to be so, in agreement with the Thomists.?®

With Suarez and many Molinists, Cardinal Mazella tries to defend the middle knowledge by saying that God sees the conditional futures neither in His will nor in ours nor in the motives or circumstances influencing the act, but that He sees them in their objective or formal truth.

But the Thomists reply by asking how, previous to any decree from God, a conditionally free act of the future is objectively true rather than false. Suarez and Mazella *° prove it in the following manner: “Of two conditional contradictory propositions, such as: If Peter were placed in these circumstances, he would sin and he would not sin; the one is definitely true and the other is definitely false. It is impossible, indeed, for both to be true or both to be false. Therefore the infinite intelligence which penetrates all truth, sees certainly which of the two is true and which is false.”

The Thomists reply that this is still the denial of freedom for the will. From it we should even be led to conclude that, previous to any divine decree, God can see which of the following contradictory propositions is true: The world will exist (come into existence), the world will not come into existence. From this it would follow that creation is no longer a free act, and the divine will would be subjected to the logica! fatalism of the Stoics. As Cicero relates (De divin., I, 55), the Stoics really intended to prove Determinism precisely by the argument that, of two contradictory

propositions, one is necessarily true. Therefore, between the two propositions, “A will be, A will not be,” the necessity of one of them, at the very moment when I am uttering it, excludes the possibility of the other: “From all eternity is the flow of imperishable truth.”

Suarez forgets that Aristotle, in his Perthermenias (Bk. I, ch. ix) ? has shown that of two contradictory propositions which are particular ones and which concern a contingent future event, neither is positively true or false. If it were otherwise, as Aristotle remarks, the truth would be in Determinism and our choice would not be a free one.?

In vain some Molinists seek to avoid this difficulty by saying that God knows the truth of conditionally future things not in themselves but in His own essence, which contains eminently all truth.

It is clear that a contingent truth cannot be determined in the divine essence previous to any divine decree. It would be present there on the same grounds as absolutely necessary truths, and hence would be a necessary truth.

41 See St. Thomas, commentary, lect. 13.

42 Here is how St. Thomas interprets the mind of Aristotle. The question to be answered is this: In particular enunciations referring to contingent future events, must one of the contrarics be positively true and the other false?

The answer is categorical: “In particular statements which concern the future, it is not necessary for one to be positively true and the other false. And this is said, indeed, of those things that are contingent.” The reason for this is as follows: “That which has an inclination for either of two things, has the characteristic that one cannot say definitely of it whether it shall or shall not be, because it is not determined more for one thing than for the other... . If every affirmation or negation in particular propositions concerning future things must be either true or false, then everyone affirming or denying must definitely say either what is true or what is false, From this it follows that everything must either be or not be. ... From this he further concludes that everything is the result of necessity, by which contingency of three kinds is excluded. . . . For some things happen in the minority of cases... . But in some kinds that happen there is an alternative, because the agent is not swayed more one way than the other; and these are the result of choice. But indeed,

St. Thomas wrote concerning prophecy as follows: “The contingent free things of the future are not knowable in themselves, because their truth is not determined. Contingent things of the future, the truth of which is not determined, are not knowable in themselves” (IIa Iae, q. 171, a. 3).

Concerning the Molinists and in general those who defend the theory of middle knowledge, Leibniz remarks: “It is amusing to see how they torment themselves to find a way out of a labyrinth when there is absolutely no way out.... Therefore they will never get out of the difficulty unless they admit that there is a predetermination in the preceding state of the creature which inclines it to determine itself to act” (Théodicée, Part I, sec. 48). In these words just quoted, Leibniz gives us his own solution, which is Psychological Determinism, in which there is nothing left of liberty except the name.

“It is sufficient,” he says, “for the creature to be predetermined by its previous state, by which it is swayed more one way than the other. And all these closely associated actions of the creature and of all creatures were represented in the divine intellect and known to God by His knowledge of simple intelligence, before He had decreed to give them existence. From this we see that, to account for God’s foreknowledge of things, we can dispense with both the middle knowledge of the Molinists, and predetermination such as it was taught by Bannez or Alvarez” (Théod., Part I, sec. 47). Leibniz is consistent, but he ends in Determinism. Does not the theory of middle knowledge also lead inevitably to this conclusion?

This is not the only inconvenience of this theory. It attacks God's universal causality and supreme dominion over all things, and consequently renders His knowledge passive with regard to things happen, however, in the majority of cases... . But if all things came about by necessity, none of these things would be contingent.”

our free determinations of which we alone are the cause. God ceases to be the universal cause of being, since the free determination on our part, which is some being, is not produced by Him in us and with us. He is no longer master of the will; His grace remains powerless, it loses its suavity of appeal because it has lost its power.*3 There is also no more any need of praying to the Savior, of placing all our hope and trust in Him instead of in ourselves. The soul, in the grip of temptation, cannot say to Him: “Convert me, and I shall be converted; for Thou art the Lord my God” (Jer. 31: 18). God is no more the cause of our good than of our bad deeds, since it depends solely upon our free will whether divine grace is effective or ineffective.

Man alone is the cause of his freely determining himself to act and of the good use he makes of grace. Contrary to the words of St. Paul, it is man himself who does the distinguishing. “For who distinguisheth thee,” says the Apostle, “or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7).

Instead of viewing our will and the divine motion as two total causes, one of which is subordinate to the other in such a way that our act, so far as there is good in it, comes entirely from God as the primary cause, and entirely from man as the secondary cause, the Molinists view them as two partial causes, like two men hauling a boat.** Hence God’s external causality, as it affects us,

48 See Billuart, De Deo, diss. 6, a. 6, sec. 6; and Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio, Part Ill, ch. v (1907 ed., pp. 117-174). This remarkable work of Del Prado is the best Thomistic treatise on grace which has appeared since the great commentators of the 16th and 17th centuries. It may be classed among the works of Bannez, Alvarez, John of St. Thomas, Massouli¢é, and Goudin, The first volume is a commentary on St. Thomas’ Treatise on grace. The second volume shows how there is harmony between free will and grace according to the teachings of St. Thomas and St. Augustine. The third volume examines this agreement as it is conceived by Molina, Suarez, Bellarmine, or by the theologians who sought a middle way between Thomism and Molinism, such as Cardinals Satolli and Pecci and Bishop Paquet.

#4 St. Thomas, speaking of predestination (Ia, q. 23, a. 5: Whether the foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination), after pointing out the errors of Origen, the Pelagians, and the Semi-Pelagians, definitely rejects the proves to be rather mediocre and is like created causality. Our free will participates with God in the work of salvation and claims the better part of it. Since God’s knowledge is no longer the cause of our free acts, the result is that it must be passive with regard to them. Instead of determining them, it is determined by them. And what is there more inadmissible than to admit a state of passivity in the Being who is pure Act?

Certainly, Thomism has its obscurities. It does not take upon itself to show how the transcendent efficacy of the first cause, instead of clashing with our freedom, brings about in us and with teaching of those who view divine motion and the freedom of the human will as merely two partial causes such as we find exemplified in the case of two men pulling a boat. “And so others said that merits following the effect of predestination are the reason of predestination; giving us to understand that God gives grace to a person, and pre-ordains that He will give it, because He knows beforehand that he will make good use of it, as if a king were to give a horse to a soldier because he knows that he will make good use of it. But these seem to have drawn a distinction between that which flows from grace and that which flows from free will, as if the same thing cannot come from both. . . . Now there is no distinction between what flows from free will, and what is of predestination; as there is no distinction between what flows from a secondary and from a first cause. For the providence of God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes. Wherefore, that which flows from free will is also of predestination, ... Whatever is in man, disposing him towards salvation, is all included under the effect of salvation; even the preparation for grace. For neither does this happen otherwise than by divine help, according to the prophet Jeremias (Lam. 5:21): “Convert us, Ò Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted.”

Molina and Suarez depart from St. Thomas in the general doctrine of the subordination of causes. The divine concurrence (which is simultaneous) and our action, grace, and free will, the light of glory and the intellect of the blessed (which is an active and obediential potency)—these they view as partial and subordinate causes. The same must be said of the human intellect and the freedom of the human will, when a decision has been made, and it seems also the same must be said for the cognitive faculty and its object.

Moreover, the Suarezian thesis concerning the divine concurrence is closely connected with that Suarezian principle which denies there is any real distinction between essence and existence in creatures. St. Thomas, on the contrary, maintains that the creature does not exist of itself and ts not capable of acting of itself. The mode of action follows the mode of being, Only He who is selfexisting can be self-acting. Since we depend upon God for our being, we depend upon Him in our action.

us even that our acts are performed freely, in such a way that we still remain responsible. It is only by way of analogy that we can acquire a knowledge of the supreme efficacy of the first creative cause: what properly constitutes it as such remains necessarily a mystery for us.*®

Father Lepidi very truly says: “So long as each of the two systems, the Thomistic and the Molinistic, confines itself to a consideration of the strength of its position and attacks the other in its weak points, there will be no end to this controversy. The two systems must be compared, as regards their development and their conclusions, elucidated by the general and evident rules which are admitted by both sides. If we proceed in this manner, undoubtedly there will still remain many profound obscurities ın the two systems, which the intellect will never succeed in clearing up. But at least it will be seen that the obscurity in the Thomistic system is due to the weakness of our poor intellect which, though it knows that between the divine and human causality there is harmony prevailing, is unable to know how this is so. On the other hand, the obscurity in the opposing system results in veritable impossibilities.” 46

The controversy between Thomism and Molinism may be reduced to this: Does Thomism end in obscurity through the legitimate and necessary application of the most universal of first principles (identity, causality, and the universal causality of the prime agent)? It is difficult to deny this. In virtue of the principle

45 Cf, infra, n. 52: Omnipotence and divine motion; also nn. 64 and 65: The freedom of the human will and God's universal causality, Moral evil and the divine causality.

46 Opuscules philosophiques, ch. i (On the voluntary activity of man and the divine causality), circa finem. Gardeil, O.P., Le donné révélé et la théologie, Part II, ch. iii. (The theological systems), says: “The theological systems which posit a universal notion as the key of their synthesis, striving to interpret the idea itself of God, exert retroactively a more powerful influence than do those systems which are based upon a particular hypothesis. We have an example of this in the case of Molinism and Thomism.”

of identity, God alone is His own existence. It follows that He alone is His actuating principle, for operation follows being; and as God alone is His own being, so He alone is His principle of action. No created being exists of itself. Consequently no created being acts of itself; it receives its existence from God and can act only if moved by God. A secondary cause acts only in so far as it is moved by the primary cause; a created intellect acts only as moved by the primary intellect; secondary freedom, viewed precisely as freedom, acts only in so far as it is moved by the primary freedom. All movement implying the participation of a pure perfection (simpliciter simplex, of an absolutely simple one), evidently is dependent upon the corresponding divine perfection. It is absolutely impossible for anything which is contingent not to be caused by necessary Being, the source of all being. What is not self-existent, exists by reason of another which is self-existent. The principles of Thomism are such that it fears neither logic nor mystery. It is even logic which causes Thomism to end in obscurity. How does the supreme efficacy of God's creative power produce in us and with us, suaviter et fortiter, the freedom of our acts? A method of reasoning that is most rigorous cannot lead us into an obscurity in which a contradiction would be lurking. It is only a mystery we have here, a result of the mystery of creation (the co-existence of the finite and the Infinite), which is analogous to the mystery of how we are to reconcile God’s liberty with His immutability. There could be no contradiction unless, as Hegel would have it, reality were fundamentally a realized contradiction.

Molinism also has its obscurity, which is middle knowledge. But how does it arrive at this latter? Is it by the necessary application of the most universal of first principles which dominate the whole science of theology even to its least details? Is it not rather that by this system a solution may be found for a special difficulty concerning the freedom of the human will? This method of procedure may be adopted in polemical arguments, but go GOD: HIS EXISTENCE AND HIS NATURE it is not the method of science. The Thomist synthesis has given proofs of its capacity regarding all points of theological knowledge. Molinism is merely an opinion in a particular controversy. In the solution of particular and obscure cases, we must start from evident and universal principles. In these cases we cannot propose, regardless of the principles, an apparently convenient solution, with uncertain advantages obtained by the denial of the very principles. It would be said that we are afraid to face both logic and the mysterious. In the obscurity to which this method would lead us, there would lie hidden, not a mystery, but a veritable contradiction or antinomy. By this faulty method, Molinism is induced, first of all, to admit that there is an exception to the principle of causality: that the entity of future free acts does not come from God, the first Being.** In the second place, Molinism is induced to maintain that God’s knowledge is passive with regard to the conditionally free acts of the future, which determine this knowledge instead of being determined by it. Thus middle knowledge, by positing a passivity in pure Act, could not be a pure perfection, one which is simpliciter simplex (absolutely simple). It is an anthropomorphic idea which attributes to God a human perfection. Lastly, this theory, conceived to safeguard the freedom of the human will, must end logically in the determinism of the circumstances,

All these impossibilities are a confirmation of the teaching given us by St. Thomas, and before him by St. Augustine, a doctrine which faithfully reflects the Gospel narrative and the teaching of St. Paul,*® who says: “It is God who worketh in you,

47 The divine and simultaneous concurrence admitted by Molina is but imperfectly the cause of the entity of our free acts; for it is not the first cause of our freely determining ourselves to act, which also falls under being. This divine concurrence, far from determining in a transcendental manner our free will to move itself to act, is determined by it. This is a reversal of the parts assigned to each. See infra, n. 52, C.

48 See the commentaries of St. Thomas on the Gospel of St. John (ch. xv, lesson 3), on the Epistle to the Romans (ch, i, lesson 3; ch, viii, lesson 6; ch. ix, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.” *® “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” 5° “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” 5! To depreciate the meaning and import of these texts is to rob the word of God and theology of its treasures, of its simplicity, and of its depth of meaning.

Divine Providence. Having fully developed, in the previous discussion, the Thomistic doctrine of God’s foreknowledge, there remains little to be said about divine Providence. Moreover, we discussed this by the a posteriori method in the study already made of the proof of God's existence based upon design in the universe,

There is a resemblance, by way of analogy, between divine providence and human prudence. Providence is the extension of God’s wisdom, which “reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8: 3; and 14:3). “As God,” says St. Thomas, “is the cause of things by His intellect, it is necessary that the type of the order of things toward their end should pre-exist in the divine mind; and the type of things ordered toward an end is, properly speaking, providence” (Ia, q. 22, a. 1). lesson 3), and on the Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. i, lessons 1 and 4). We may compare St. Thomas’ interpretation of St. Paul's texts with that given by Father Prat, who favors Molinism, in his work, The Theology of St. Paul. The texts of St. Paul are far more striking in their simplicity than those of St. Thomas. work, For their simplicity these interpretations surpass those of St. Thomas. Moreover, they repeat the doctrine contained in Ecclesiasticus (33: 11-14): “As the potter's clay is in his hand to fashion and order it, so man is in the hand of him that made him; and he will render to him according to his judgment. All his ways are according to his ordering.” See also Ezechiel (11:19): “And I will give them one heart and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh.”

Does this providence extend merely to the general laws of the universe and not to individual things and their smallest details, as the Deists have claimed? The Gospel says: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:29-31). The absolute universality of providence is deduced from the absolute universality of divine causality, which is that of an intelligent agent. “The causality of God extends to all being, both to things corruptible as to those incorruptible, and as to the constituent principle of their species as well as to their individualizing principles (for these also are included in the term ‘being’). Hence all things that exist in whatsoever manner are necessarily directed by God toward some end” (Ia, q. 22, a. 2). The principle of finality necessarily demands that this be so. Every agent acts for an end, and the supreme Agent for an end known to Him, an end to which all things are subordinated. This end is the manifestation of His goodness, of His infinite perfection, and of His various attributes.

Thus evil, even moral evil, is permitted by divine providence, because God is powerful and good enough to bring good out of the very evil. It is natural for a creature to fail at times, since by its very nature it is defective. God permits this failure that He may show His mercy the more, or, when His mercy has been despised, that He may show His justice and the absolute rights of the sovereign Good to be loved above all things (Ia, q. 22, a. 2 ad 2um; q. 23, a. 5 ad 3um). This problem will again present itself when we come to the discussion of these two attributes.

Are all things immediately subject to providence, or must we admit certain providential intermediaries, appointed like ministers to attend to the details of things? There are intermediaries, says St. Thomas, only for the execution of the plan of divine providence, but not for the determination of this plan, which even in its smallest details is decreed immediately by God. If it were otherwise, God’s practical knowledge would be imperfect and would not extend so far as His causality does, without which latter absolutely nothing comes into existence (Ia, q. 22, a. 3). Thus, so that all things may be immediately subject to it, providence does not divest certain things of their contingency but wonderfully preserves this intact in them. It disposes everything in the universe in such a way that certain things always take place, others frequently, and some very seldom. It moves our free wills in such a manner that in choosing some good we retain the power of not choosing it, or of preferring another to it (Ia, q 22, a. 4).

Predestination is that part of providence which concerns our salvation. We shall discuss this briefly in the solution of the antinomies which concern God’s benevolence.®? But the limits imposed upon us in this work do not allow us to follow St. Thomas in the study of this problem which is of the supernatural order. It will be seen, upon reading the Summa (la, q. 23), that St. Thomas applies the universal principles which we have previously examined in connection with God's foreknowledge.

It is particularly concerning this last mentioned attribute that divine wisdom remains for us, as St. Paul says, an unfathomable mystery, by reason of its sublimity and profundity. It is unfathomable also by reason of its benevolence, of its free preferences which are their own raison d’étre (Ia, q. 25, a. 5 ad 3um). Why is it that one sinner is converted just a few moments before death, whereas another is taken by surprise, dying in a state of sin? To this question there is only one answer for all theologians: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God. How incomprehensible are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him and recom-

pense shall be made to him” (Rom. 11: 33-35). So also “the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And things that are not He hath chosen as instruments, that no flesh should glory in His sight” (I Cor. 1:27).

However unfathomable it may be, this divine wisdom is obscure for us only because of its too great brilliance. The sun must seem obscure to the eyes of an owl unable to endure such brightness. However limited our intellect may be, it is nevertheless certain that divine wisdom ordains absolutely all things for good and that under its direction even evil must contribute to the sum total of perfection. We are incomparably more certain of the rectitude and holiness of God’s mysterious ways, than of the rectitude of our own conscience. This sublime wisdom, which is too bright for our weak eyes, directs us at every moment and in the most insignificant actions of our life. It is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. With one ray of its light it illumines faithful and fervent souls. These souls become the recipients of a savory knowledge, for the word “sapientia” implies in the Latin “sapida scientia,” or a savory knowledge. It is an experimental knowledge of divine things, and these souls come gradually by divine guidance to a simple consideration of all things as they relate to God (Ila Iae, q: 45).

Only this divine wisdom knows how to effect a practical reconciliation between the absolute rigor of the principles and the necessary suavity of their infinitely various applications. God, the beginning and end of all things, cannot for one moment forget the absolute necessity of the principles. He directs all things firmly. But He also knows in a wonderful way the thousand details of each life. Moreover, He loves His works and, above all, His children. Thus there is a suavity in His direction of things which in no way yields to force, and He protects the divine seeds which He has sown in the hearts of human beings. “He will not break the bruised reed, and He will not quench the smoking flax.” Wisdom “reacheth therefore from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8:1).

50. The free will and love of God.

We have just spoken of the divine intellect. The will follows the intellect, and the very first act of the will is love. “God is charity” (I John 4:16). We will first consider God’s love of Himself and then His love of creatures.

God’s love of Himself. How could an intelligent being be deprived of the power of willing and of loving? There is a natural inclination in all things by which they tend to seek what is good for them and then, upon attaining it, to remain at rest. Thus the natural tendency of an acorn is to germinate; of an oak to develop itself, to keep itself alive, and reproduce its kind. An intelligent being possesses this particular trait, that it knows what is good for it. It must therefore go in quest thereof and in a special manner rest therein by an inclination regulated by the intellect. The name “will” has been given to this inclination. The divine intellect, knowing what is good, cannot exist apart from the divine will, that wills what is good (Ia, q. 19, a. 1).

This divine will cannot be a mere faculty capable of acting, of performing numerous acts in succession. It would be imperfect if it were not essentially and always in act. Now the very first act of every will is to love the good. This love is entirely spiritual, as the intellectual knowledge is by which it is directed. All the acts of the will proceed from love, which is the very awakening of the will as it comes in contact with the good. These acts are known as desiring, enjoying, hoping, willing, choosing or even hating. Desire or hope is the love of a future good, and sadness comes from the love of good which has passed. Hatred is the reverse of love, for nothing is hated except as it is opposed to the object of love (Ia, q. 20, a. 1). When love is the result of knowledge acquired from sense perception, it is merely a passion, aa emotion. When it is the result of purely spiritual knowledge, it is itself entirely spiritual.

There is, then, necessarily in God an entirely spiritual and eternal act of the love of supreme Good. Now this supreme Good, loved from all eternity, is God Himself who is infinite perfection, the plenitude of being, who loves Himself as much as He is lovable, which is infinitely. This love is not a desire or a hope. God possesses the supreme Good from all eternity and necessarily delights in it without any possibility of being separated from it. God cannot cease loving Himself, for His will is goodness itself always actually loved. Because of its depth and intensity, this love is rightly called zeal. It is like a burning and eternally subsistent flame. “God is a consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24). Love as well as joy belongs therefore to God in the strict sense of the terms. They are absolute and analogous perfections like the good by which they are specified. An utterly base interpretation may be given to the word “love”; but we know that it can express a perfection so sublime and so pure that we would look in vain for imperfection in it.

On the other hand, desire, sadness, and anger cannot be attributed to God except in a metaphorical sense. There is always an element of imperfection accompanying these sentiments. They presuppose either the absence of some good or the presence of some evil (Ia, q. 20, a. 2 ad 2um).

There is no trace of egoism in God's love for Himself. Its essential trait is to be infinitely holy. Egoism consists in preferring oneself to the supreme Good, God is the supreme Good, and in loving Himself it is this supreme Good which He loves above all things with a holy love. What then is holiness? It is an unchangeable purity and is the opposite of the defilement of sin and imperfection. Being unchangeable, it is the contrary of inconstancy in the performance of good (Ila Ilae, q. 81, a. 8). Let us give each of these expressions its due consideration.

God's love is absolutely pure. How could it be stained by sin, which means a turning away from God? How could God turn from Himself, go against the law which identifies Himself with His very nature? Not only is God impeccable, but He must hate sin with a holy hatred,®* since it is the rigorous consequence of His love of the supreme Good. By reason of the depth and intensity of this love it merits the name of zeal. How could it consort with evil or seek to effect a compromise with it? With regard to obstinacy in evil-doing, love, which is sweetness itself, becomes as hard as hell, says the Canticle of Canticles: “Love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell” (8:6). God is mighty and jealous, we read in Exodus 20:5. Viewed in this light, hell itself seems to be a manifestation of the purity and sanctity of God’s love. That love is attractive and formidable, sweet and terrible, like the house of God spoken of by Jacob (Gen. 28:17).

Removed from all that is evil, the love of God is also without any trace of imperfection, there being nothing in Him which is opposed to infinite perfection. If this absolute purity is absolutely immutable, then it is sanctity in the highest degree. How could it be otherwise?

Can God's love of the supreme Good be something wavering and inconstant? Can God cease to be the supreme Good, can He cease to know and love Himself? Not only is there an irrevocable adherence of divine love to the sovereign Good, but it is absolutely identified with this Good which is always loved. God could not find any reason, even the least convincing, for not loving the su-

58 It is a probable opinion, according to certain Thomists such as Billuart, that this holy hatred of evil properly and formally belongs to God. Vasquez and Suarez are of the same opinion. On the other hand, according to John of St. Thomas, hatred of evil is contained only virtually in God, just as punishment or repression of evil demanded by the love of good are so found in Him.

preme good or for preferring to it anything else whatever. Perfect holiness, like that of the blessed in heaven, is not free to fall away from this state, to do what is evil. It rises far above this wretched liberty, for it implies that it is under the necessity of loving the good (la, q. 19, a. 3, 7, 9).

God's love for created beings. If God’s love of Himself is of such a nature, what is His attitude toward beings other than Himself?

May it not be that to love another being exposes oneself to the possibility of finding this love spurned? Can it be that God’s love for His creatures meets with such opposition and contempt?

The love of another seems, then, to imply imperfections that cannot be found in God. So say the Deists. God, such as they conceive Him to be, loves only Himself, is not at all kindly disposed toward His creatures, has no love for His children, no consideration for our sufferings, pays no attention to our prayers.

On closer examination we see that these imperfections in the love of another, are imperfections of created love. The uncreated love of God for His creatures is in no way passive. It is essentially active and creative, entirely generous, absolutely free in the gift bestowed and yet perfectly regulated by divine wisdom.

Again, God’s love for His creatures is an invincible power. There is no resisting it without God’s permission, and everything, even evil, becomes conducive of good. Let us consider carefully each of these significant expressions,

First, God’s love for us cannot be called passive. He who is the plenitude of all goodness cannot be attracted by created good, remain passive under the attraction of this lowest kind of good, and be captivated by it. God's love for us, says St. Thomas, does not presuppose lovableness in us, but, on the contrary, posits or creates it in us. “The love of God infuses and creates goodness” (Ia, q. 20, a. 2). It is not because God has found us lovable that

He loves us, but it is because He has loved us that we are lovable in His sight. “What hast thou which thou hast not received?” says the Apostle St. Paul; “and if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” (I Cor. 4:7). Molinism partly forgets this profound truth, when it maintains that what is best in us—the good use of our free will and of grace—comes from ourselves alone, and not from God. Of ourselves we are only nothingness and sin.5* All the natural and supernatural good that we have, can come to us only from the source of all good, from a benevolent and generous love which nothing in us could call forth.

Why, then, has God loved us with that creative love, when there is nothing in us which could have attracted Him? (Ia, q. 19, a. 2.) Is it not a property of good for it to be diffusive, to give generously of itself? Goodness is essentially communicative; good is diffusive of itself. In the material order, we observe that the sun imparts its light and vivifying heat to all that comes in contact with it. In the intellectual order, when the intellect has arrived at the knowledge of truth, it spontaneously seeks to impart this to others. In the moral order, those with a holy ardor for goodness, like the Apostles, have no rest until these same aspirations, this same love, are aroused in others. God is sovereign Good, plenitude of being, eternal love of goodness, zeal for love, is it not, therefore, most fitting for Him to bestow on others these riches contained in Himself, just as a singer is happy making others enjoy the harmonies contained in his singing?

This appropriateness is so pronounced that many philosophers # have thought that God, who is under the necessity of loving Himself, must also necessarily create. They say He would

64 Canon 22 of the Second Council of Orange: “No one can claim as his own anything but lying and sin.” Denzinger, n. 195.

55 Plato, Plotinus, Leibniz, Guenther, Rosmini. According to those who defend the theory of absolute optimism, God must of necessity create, and must create the best possible world.

be neither good nor wise unless He created, and that He would be, as it were, sparing of the good which He possesses, as one who is barren and impotent. According to these philosophers, God loves us because of a necessity intrinsic to His nature or to His wisdom. It is morally necessary, they hold, for God to create, just as it is physically necessary for the sun to impart its light and heat to all that comes in contact with it. Hence the world appears to be a necessary emanation from God or a sort of prolongation of the divine nature. It comes from God somewhat after the manner that light comes from the sun. Thus this Determinism leads to Pantheism, which denies that there is an essential and infinite distinction between the created and the uncreated,

The Catholic Church 5® rejects this doctrine which fails to recognize the absolute freedom of God’s creative love and the gratuitous nature of the gifts we have received. It is certainly in the highest degree fitting that God should love us and create us, but it is merely a fittingness without the least trace of moral necessity. Cajetan, in his commentary on the Summa (Ia, q. 19, a. 2), explains it in this way. In beings that act according to the laws of nature, he says, reproduction of their kind is a natural and necessary perfection. In beings endowed with freedom of will, to give of themselves is a free perfection. Certainly a created spirit would be neither good nor wise if it chose to isolate itself in its interior life, without thinking of others and without loving them. In loving them it adds to its perfection. There can be no increase in God’s perfection. Of itself it is infinite, the plenitude of being. All created perfections pre-exist in an eminent mode in it, in a light incomparably brighter than the obscure light that we have, in a life incomparably richer than our life associated as such with death. God, without creating, would none the less in His

£8 The Vatican Council declared that “God, with absolute freedom of counsel, created the creature . . . by His will free from all necessity.” Denzinger, 1783, 1805. See also one of Rosmini’s condemned propositions. Denzinger, 1908.

interior life be infinitely good and infinitely wise. It is not necessary for Him to love and create us. It is only fitting for Him to do so.

However, someone may say, this creative love is a perfection in God. How, then, could this perfection be wanting in Him? To this Cajetan replies that it is a free perfection, all the more perfect as it is the more free, and the absence of it would not be an imperfection." A free gift is the more precious according as it is more gratuitous and might as well not have been given. It demands the more gratitude in proportion as it is less due. Absolute optimism, which seeks to bind God to do always what is better, is oblivious of the fact that God’s love for us is gratuitous.

Godoy *® says that Cajetan’s answer must be understood as referring to a free perfection, to one which may be wanting, not inasmuch as it is a perfection, but by reason of the object wished. Also Thomists in general prefer to say that the free act of God is not an additional perfection for Him. It presupposes only the perfection of pure Act, and is only extrinsically defectible by reason of the object willed.

In fact, divine liberty is not the predominating indifference of a power or faculty. It is the predominating indifference of pure Act with regard to everything created. Thus we see that God’s free act is not an accidental and contingent action which is superadded to the act by which He necessarily loves Himself. In God it is but one and the same act of love by which He necessarily delights in the divine goodness and maintains a predominating indifference with regard to everything created, calling or not calling them into being according to His good pleasure (Ia, q. 19, a. 3, 4; Contra Gentes, Bk I, ch. Ixxxii).

We shall have to return to this subject in the solution of the

58 Godoy, O.P., Commentary on the Summa (la. q. 19, d. 48, secs. 4, 5, n. 85). All theologians admit that the real expediency of creation is such that it would not have been inexpedient for God not to create.

antinomies with regard to liberty (ch. iv, nn. 62, 63). If it were not for the fact that reason is liable to be misled, this latter apart from faith would suffice to tell us that the cause is such as has been stated. But revelation supplies what reason could never ascertain. In God there is a supreme and necessary outpouring of Himself. It is the impenetrable mystery of His intimate life and of His interior fecundity by which He communicates His whole nature, without either division or multiplicity of it, to His consubstantial Son, and together with His Son to the Spirit of love who unites them. (See infra, n. 53.)

God necessarily loves Himself. The Father necessarily begets the Son. The Father and the Son necessarily “spirate” the One who is Love (Ia, q. 41, a. 2). But it is in a free manner that God loves us, creates us, preserves us, moves us, and draws us to Himself. We are not a necessary emanation from the divine nature. The supreme Good does not communicate Himself outwardly by a sort of internal necessity, after the manner of the sun which illumines things. His loving goodness is absolutely free. He utters His fiat as He wills, according to His good pleasure. “Be light made. And light was made” (Gen. 1: 3).

Creation is therefore an absolutely free act, and the natural gifts we have received are, in this sense, gratuitous. But there is in God a still freer act of love. We are in possession of more gratuitous gifts which are in no way demanded by the primary natural gifts. In a sense God has gone to the limits of love. He has willed to associate us with His intimate life, to draw us into a participation of His nature, and the indwelling of this love in our souls has produced grace in them, making us lovable in His sight, not only as His creatures but as His children. This quality disposes us to see Him and to enjoy Him for all eternity (la Iae, q. 110).

Such essentially is God’s love for His creatures; for it is not only His creative action that He loves, but created beings are also the object of His love.

What are the properties of this love? This love of God is universal, extending to all creatures (Ia, q. 20, a. 2). It has, however, its free preferences (ibid., a. 3). Yet these preferences in no way affect the wonderful order observed by charity (a. 4). Finally, God’s love is invincible, and without His permission nothing can resist it; finally all things by His power conspire for good (la, q. 19, a. 6).

This love is universal and includes the most insignificant of creatures. God loves them, as a husbandman loves his fields, his house, his implements of labor, the animals which are for his use. In a higher order, God’s love embraces all human beings, and He gives them sufficient help for their salvation.®® God per-

59 Says St. Paul: “God wishes all men to be saved” (I Tim. 2: 4). How is it that God's will is not fulfilled for all human beings? St. Thomas explains this (Ia. q. 19, a. 6 ad rum) by distinguishing, with St. John Damascene, between the antecedent and consequent will in God. “Everything,” he says, “in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing, taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus, that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. We may say the same of God. Antecedently God wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts.

“Nor do we will simply what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things, as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place.”

Therefore, according to St. Thomas, the antecedent will wishes a thing as it is in itself, according to its nature, abstraction having been made of the circumstances which accompany it. Thus God wishes all men to be saved. On the other hand, the consequent will wishes the object together with all the circumstances. Thus the merchant in the midst of a storm wills to throw his merchandise into the sea. Likewise, it is God's will to condemn the sinner who appears before Him, mits that man, liable by his nature to fail, may at times fail; and in consequence of this, certain persons lose their souls.®? Though hating sin, God seeks the conversion of the sinner, as a sinner’s soul is the object of divine love. Moreover, this love extends to the spiritual nature of the devil, for that nature is the result of divine love, and still contributes in a certain way to the perfection of the universe and the glory of the Creator (Ia, q. 20, a. 2; Ila Iae, q. 25, a. 11).

However, this universal love has its free preferences. Truc, God grants to all the necessary and sufficient graces to be saved. Yet for certain ones He manifests His predilection by giving them special graces. Why is it that this particular person is better than a certain other? Is it not, in the final analysis, because this person has received more, and by grace has gained more merit? “What have we that we have not received?” asks St. Paul (I Cor. 4:7). “For it is God,” he says, “who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish according to his good will” (Phil. 2:13). A soul has received more graces because it has been the object of greater love. And if we ask why it has been loved more, the only answer is that it is God’s good pleasure, His free preference being the only reason. Does not the singer reach higher notes, when having committed many crimes. The Molinists differ from St. Thomas in their mode of defining antecedent will (that which precedes God's foreknowledge of our consent) and consequent will (that which follows His foreknowledge). Viewed in this way, God could no more be said to will the salvation of His elect than that of others. Man would decide for himself. God could no longer say to His saints: “I have chosen you.” The nobler part in the work of salvation, the good act of the consent of the will, would come solely from ourselves and not from God. On the contrary, St. Paul says: “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor, 4: 7.)

The consequent will to punish undoubtedly presupposes in God the foreknowledge of sin, because punishment cannot be inflicted except for a fault. But the consequent will either to justify a sinner or to give one the grace of final perseverance, does not presuppose a foreknowledge of one's merits (Ia, q. 23, a. 5).

60 See nn. 64, 65: Human freedom and God's universal causality. Moral evil and God's universal causality (sufficient grace; sin).

This sovereign freedom in its free preferences always preserves the admirable order of charity. “God loves more the better things,” says St. Thomas, “and the reason why some things are better than others, is that God wills for them a greater good” (Ia, q. 20, a. 4). God prefers spiritual to corporeal beings; the latter have been created for the former. He prefers the Mother of the Word incarnate to all souls and all pure spirits created by Him. He prefers His only Son to the Blessed Virgin. It is true that Christ was sacrificed for us; it does not follow that God loves Him less than us, but it was done that by this Christ may become the glorious conqueror of the devil, sin, and death. God in His love subordinates everything to the glory of His elect and of Christ His Son, and ultimately to His own glory which is the manifestation of His infinite goodness. “All things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (I Cor. 3:22, 23).

The order of love has as its principle and end the glory of God. It is for His glory that God loves us, creates us, preserves us, draws us to Himself. This is the express teaching of Scripture and of the Church."

Philosophers such as Kant, Arhens, Guenther, and Hermes, have erred to such an extent as to see in this Catholic doctrine the glorification of what they call divine egoism. To avoid this socalled egoism, they declare that man was created for himself, and not for God. According to this, the rights of God would cease to be the foundation even of our religious obligations toward Him, since these obligations would have no other basis than our personal dignity and our natural tendency for happiness. These

61 Vatican Council (Denzinger, 1805): “If anyone shall deny that the world was made for the glory of God: let him be anathema.” The Council expresses the motive of the creative act when it says that it was: “not for the increase or acquire- ment of His own happiness, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures. Denzinger, 1783.

philosophers also say that if God loves us and creates us for His glory, then He loves us as things which He makes use of and not as His children and friends.

As a matter of fact, God does not love us as something which He makes use of, for He wishes our good. More than this, He gives us the same good which constitutes His beatitude. But, for our greater honor, He subordinates to His own glory all that it pleases Him to grant us. It is far more glorious for us to have been created for the glory of Him who is, than to have been created for ourselves. Thus we can exceed the limitations of our nature and glorify Him who is the source of all good. It is our greatest honor to say with the Psalmist: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us: but to thy name give glory” (Ps. 113). If the sun’s ray were aware of its brilliance, would it rejoice more in this than in the splendor of the source from which it comes?

To speak of divine egoism is to forget that the supreme Good is identified with God. In ordaining all things to Himself, it is for our greater happiness that He subordinates us to the supreme Good. If He were not to ordain us for Himself, it would be both “a disorder and a barbarity.” €? It would be a disorder, for the final end of the creative act would no longer be God Himself, but the creature. God in creating us would cease to love the supreme Good above all things. He would be preferring a finite good to Himself, just as the miser prefers his gold to his honor. It would be tantamount to a mortal sin in God or the extreme in absurdities.

This disorder would also be a barbarity. We should remain fatally prisoners of ourselves and could never aspire to our destined end, which is to know God and to praise Him, at the same time as loving Him. God’s glory consists in being known and praised (Ia Iae, q. 2, a. 3).

62 Monsabré, Lent, 1874, Conference on God, the Beginning and End of All Things, p. 291.

God's love for us remains a love of beneficence and friendship. It is a friendship all the more generous as we are the more destitute and in no way can be said to deserve it. Such is the love of saints for the lepers. What egotism is there in this? It is benevolence of love in the highest degree, absolutely gratuitous, coming from the greatest wealth to extreme poverty.

The final perfection of God’s love consists in this, that its power ts invincible, that nothing can resist it without God’s permission. Finally, by God’s power everything contributes to good (Ia, q. 19, a. 6).

God’s love is invincible because He is the Creator, the principle of being and of action for all creatures. There are no effects except by His causality. Sin itself, however grievous it may be, comes from God, not in so far as it is a deordination, but considered in its entity and physical force. The sinner turns against God the very gifts which he receives from Him, which is like the action of a drowning man who would insult the one who had saved his life. God's love still preserves in being the soul of the sinner at the very moment when He could annihilate it by a complete cessation of His love for it.

God’s love is invincible not only because it is creative, but because it is the principle of omnipotent grace by which the will and the heart are drawn to Him. We see this in the case of the saints. “The ardor of this love,” as stated in the Canticle of Canticles (8:6), “is a burning desire, a flame from Jehovah.” “Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?” St. Paul asks. “Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? ... But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, . . . nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8: 35-38). There is nothing that can triumph over God’s love for us. But does not evil, especially sin, which is the death of the soul, resist love, does it not despise God’s love? In truth there is never any evil unless God permits it, and “His only reason for permittung it,” says St. Augustine (Enchiridion, ch. xi), “is because He is powerful enough and good enough to bring good out of the very evil.” Says the Canticle of Canticles (8:6): “Love is strong as death.” It is stronger than natural death, and will raise us up at the last day to be admitted body and soul to share in God’s intimate life. “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (I Cor. 15:55.)

Divine love is stronger than spiritual death. Souls that are dead it raises to life not once but again and again in the course of a life on earth. And if it permits pride to abuse the goodness of grace, even the obstinacy of this pride must result ultimately in the glorification of Love which ever remains the stronger. By reason of the eternal punishment it deserves, obstinate pride proclaims again the inalienable rights of the sovereign Good to be loved above all things. Hell cries out these rights of God, and the flames which torment the damned are but a faint reflection of this ever ardent flame, which is at the same time the eternal love of the Good and a holy hatred of evil. It was from the midst of the burning bush that Moses was addressed by Him who is. This love is a spiritual fire which is never consumed and which the elect contemplate throughout eternity.

This love appeared on earth in the person of Jesus Christ. The most perfect attestation of this love is the sacrifice on the Cross. And we find this love revealed to us in the open heart of the Crucified, the “fornax ardens charitatis: the burning furnace of charity.”

51. God’s justice and mercy.

We have been discussing the divine will. Its two great virtues are justice and mercy. They seem to be contrary virtues, but in reality they are reconciled in divine love, and are subordinated to each other in such a way that the gentleness of mercy offsets the rigor of justice.

We will treat first of justice, and after that we shall see why and how it is that mercy, as St. Thomas teaches, is superior to justice.

Justice. Justice is one of the first of moral notions conceived by the mind. In the broad sense of the term, justice implies the possession of all the virtues. In this sense we say of a man that he is just. In the strict sense of the term, justice is a special virtue which inclines the will to render to each one what is due.

We realize the worth of justice particularly from the pain we experience from injustice. And here on this earth we come across injustice at every turn. Moreover, of all rights, the noblest ones are those most misunderstood and most violated. Such are, for instance, the right we have to our reputation, freedom of action in doing good, in rendering to God the honor due to Him, the right of devoting our life to the salvation of souls. The propagation of vice and error is often admitted as a right. No less often people refuse to see that truth and virtue, inasmuch as they are of a far higher order, have this same right. Sometimes the wicked person is victorious, whereas a poor person, who would rather die than commit a base act, does not succeed in having his most natural rights recognized.

For the one who does not raise his heart to God, the injustice in the world is a disturbing element. And if this injustice, after falling drop by drop, pours down in torrents, as the psalmist expresses it, then this disturbing element may distress a soul to its very depths. Then something mysterious happens: “A man subjected to unjust treatment may wish to have others undergo the same experience, or the remembrance of this unjust treatment may excite in him a hunger and thirst for justice.” 3 “Blessed are

68 Hello, Paroles de Dieu: "The torrents of iniquity troubled me” (Ps. 17).

they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill” (Matt. 5:6).

Where shall we find this perfect justice? Scripture is constantly repeating to us that God is just, that His judgment is always right, and that all things will positively find their readjustment in the order of justice and of love. “Thou art just, O Lord: and Thy judgment is right” (Ps. 118: 137).

But here a voice, which is not that of the Gospel, bids us halt at times, seeking to prevent us from raising our minds to God. It made itself heard in more or less vague terms at the time when Jansenism was rampant, and it strikes quite a different tone in contemporary naturalism. By artful suggestion this voice would have us believe that between ourselves and God there are no possible relations of justice.

It is only between equals who can mutually exchange what is their own, so they say, that there can be any justice. But we cannot offer God anything which does not already belong to Him. We owe everything to Him, and He owes us nothing. He cannot treat us as equals. He governs all things according to His good pleasure, and need not account to us for anything.

Is justice to be found in the distribution of good things, of graces, in the assignment of rewards and punishments? In a just distribution of good things and of graces would there still be those unequal conditions between persons, both in the supernatural and the natural order? Some are rich, others are poor. Some are richly endowed with the gifts of nature, others are less fortunate in this respect, having poor health and a melancholy temperament. Some are constantly in the environment of graces and good example, others are in the midst of temptations and scandals.

Some laborers come at the last hour, being converted only at the end of their lives, and others have labored all life long. Would it be distributive justice to reward each of these equally?

Finally, a just punishment must be proportioned to the offence, A mortal sin is committed in a moment of time. How can it be deserving of eternal punishment? Anger, which is a passion, cannot exist in God. And if an inexorable justice still deserves to be called justice, how can it be reconciled with infinite mercy? Thus speaks the naturalism of the present day, refusing to see in divine justice anything but an illusory symbol created by religious sentiment.

The words of Holy Writ still remain true: “Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judgment is right” (Ps, 118: 137). The Lord is just, and “all His ways are mercy and truth” (Ps. 24:10). But to have a proper understanding of God’s word, we must discern aright what differentiates human from divine justice.

St. Thomas (Ia, q. 21, a. 1) teaches that between God and us there can be no question of that kind of justice which directs the exchanges made between individuals and which is called commutative justice. It is found only between equals who can exchange what is their own. We cannot offer God anything that does not already belong to Him. We owe everything to Him. What have we that we have not received? It is only because God gives us His grace that our acts are meritorious, otherwise there would be no such thing. “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish,” says St. Paul (Phil. 2:13). He does so without taking away our freedom of will. The act of willing is not to be attributed entirely to ourselves, for the grace of God works with us: “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (I Cor. 15:10).

Thus God can receive nothing from us which does not already belong to Him. When He rewards our meritorious acts, they are His own gifts, says St. Augustine, that He is crowning.

It is true that between God and us there can be no question of commutative justice, which is the basis of the exchanges made between individuals; but there most certainly is a distributive justice, which is infinitely superior to that found here on earth among human beings, and which regulates the distribution of good things, of rewards, and of punishments. God is just, not merely as a king is toward his subjects, but as a father is toward his children, and He is infinitely more just than the best of fathers on earth.

Let us consider this divine justice in the distribution of natural goods and graces; in the distribution of rewards; in the punishments inflicted by God upon the guilty.

1. The distribution of natural goods and of graces is perfectly just, notwithstanding the inequality of the natural and supernatural conditions accompanying it. God’s end in view in this distribution is to establish universal harmony among all creatures, without depriving any kind or any soul of what it needs to attain its end.

This universal harmony in created things proclaiming God’s glory is the end He has in view. As St. Thomas explains it (Ia, q- 47, a. 2), this harmony necessarily demands that it be such as to constitute a hierarchy and consequently that there be inequality between created things. Highest of all are the pure spirits called angels, and lower in the scale come inanimate beings. If there were only angels in existence, this would detract from the perfection prevailing in creation, What would an animal be like if each of its organs had the perfection belonging to the eye? What would be a tree be like if all its parts were flowers? That creation may be a glorious manifestation of the divine perfections, it is fitting that after the angels comes man, and after man the irrational animals, plants, and stones. So the harmony of the universe demands this hierarchy. But each creature receives from God what is necessary for it to attain its end. The herbivorous animal finds the grass it needs, the carnivorous animal finds the prey it needs for sustenance. The just God gives to each its food: “Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap; and your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matt. 6:26). God distributes proportionately to created beings what is in keeping with their nature.

It is the same with the human race. The harmony and the hierarchy which call for a generally prevailing inequality among creatures, also call for a certain accidental inequality among men. First of all, there is inequality of condition, from the natural point of view. By his nature, man must live a social life; and society as an organism presupposes a hierarchy of duties to be performed, of superiors and of inferiors. Human society would not be a completely organized body if each of its members were king or lawmaker. What would our body be like if each of our members had the perfection of the head? This is what makes St. Thomas say (la, q. 96, a. 3, 4), that even in the state of innocence there would have been a certain inequality among human beings, and that society would have required that there be superiors and inferiors. “So that the beauty of order would the more shine forth among men.” Selfishness has exaggerated the inequality of the conditions but has not created it.

Taken as a whole, the harmony between things not only demands certain inequality among men, but also requires a certain inequality in the distribution of graces. To one person our heavenly Father gives one talent, to another He gives two, and to a certain other He gives five. This one will be the founder of a religious order, that one will be a humble lay brother, and a certain other person will live a Christian life in the world. St. Paul tells us that the mystical body, consisting of souls united with Christ, is a spiritual organism, and every organism presupposes diversity and a certain inequality in the functions of the organism.

Although among men the conditions and graces are unequal, still no one is deprived of the graces necessary and sufficient for the attainment of his end, which is the salvation of his soul. As we find things in nature, the just God provides for irrational beings. How much the more does He provide for the needs of man and especially for the needs of the soul. “Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap... and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? ... Be not solicitous therefore saying, what shall we eat: or what shall we drink? ... For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice: and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6: 26-31). Each soul is an object of God’s special concern, for each soul, as St. Thomas says, is equivalent in value to any species or world, for each soul is truly immortal. God may permit, indeed, that in the animal kingdom some poor beast is no longer able to find the means necessary for its sustenance; but He cannot let a soul, except through its own fault, be without the help needed to escape damnation.

All persons, even those who have not had the Gospel preached to them, receive graces sufficient for them to save their souls. Certainly they are helped far less than those born in the Catholic Church, but they receive help sufficient for salvation.®* If they correspond to the graces received, if they act according to the dictates of conscience, as they are prompted to do by actual grace, then by a series of graces and by constant fidelity to inspirations, they finally receive the light of faith and acquire that life of charity, by means known to God, even if He has to send an angel or a preacher of the faith to them, as He sent the Apostle St. Peter to Cornelius the centurion (Acts, ch. x).°°

85 See St. Thomas, De veritate, Q. 14, a. 14 ad tum and 2um. Pius IX (allocution, Singulari quadam, December 9, 1854) says: “Of a certainty it is to be held as of faith, that outside the Roman Apostolic Church no one can be saved: that it is the only ark of salvation and that anyone not having entered therein will perish

Grace is not given in proportion to one’s natural qualities; natural good works do not merit grace, for it is of a higher order. The Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians were condemned for not admitting this truth. But to the man who with the help of actual grace does what he can, God does not refuse habitual or sanctifying grace, by which he is justified. “Facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam: God does not refuse His grace to him who does his best” (Ia Iae, q. 109, a. 6 ad 2um).

In spite of the inequality of conditions and of graces, the distribution of good things in both the natural and the supernatural order still remains a just one. Some have received merely one talent, but they have received it. God demands of them only that they make their talent productive.

2. God’s justice is no less clearly illustrated in the distribution of rewards. Reward is proportioned to merit; and the degree of glory, to the degree of charity. The distribution of rewards and punishments commands our admiration. For the performance of good deeds that are purely of the natural order God gives a temporal reward; for supernaturally good deeds, a supernatural reward.

With regard to those who give alms solely that they may be seen by men, our Lord says: “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward,” the praise of men. “And when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth; that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret as those did in the time of the flood, But, for all that, it is likewise to be held as certain, that those who do not know which religion is the true one, if the ignorance be invincible, these in the eyes of the Lord are not guilty of any grievous sin. But now, if we consider the various kinds of people, the countries in which they live, their individual dispositions and so many other things, who is there who will go so far as to say that he can set a limit to this kind of ignorance? For when, freed from the trammels of this body of ours, we shall see God as He is, we shall undoubtedly understand how the mercy and justice of God are united in a close and beautiful embrace,” Denzinger, n. 1647; also n. 1677.

will repay thee,” with an eternal reward, the glory not being that which comes from men but that which comes from God (Matt. 6: 2-4).

In this supernatural order, there is a proportion between the supernatural reward and the supernatural merits; and the degree of merit is according to the degree of charity with which the act is performed. This is the teaching conveyed to us in the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14). To the one who received five talents and gained another five, it was said: “Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord.” He receives as reward a measure of the Master’s own happiness. To the one who received two talents and gained other two, the same is said. He receives the same kind of reward but in a lesser degree. He who received but one talent and let it remain unproductive, hears himself condemned in the following words: “Take ye away therefore the talent from him and give it to him that hath ten talents. For to everyone that hath [a good will], shall be given, and he shall abound. But from him that hath not [a good will] that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away” (Matt. 25: 20-23, 28, 29).

The laborers who came at the last hour had not worked, it is true, so long as the others; how is it, then, that they receive the same reward? (Matt. 20:12.) The value of a meritorious act is not always measured by the time taken to perform it. The laborers who came at the last hour, who were the object of the master’s special benevolence in that he deigned yet to call them, showed themselves no doubt particularly grateful. They worked more willingly, just as Magdalen in one moment loved so much. These laborers were able to gain as much merit in one hour as the others acquired by working all day. The householder was free to have mercy on them and still call them at the last moment. But he did not defraud the others, for he gave them in justice what was due them.

According to good deeds performed, each one is rewarded either with eternal life or with grace. Supernatural gifts are not in proportion to natural gifts. The Lord is pleased to bestow upon the poor and the humble an abundance of graces, unknown to the people of the world. The degree of glory will be in proportion to the degree of charity or of merit that we have at the hour of death,

Here on earth, if we are faithful, we receive the hundredfold. Here on earth is realized the parable of the wise virgins. Those who have managed to keep their lamps supplied with the oil of charity are called by the spouse. They are admitted to the intimacy of spiritual union, which is a foretaste of that experienced in heaven.

God’s justice which thus gives each one his reward urges the just one to hope with St. Paul. “I have fought a good fight: I have finished my course. . . . As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love His coming” (II Tim. 4:8).

3. Finally, we shall clearly see God’s justice in the punishments which He inflicts upon the guilty. Punishment is according to the offence, as reward is according to merit.

First of all, it is proper that God should punish, so that there may be a restoration of the divine order when it has been violated. Remorse of conscience, says St. Thomas, because we have disturbed the order in things dictated by reason, punishes us. A magistrate, being the custodian of the social order, must punish those who upset this order. Thus God, the just judge, punishes those who rebel against the divine order. The human will in violating all three orders incurs a threefold punishment, since it is subjected to these three orders (IIa Iae, q. 87, a. 1). God punishes dispassionately, just as a judge who is completely master of himself, without being angry, condemns a criminal, his purpose being to uphold those very principles by which society is governed.

For a proper understanding of vindictive justice in God, how it is a virtue, and an absolute perfection, we must point out that God does not hate the sinner, but “He has an infinite hatred of sin, because it is an obstacle preventing Him from establishing that union with us which He so ardently desires, as also because it is directly opposed to His divine perfections. Being Himself infinite goodness, light of absolute purity, untarnished beauty, God cannot refrain from hating and detesting sin above all things, since it is but darkness, malice, and corruption. This hatred is so intense that in all God’s operations as recorded in both the Old and the New Testament, especially His ardent attachment to His well-beloved Son, He has had in view only the destruction of sin. On this point, the most enlightened of God’s servants assure us that, to blot out the least trace of sin from the soul, the Savior would be ready to suffer a thousand deaths”

Christian feeling is thus expressed in a book which the faithful love and which they all understand. Thus vindictive justice appears, as it were, to be a phase of God’s love. However rigorous and inexorable its attitude may be toward the obduracy of sin, why should it be impossible of reconciliation with the sweetness and mercy of God?

After Jesus Christ, is not the Blessed Virgin the most perfect personification of humility, sweetness, and mercy? Nevertheless, she is also called the “Mirror of Justice,” because she detests evil as vehemently as she loves good. “You that love the Lord, hate evil” (Ps. 96: 10).

A famous Catholic author writes as follows: “Judith is one of the least known types of Mary. . . . In her the Blessed Virgin is revealed to us in one of her most unfamiliar aspects. The woman is represented to us in a forgotten aspect, that of horror. Where the feeling of horror is absent, there is neither love nor light... . Without doubt, the Blessed Virgin had at heart a holy and vehement horror of evil which is like a forgotten lamp left burn- ing in the recesses of a sanctuary, and the discovery of this hatred will be, perhaps, one of the astonishments of eternity.

“Many booklets and little pictorial representations have attributed an insipid sweetness to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a silly kind of sweetness which does not seem to have deep down within itself the capacity of being horrified, which is that saintly faculty of holding certain things in detestation. This detestation of evil is the rarest of virtues and the most forgotten of glories. But the Blessed Virgin was not unmindful of God’s words: . . . ‘I will put enmities between thee and the woman. She shall crush thy head’ (Gen, 3:15).

“It is difficult for us to know to what low level this sentiment of holiness has sunk in many men, because they look upon it as something soft, feeble, deprived as it is of that terrible energy inspired by detestation. Now, if hatred of evil has been the experience of all the saints, if not one of them has been without this light, how brilliant this light must have been in Mary... . Judith is the answer of Scripture to the forgetfulness of men who see in holiness the effacement of personality and the foolishness of accepting all things without hating their contraries.” 81

Later on, St. John the apostle of love becomes also the prophet of God’s vindictive justice. How can we fail to see in this virtue an absolute perfection? It is so closely associated with God’s love of His own goodness as to be nothing else but the proclamation of His rights to be loved above all things. Therefore it is proper for God to punish creatures for violating the divine order. The punishment He inflicts is always proportioned to the offence. When we come to treat of God's mercy, we will even go so far as to say that the punishment is always less than the offence.

Venial sin receives a temporal punishment. In the case of a

66 The holy hatred of evil, whatever one may say, is truly a necessary light for a judgment to be impartial. For a profound knowledge of good, we must love it. For a real knowledge of evil, we must hate it.

67 Hello, Paroles de Dieu, Part Il.

person dying impenitent in a state of mortal sin, the punishment is eternal. This is a dogma of our faith.

An irreligious person may object: How can eternal punishment be proportioned to an offence committed in a few moments? Says Hello: “Satan has always sought to move people to commiserate the damned. He whose malice is unspeakable, wishes to pass himself off here as being good. He presents the damned to us as unfortunate beings asking to be forgiven and unable to obtain forgiveness. He would have us bewail their misfortune and his own. Men, deceived by Satan’s false appeal to charity, have pity on him. He whispers gently to his friends, making himself as sweet as sugar and honey. He even mentions his mercy and accuses God of cruelty.” He is thus portrayed in Vigny’s Eloa. What proportion is there between an instantaneous offence and a punishment which is eternal?

Time is not here the question of paramount importance. The laborers who came at the last hour worked but a short time, nevertheless they received the reward of eternal life. According to the ways of God’s judgment, as also those of human justice, punishment is proportioned to the gravity of the offence, and not to the time required for committing it. It takes but a moment to kill someone; does it follow that the murderer deserves to be punished only for a moment? On the contrary, he is deserving either of hard labor for life or of the death penalty. The murderer is cut off forever from association with his fellowbeings. In a certain way, it is like the eternity of punishment which God inflicts.

We must also draw attention to the fact that there is even a proportion as to time, between eternal punishment and unrepented mortal sin, because this sin always remains. What we must not fail to notice is that mortal sin is truly moral suicide, depriving a soul of divine life. The sinner, in deliberately turn- ing away from God and preferring a wretched created good, makes his final end consist in this created good. He deprives his soul of spiritual life and effects a sort of irreparable disturbance of the divine order within it. Thus blindness becomes an incurable malady when the principle of sight is destroyed, and for this a moment of time suffices. Mortal sin, once committed, persists therefore as an incurable blindness and thus deserves unending punishment. So long as the disorder lasts, so long also does the punishment last. “For this reason alone,” says St. Gregory, “that the sinner makes his final end to consist in created good which he prefers to God, he has the will to sin forever and thus deserves to be punished forever.” 88

A damned soul does not beg forgiveness, and its punishment is eternal, because its hatred is eternal. If it could leave hell, it would prefer to return there rather than go to heaven, for it finds in hell full scope for its fury. Here on earth certain persons prefer a hovel to a palace, and the atmosphere of a prison to that of a church. No longer can a damned soul be the object of pity or of mercy, and it no longer has the least wish to repent. Yet divine mercy alleviates its sufferings; they would be far greater if they were determined solely by God’s justice.®®

Such is this terrifying attribute of God, which manifests itself only when mercy has been frequently despised. How many times does the merciful God reach out to the sinner, rescue him from the precipice where he has fallen, and give him spiritual life again. He pardons seventy times seven times, which means always; and He chastises by means of medicinal punishments, that are intended to induce the guilty one to repent.

If, however, in spite of the graces offered, a sinner spurns divine love desirous of saving him, God allows him to be surprised by

68 Dialogues, Bk. IV, ch. xliv. See also St. Thomas, Ia lae, q. 87, a. 3 ad 1um. 69 Cf, Ia, q. 21, a. 4 ad rum.

death, which leaves him merely time enough for a final decision.?7° If he is obdurate, the punishment, like the offence, is eternal. As in this life a murderer is punished by exclusion from association with his fellow-men, so divine love which has been spurned, becomes implacable. Free from anger, it proclaims the inalienable rights of the sovereign Good to be loved above all things.

If we are able to observe about us the manifestations of divine justice, we shall have a clear insight into the harmony of the divine operations. If the most beloved have received the more, they should know how to suffer and atone for others, even to the extent of being a victim for them. The rigors of divine justice are here wonderfully reconciled with the most generous and benign justice of God.

The most beloved of all, beloved more than all human and angelic creatures combined, is Jesus Christ. It is He who offered Himself as victim for us, who was stricken for our sake, since we are too weak to pay our own debt. For one moment divine justice was for the heart of Jesus as hard as hell: “love is as strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell” (Cant. 8:6). This moment was when the divine curse ™ fell upon Christ laden with our sins, so that it elicited from His heart the most heroic act of love for His Father and for us. It was an act of love which reconciled in that afflicted heart the supreme demands of justice with the highest manifestation of tenderest mercy. “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed” (Ps. 84:11). A most heartfelt suffering was the price of this reconciliation. “For God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son” (John 3: 16).

Such is the law of the supernatural world, and we see the

71 “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (for it is written; cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree).” Gal. 3: 13.

St. Thomas explains this passage as follows: “Inasmuch as He took upon Himself the curse of sin, by dying for us, He is said to have become for us a curse,”

application of it in the lives of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints. Souls the most loved are also those who in this life must suffer the most. For their own salvation as well as that of others, they must share in the sufferings of Mary's heart. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill. . . . Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt., ch. v). The sufferings of this life endured from a supernatural motive will, as St. Paul says, be worth “an eternal weight of glory” (II Cor. 4:17).

Divine Mercy. We said that God's justice is the virtue by means of which He gives to all creatures what is necessary for the attainment of their end. It is also that virtue by which He rewards and punishes. There is another virtue of the divine will which, in certain respects, seems to be contrary to divine justice. This virtue is God’s infinite mercy, which the Scripture repeatedly praises: | “The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever” (Ps. 88:1).

The prophets often say, as Daniel does (3: 29-43): “Lord, we have sinned against Thee and we deserve the punishment which Thou dost inflict upon us; but give glory to Thy name, O Lord, and according to the abundance of Thy mercy deliver us.” In the Miserere, David exclaims: “Lord I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me. To Thee only have I sinned. Cast me not away from Thy face. Cleanse me and I shall be made clean. Wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. O God, a contrite and humble heart, Thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 50). In the psalms we find three expressions that are nearly always used together. They are the misery of man who appeals to the divine mercy for the glory of God. “Help us O God, our Savior, for the glory of Thy name, and forgive us our sins” (Ps. 78:9). “Shew forth Thy wonderful mercies; Thou who savest them that trust in Thee” (Ps. 16:7). In the De profundis we find the same appeal: “Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: hear my voice. If Thou wilt mark iniquities, who shall stand it? For with Thee there is merciful forgiveness. My soul hath hoped in the Lord, because with the Lord there is mercy and with Him plentiful redemption” (Ps. 129).

The Gospel represents God as a Father who loves us as His children, who pardons the prodigal son despite his ingratitude and his repeated offences. The special message for us in the glad tidings is that God is our Savior, the good Shepherd, who seeks the lost sheep and brings it back on His shoulders. The whole Gospel is a history of God's mercies to souls, however far they may have strayed from Him, as was the case with the Samaritan woman, with Magdalen, Zaccheus, the good thief, with all of us, for whom the Father delivered up His Son as a victim of expiation.

In spite of these striking manifestations of infinite mercy, modern unbelief, known as Agnosticism, comes forward with the objection that mercy, as attributed to God, is merely a symbol, a manner of speech, a metaphor entirely of the human order, as when we say that God is angry. And just as anger, which is a passion, cannot be attributed to God who is pure spirit, so also the same must be said of mercy, which would make Him grieve over the miseries of this life of ours. Sadness cannot be reconciled with infinite happiness. If there is absolute justice in God, it is opposed also to any feeling of compassion, which would be a weakness, a restriction of the inalienable rights of the Creator. God cannot belie Himself.

Finally, the unbeliever goes on to say that, if we look around us, the sight of so much physical and moral unrelieved wretchedness makes us think there is not any real foundation for the idea of infinite mercy, which is merely a beautiful dream, the result of religious sentiment.

On the contrary, from the teaching of the Church we see: (1)

that mercy is not a sadness and weakness in God, but a most glorious manifestation of His power and goodness; (2) that mercy, far from being a restriction upon justice, is allied with it, at the same time surpassing it. Let us explain this:

1. To see how mercy is a virtue and an absolute perfection, we must carefully distinguish it from that sensible feeling of pity, which God could not have. That sensible feeling of pity, as St. Thomas remarks (Ila Iae, q. 30, a. 1), is a special trait of the weak and timid, of those who are quick to realize they are threatened with some evil from which their neighbor is suffering. Thus they instinctively consider the sufferings of others as their own and feel compassion for them. The happy and powerful, on the contrary, have not much of this sensible feeling of pity in them.

How can God, who is infinitely happy and free from all sufferings, have compassion for us in our miseries? Let us not seck to find in Him a sensible feeling of pity, an emotion that would cause Him to suffer in the same way as we do concerning our miseries. There is nothing of the sensible order in God. He is pure spirit. There is no sadness in Him. He is sovereign Good. But the virtue of divine mercy does not consist in this pity which results from a consideration of some natural good, and which arises from the fear of some evil or from a feeling of sympathy. Mercy in God is a virtue of His benevolent and beneficent will; it does not arise from the fear of evil, but comes from His love of the supreme Good and from a generosity sufficiently strong and enduring to triumph over evil and wrest souls from the moral evil of sin. If it is a characteristic of the weak to be tender-hearted, a characteristic of the strong and the good, says St. Thomas, is to give generously, to let others share that wealth of life which they possess.7? The more good there is in a being, the more generously

72 St. Thomas (IIa Iae, q. 30, a. 4) says: “For it belongs to mercy to lavish this upon others, and what is more of importance, to be of help to others in their and intimately it gives of itself. If, then, God is infinitely good, and if He is happiness itself, He cannot grieve over our miseries, but is naturally inclined to help us.

Moreover, there is something in this life which has an inevitable claim upon divine mercy. It is misery which, instead of becoming bitter, angry, and rebellious, turns toward God, imploring Him in absolute confidence, because He is Goodness, Happiness, Glory, and Omnipotence. And the greater is our misery and the more we realize our need of help, the more we feel that God can remedy the defect, the stronger also we become, and the more irresistible is the appeal made to God’s omnipotent goodness. The more power and goodness there is in a being, the more it gives of itself. The weaker and poorer we are, the stronger is our appeal to the gift of God’s supreme goodness. “For when I am weak, then am I powerful,” declares St. Paul (II Cor. 12:10). Just before this the Lord had said to him: “Power is made perfect in infirmity.” “Have mercy on me,” says the Psalmist, “for I am weak” (Ps. 6). “Look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor” (Ps. 24: 16). It is the cry of the woman of Chanaan: “The whelps also eat of the crumbs which fall from the tables of their masters” (Matt. 15:27). You cannot despise her who is speaking to you, for she is really weak.

But far greater, beyond all comparison, is the appeal of misery, when it makes supplication to God not only to obtain help from Him, but also that the glory of God may be strikingly illustrated. It is the prayer of Daniel (3: 42): “Put us not to confusion, but deal with us according to Thy meekness and according to the multitude of Thy mercies.” “For the glory of Thy name, O Lord, deliver us,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 78:9). A certain Christian of failings. And this applies especially to a superior. Hence to be merciful is regarded as properly belonging to God. And most certainly it is said to be in this that His omnipotence is manifested.”

great faith often prayed as follows: “Lord, remember that You created all things out of nothing; that by the touch of Your hand the stars were illumined, Since You are magnificent and immense, be such in giving to us. By the immensity of Your gifts cause my desires to be overwhelmingly satisfied. Make me say: God is great, and I knew it not. God is God, and I was asleep. Act according to the difference of our two natures, for You are Being and I am nothingness. Since You are God, give Yourself without reserve, so that I may recognize You. I am one who does not exist and has need of everything. God, everything is Yours; give everything to him who is nothing and has need of everything. You were not ungenerous when you sprinkled the heavens with the stars. Since You are God, be not invincible. Father, You who are pleased to yield though omnipotent, to come down from Your high abode, to be conquered though You are glorious, as You have created me out of nothing, so hearken to me, worthless as I am.”

Such can be the sinner’s prayer, incapable though he is of meriting, when asking for sanctifying grace which is the principle of all merit. The least degree of this grace is of more value than the sum-total of created things.” “May the abundance of Your gifts multiply my desires.”

Who would say that mercy taken in this sense is an imperfection in God? It is a glorious manifestation of His power and goodness. In creating, God draws being out of nothing, but when He is merciful He does something incomparably more sublime, for He brings good out of evil. Out of evil, which is even less than nothing, God is pleased to bring an entirely supernatural good, one which is greater than all created things combined. This prompts St. Augustine and St. Thomas ™ to say that, to make of a

73 See Ia Iae, q. 113, a. 9 ad 2um: “The good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the whole universe.” T4 Sce Ia [lae, q. 113, a. 9.

sinner a just man is a greater and more glorious act for God than to create heaven and earth. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the grace given to a sinner seeks to inciease in him and to remain with him forever. St. Thomas even goes on to say that although glory, which is the consummation of grace, is the greater of the two, yet the justification of a sinner is proportionately greater than the glorification of a just person; for the gift of grace exceeds the state of the ungodly more than the gift of glory exceeds the state of the just. God is pleased at times, purely of His goodness, to effect from the most grievous sin a more sincere repentance, so that the baser was the ingratitude, the greater should be the degree of charity.

As for the rest of us, the good that we can do is done only by means of good. It has been said that what belongs peculiarly to God is to bring good out of evil. In this we see the triumph of His glory. Therefore mercy is neither a sadness nor a weakness. Not only is it reconciled with God’s supreme happiness and omnipotence, but it is the most striking manifestation thereof.

2. Why is it impossible for God’s mercy to be reconciled with His infinite justice? On first consideration, it seems to be a weakening on the part of divine justice of inalienable rights which that justice cannot give up. God cannot be untrue to Himself. As a matter of fact, God’s mercy, instead of restricting and opposing His justice, becomes one with it, at the same time surpassing it. “All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 24:10); but “mercy exalteth above judgment,” says the Apostle St. James (2:13). According to St. Thomas, the reason for this is because “every work of divine justice presupposes a work of mercy or of entirely gratuitous goodness, and is founded thereon. If, indeed, there is something due to the creature from God, this must be on account of something that precedes. If He has to reward our meritorious acts, it is because He first of all gave us the grace so that we may merit; if it is due to Him to give us the grace necessary for salvation, it is because it was He who, in the first place and purely of His goodness, created us and destined us for a life which is supernatural. Divine mercy is thus, as it were, the root or the principle of all God’s works, these being permeated and dominated by this virtue. Viewed as the primary source of all God's gifts, it is His mercy which exerts the greatest influence, and that is why it surpasses His justice, this latter being only secondary and subordinate to it. God always gives out of the superabundance of His goodness more than justice demands, more than the nature and the condition of creatures demand” (Ia, q. 21, a. 4).

This is easily acounted for by considering the three great acts of justice, namely: to give what is necessary, to reward, and to punish, Mercy surpasses justice and becomes one with it even in the act of punishing.

a) The first act of divine justice is to give to creatures what is necessary for the attainment of their end. But divine mercy gives more than is necessary. “The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord” (Ps. 32:5).

God could have created us in a purely natural state and given us only an immortal soul. He has called us to participate supernaturally in His intimate life. He has given us grace which is the principle of our supernaturally meritorious acts. Justice does not lose its rights, but mercy prevails.

God could have left us in that state in which we were after the fall of our first parents. He could also have raised us up out of this state of sin by simply pardoning us. He has given us His only Son as victim for our redemption, and we can always appeal to the merits of the Savior. Justice does not lose its rights, but mercy prevails.

After the death of Christ, it was enough that our souls be kept alive and preserved from harm by means of interior graces. Divine mercy has given us the Holy Eucharist. On Pentecost and again for each one of us in Confirmation, the Holy Spirit came to dwell in us. After our repeated falls into sin, we receive absolution every time we sincerely wish to return to God. The whole Christian religion is a history of the mercies of the Lord.

God gives us exceedingly more than our nature demands. He gives us supernatural life, and in this supernatural order exceedingly more than is strictly necessary to enable us to attain our end. Justice loses none of its rights, but mercy prevails. This mercy is so great that pride finds it overwhelming. Pride was the sin of the fallen angels and it is the deep-seated vice of Naturalism. This Naturalism refuses to be ennobled, to be elevated by grace to the supernatural life, to the intimate life of God, content to remain in the purely natural state, being indebted for this only to itself. It is the characteristic of pride that it does not wish to be under obligations for anything to anyone except itself, and that it seeks to rid itself of that immense debt of gratitude which every creature owes to God.” The astonishing thing is this, that it is not so much vindictive justice which strikes at pride; it is particularly infinite mercy that does so. In direct contrast to the greatest mystery of grace, there is the mystery of iniquity.

b) The second act of divine justice is to reward each one according to his merits. But divine mercy gives us more than we have merited. In this life, how many are the graces bestowed upon those who have fallen, beyond all their deserts, so that they may be promptly rescued from sin and spiritual death? While Paul

78 See the definition of Naturalism given by St. Thomas in the article in which he considers the malice of sin in the angels. “It was in this way that the devil desired inordinately to be like to God, because he desered as his last end of beatitude, something which he could attain by the virtue of his own nature, turning his appetite away from supernatural beatitude, which is attained by God's grace” (la, q. 63, a. 3).

In our days the same is said by those who accept the doctrine of immanence. They refuse a supernatural which would be a purely gratuitous gift on the part of divine mercy. See Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, 4th ed., art. “Immanence,” col. 585.

was persecuting the infant Church, he was suddenly filled with consternation through the intervention of divine mercy and was crushed beneath the weight of grace which he could in no way have deserved. After conversion, a great many helps are freely granted to souls, far beyond their deserts, so as to enable them to persevere in doing good and to grow in holiness. In the case of souls that have fallen again into sin, it often happens that they are converted a short time before their death, like the laborers who come at the last hour and yet receive the reward of eternal life. These souls performed some very simple act of charity, such as giving a glass of water to a poor person for the love of God, and divine mercy rewards them with an eternity of happiness.

c) The third act of justice consists in inflicting the penalty due to sin. Here again mercy prevails. “To punish in excess would be injustice; if, in this order, divine love wishes to exceed its strict right,” says St. Thomas, “there is only one thing to be done, and that is, either to remit the punishment or pardon one. To pardon means fo give in excess; to remit an offence is freely to bestow a gift” (la, q. 21, a. 3 ad 2um).

And how is the right to pardon in conflict with the right to punish? The former right does not restrict the latter, but surpasses it. The right to pardon is one of the noblest privileges of sovereigns, of those at the head of the state. He who is lawfully invested with power to punish can also remit the penalty. That is not possible for a mere judge whose duty is to see that the law is observed. But it is possible for the lawgiver and the supreme judge. In remitting the penalty no wrong is done to anyone. The right to pardon is therefore the noblest prerogative of the supreme Judge, one that especially manifests His glory and goodness (IIIa, q. 46, a. 2 ad 3um).

When a murderer, justly sentenced to death by the highest earthly authorities, has been unable to obtain his pardon from them, when he is justly condemned also by the authority of the supreme Judge, recourse to Him is still possible. So long as the culprit is not confirmed in his evil ways, he can appeal from God’s justice to God’s glory. He can always offer up this prayer: Lord, I have sinned outrageously against Thee, and I deserve that the penalty of death be inflicted upon me by those who have received from Thee the authority to do so; but for the sake of Thy glory, O Lord, pardon me. As Thou hast created me out of nothing, graciously hear me, unworthy as I am. Grant that I may die in union with Thee and cause my shameful death to be like that of the good thief, a ray of glory for Thee. “Shew forth Thy wonderful mercies, O Lord, Thou who savest them that trust in Thee” (Ps. 16:7).

How many, regardless of self, think in this sincere way of God's glory? At times those do so who find it no longer possible to think of their own glory. This is the case with a dethroned king such as Louis XVI at the foot of the scaffold, or with great sinners who have absolutely no other recourse left to them except to trust in God’s mercy. Sometimes God is pleased to make saints of them. History has preserved the name of Carino, St. Peter Martyr’s assassin. Carino, suddenly enlightened by grace and in a spirit of repentance, asked to be clothed in the habit of a laybrother. After forty years of penance, he died the death of a saint. God’s mercy toward sinners is manifested in this world by the numerous graces bestowed on them to bring them to repentance, by the medicinal punishments which the Lord sends them, and by accepting others as victims of expiation for them.

Finally, as St. Thomas says, the punishments of hell are medicinal for those still on earth by reason of the just fear these sufferings inspire in them. They cannot cause the damned to repent, as those souls remain always obdurate. But even in hell divine mercy operates, in the sense that by it there is an alleviation of the punishments, so that the obdurate sinner is punished less than he deserves. If God’s justice alone came into operation, the suffer- ings of the damned would be greater than they are (Ia, q. 21, a. 4 ad tum).

Therefore, God’s mercy is always combined with His justice, this latter remaining subordinate. Both result from His love of the supreme Good. This supreme Good manifests itself primarily in the diffusion of itself, and in a secondary way by proclaiming its inalienable right to be loved above all things (Ia, q. 23, a. 5 ad 3um).

This divine mercy must excite in us feelings of hope, of love for God, and of love for those who have offended us: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

52. Omnipotence.

Having considered the attributes relating to the divine and immanent operations, we must now speak of that attribute which is the immediate principle of God’s external operations. The divine action from which they proceed cannot be a formally transitive one, for, of necessity, this would imply an imperfection. It would be an accident emanating from the divine agency and would be received in a created being. It is a formally immanent action and is identified with the very being of God; but it is virtually transitive in so far as it produces an effect outside of God. We shall consider: a) infinite power in general; 4) the creation and conservation of beings; c) the divine motion; d) the possibility of miracles.

a) Infinite power (Ia, q. 25). “There could not be in God,” says St. Thomas, “passive power, or that aptitude to receive or to be made perfect; but He possesses active power in the highest degree. The more a being is in act and is perfect, the more it is the active principle of something; and vice versa, the more a being is imperfect and deficient, the more it is reduced to a state of passivity. Now God is pure Act, in all ways perfect, and all imperfection is to be excluded from Him. Therefore He is in the highest degree the active principle and in no way admits of passivity” (Ia, q. 25, a. 1).

Does this mean that the active power in God is like our will, a faculty which is the principle of an accidental operation? By no means, for there is nothing accidental in God. Pure Act cannot be determined any further; its operation is its very essence. We must, therefore, eliminate every created mode from the analogical notion of active power before we can apply it to God. “In creatures, power is the principle not only of action, but likewise of effect. Thus in God the idea of power is retained, inasmuch as it is the principle of an effect; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for this is the divine essence itself; except, perchance, after our manner of understanding, inasmuch as the divine essence contains in the highest degree all the perfections to be found in created things, it can be understood either under the notion of action, or under that of power” (Ia, q. 25, a. 1 ad 3um).

The divine power is infinite, for the mode of operation follows the mode of being, and the divine being is infinite. The hotter a body is, the greater its power of heating other bodies. The more enlightened a mind is, the greater power it has to enlighten the minds of others. God, who is Being itself, must therefore have the power to give being to everything capable of receiving it, to everything for which existence is not repugnant. “And if God cannot make the impossible become a reality, that is not because His power is limited; it is because the impossible is in itself incapable of existence, and cannot become a reality. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them” (Ia, q. 25, a. 3). Ockham and Descartes failed to see this, when they claimed that God’s liberty and omnipotence would not be infinite if they could not make a square circle. From this it would follow that the truth of the principle of contradiction and of every essence would depend upon the divine liberty;

but the divine liberty itself would vanish, for there would be no foundation for it. God would not be of necessity the Being, the Good, the Intellect, or consequently the Liberty. He would be free to be free, as Secrétan maintained, free to be or not to be. This absolute libertinism, which is the destruction of all truth and of all being, is the height of absurdity and leads to radical nihilism.

On the other hand, to urge the claims of intellectualism, as much as Leibniz and the advocates of absolute optimism have wished to do, is to go to the other extreme. It unduly restricts God’s liberty and omnipotence, in that it maintains that these divine attributes were limited in the creation of the present world, which would have to be the best of possible worlds. Undoubtedly God could not have created with greater wisdom than He has so done, nor could He dispose things better than as they are; but He could have created better things, says St. Thomas, for between a creature however perfect and the infinite goodness it represents, the distance is always infinite (Ia, q. 25, a. 5). The animal has not a better arrangement of parts than that of the plant, but it is a better and more perfect being. Man is still more perfect and of a still higher order, Above man we have the pure spirits with a greater or less degree of intellectual power. But the idea of the most perfect pure being that possibly could be created is as truly inconceivable and contradictory as is the idea of the swiftest movement. God can always create a pure spirit still more perfect. (On this point, see the solution of the antinomies relative to liberty, ch. iv, n. 62.)

b) The creation and preservation of beings (Ia, q. 45, 105). Omnipotence is creative. The dogma of creation may be summed up in these words: Everything which exists outside of God, of His own free will He created out of nothing, for His glory and purely of His goodness.

Of all things existing outside of God—things visible and invisible, the earth, the firmament, angels, those pure spirits as numerous as the stars, and finally man, composed as he is of soul and body—not one exists of itself, for each of them is not being itself, life itself, light itself, holiness itself, since all of them are finite. They have, therefore, of necessity received their existence from Him who is (Ia, q. 45, a. 2).

They were made out of nothing by God, which means that their whole being, absolutely their whole being, was produced by God. Before this production their being was entirely nonexistent.”° There is an infinite distance between creating and acting as we do every day. Modern philosophers who often misuse the word “create,” when they speak, for instance, of creative evolution, of creative imagination, or of a creative idea, have not stopped to think what these words mean: “to make from nothing.” This word “create” reveals to us our absolute dependence upon God, a dependence which is the foundation of all our obligations, To understand precisely what Christian humility must be, it would be necessary for us to penetrate into the mystery of the creative act and to grasp the meaning of these words: “to make from nothing.”

The sculptor makes a statue, but not from nothing. He takes the marble which he did not make, and merely gives it a certain

16 Ex nihilo (out of nothing) has the same meaning as non ex aliquo subjecto (not from any prior subject), or ex nullo praesupposito subjecto, veluti causa materiali (from no pre-existing subject matter, as if this were the material cause). Sometimes the Scholastics also define creation as: productio totius rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti: the bringing of a whole thing into existence from a state of nonexistence, and from no prior subject matter. This production has an efficient, a final, and an exemplary cause (the divine idea), but not a material cause.

Creation differs essentially from Pantheistic Emanation, no matter what Cousin and various modern philosophers may have said. Emanation implies a contradiction, just as does Pantheism, which it presupposes. Either creation is immanent, and this implics the confusion of the finite with the infinite; or else it is ¢ransitive operation, and this presupposes the divisibility of the divine substance, which is absolutely one, simple, and indivisible.

form, fashioning and transforming it. He does not create the statue, he does not produce the whole of its being. The sculptor is a transformer, not a creator. The architect who constructs an edifice, does not create it. He merely brings together in orderly arrangement the materials which he did not produce. The father who generates a son, does not create him, does not give him the whole of his being. Something of the son’s substance, the matter, a germ that developed, was pre-existent; but the father did not create this out of nothing by the mere act of his will. The thinker who works out a system of some kind does not create it. He starts from certain known facts and evident principles, setting forth a certain number of ideas under these principles so as to render the facts intelligible. He does not create, he constructs with preexistent materials. When he afterwards instructs a disciple, he only molds and informs the disciple’s intelligence, but does not create it.

Lastly, the will, when making a free act, does not produce it from nothing; the act is simply an accidental modification of the will, and presupposes a real power which it determines or informs.

A finite agent cannot create, but can only transform what already exists. The reason for this is that the most universal of effects comes from the most universal of causes. But being, as being, is the most universal of effects. The production of being as such or of the whole being of a thing, must be attributed to the most universal of causes, which is the supreme Cause. Just as fire gives out heat, and light illumines things, so also the One who is Being itself can produce being, the whole being of any given thing (Ia, q. 45, a. 5).

However insignificant this thing may be, even if it were only a grain of sand, it needs an infinite power to produce it out of nothing. The more impoverished, indeed, is the matter to be transformed, the more powerful must be the agent that works upon it. The poorer is the soil, the more it must be cultivated, watered, warmed by the sun, the more also the seed sown in it must be good. When the matter is so poor that it practically amounts to nothing, an infinite power is needed to draw something, however little it may be, from this nothing. When passive power decreases, active power increases. We may go so far as to say that, when there is no longer any passive potentiality, the active power must be infinite (Ia, q. 45, a. 5 ad 3um). Only God, who is Being itself, can give to a thing the whole of its being instead of giving it a form or mode of being. Being thus suddenly originating from nothing, is the proper effect of God.

The creative act is not a formally transitive action, as if emanating from God after the manner of an accident and received in the created being. It is a formally immanent action not distinct from God’s essence. But it is said to be virtually transitive in that it produces an external fact. Creation taken in the passive sense, as it affects the creature, is merely the real relation of dependence of the creature upon the Creator. There could be no question of a real relation of God to the created being; in this case there can be only a logical relation (Ia, q. 45, a. 3; and q. 13, a. 7).

To dispel the obscurity of the mystery of creation, there has been proposed in these latter days, not a mystery but a contradiction in the employment of the terms: “Creative evolution.” The creative act requires One who is Being itself, whereas evolution is nothing else but inconsistent becoming. That which is becoming and as yet does not exist, cannot have within itself its own sufficient reason. How is it possible for becoming, which is incapable of explaining itself, to be the principle of all the rest?

Inasmuch as God made us from nothing, it follows, in the strictest sense of the term, that of ourselves we are nothing. If we take away from ourselves what we have received from God, literally speaking, nothing remains. And as action follows being, since we are not of ourselves independent of God, we do not act by ourselves independently of God. It would be a great illusion for us to think that we are the unique and all sufficient cause of the free determination of ourselves in what there is of good in this. “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” asks St. Paul. “By the grace of God,” he says, “I am what I am” (I Cor. 4:7; 15:10),

What is the end which God has in view in thus creating everything from nothing? We have already said, when speaking of His love for creatures, that the end is His own glory or the free manifestation of His goodness. God in creating cannot seek an end inferior to the sovereign Good, which is Himself. This would be unworthy of Him. It would be the subjecting of His power, of His wisdom, and of His love to a good inferior to Himself. Neither can He create for the purpose of increasing His happiness or adding to His perfection. Therefore, the end sought by God can be only His external glory, which is nothing else but the manifestation of His goodness. “He has given being to creatures in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them” (Ia, q. 47, a. 1).

As the sun emits its rays of light, so God, who is the sovereign Good, has willed to emit the rays of His light. He has been pleased to illumine, rekindle, render all things fecund, and draw them to Himself. As the star in sending forth its rays of light adorns the darkness of night, so God has been pleased to adorn the nothingness of His creatures. As the bird fills the air with its song, so God has been pleased to sound the praises of all His perfections. This radiance on the part of God, this prodigality of song external to Himself, are the expression of His internal glory. Such an end is worthy of Him. (See Vatican Council, Denzinger, n. 1783.)

In this quest of His external glory, how could we see the least trace of egotism, since this glory is but the radiation of infinite goodness, of the beneficent riches which God wishes us to share, just as the sun causes the earth to participate in its light and heat? God cannot will His external glory unless He also wills our good at the same time, and likewise we cannot will our true happiness without seeking God’s glory. If we sought only the fulfilment of our aspirations, we should remain prisoners of ourselves. We should remain captive to a romantic sentimentalism, and should not realize the magnificence of the following prayer: “Give free rein, O Lord, to the Alleluia which seeks to ascend to Thee, for my heart is bursting with joy and can contain itself no longer. Gush forth, ye torrents of joy, upon the desires which are beyond the heart’s control. Gush forth, ye torrents of glory. Alleluia!” Such is the cry of the Christian soul, and the answer to the philosophic pride that wishes God had created us only for ourselves and not for Himself. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us: but to Thy name give glory” (Ps. 113). It is humility most pronounced; compared with it pride is blind and limited. We need only compare the “non serviam” with the “Magnificat.”

This external glory of God, a manifestation of His goodness, was freely willed by Him, without any moral necessity, for God is neither greater nor happier in having created the universe. Before creation He had in Himself infinite plenitude of being, of goodness, life, and happiness; creatures have added nothing to this. After creation, there have been various beings, but there has not been more being. There have been more living beings but there has not been more life; there have been various intelligences but there has not been more wisdom or sanctity or love.

It is a dogma of our faith that God created in time and not from all eternity. According to St. Thomas (Ia, q. 46), that is dependent upon divine wisdom. Even reason cannot prove the impossibility of an eternal creation. (See supra, n. 10.)

On the first day, before sin was, the wonderful order in creation proclaimed God’s glory, just as now the starry heavens continue to show it forth. It was the most sublime symphony without any discordant note, “from the depths of nothingness to the summit of being,” from changeable matter susceptible of all passing forms even to the everlasting choirs of pure spirits, these were so many harmonious notes marvelously blended, like the melody of God the Creator. This harmony and hierarchy of beings necessarily imply inequality, The divine goodness, since it is one and simple in itself, cannot be expressed beneath itself except by a manifold variety, after the manner of coins of various value. This manifoldness cannot express the different perfections of God and the wealth of the divine ideas, unless it is itself hierarchically arranged. All the parts of a tree cannot consist of flowers; it must have roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves; all these are necessary for the beauty of the tree. So also in the universe from the stone up to the pure spirit there must be some creatures of the lower and others of a higher order (Ia, q. 47).

If the doctrine of creation is understood, then we see that the preservation of creatures follows as a consequence of this (Ia, q. 104). If, for one moment, God ceased to preserve creatures in their being, they would immediately fall into nothingness, just as the sun’s ray disappears when it ceases to give light.

The imagination does not perceive this necessity for the preservation of beings. The imagination pictures many sensible effects which do not have to be preserved by the sensible cause which brought them into being. The father and mother of a child may die after it is born, and the child continues to live.

The imagination is unable to distinguish between agents which are directly the causes merely of the becoming of their effects, and those which are causes not only of the decoming but also of the being itself of their effects. This distinction can be made only by the intellect, that faculty which is concerned with being. Some examples, however, will help to make this point clear.

The father is directly the cause of the passive generation of his son, and only indirectly of the being of his son. He may die, too, and the son may continue to live. On the contrary, other agents are causes directly both of the becoming and of the being of their effects; also, there can be no cessation of their action without a cessation of the effect. The generation of an animal depends not only upon the male parent of the animal, but also upon a vast number of cosmic influences which are also necessary for its preservation. Take away atmospheric pressure and solar heat, and the most vigorous animal will not survive for one second. In the philosophical order general agents are necessary for the preservation of beings, upon which these agents exert a beneficent influence.

Likewise, sensation or the sensible impression can subsist only so long as the object which produced it, preserves it in being. This is because it is the cause not only of its appearance, but also directly of its being. Our visual sense perception of red continues to last only because of the influence exerted by the object which causes the perception in us, A virtual focus disappears when the real focus which maintained it ceases to act.

Likewise, in the intellectual life, the knowledge of a conclusion, resulting from certain principles, disappears if we forget the principles, Why? Because they are a higher cause, a direct cause not only of becoming, but of the being of the effect. It is only because of its actually depending and not merely because of its having depended upon the principle, that the conclusion remains in force.

So too, in the volitional order, the desire continues to assert itself only so long as the good which brought it into being, attracts it. If we cease to will an end, by that very fact we cease to will the means chosen for attaining it.

It is the characteristic of a cause which is of the same species as its effect, for it to be only cause of the becoming of this effect. It is quite evident that the being of the effect cannot depend directly upon this cause, for it is as poor as the effect, participating like it in a perfection which neither of the two can have except by reason of a higher cause.

On the contrary, it is the characteristic of a cause which is of a higher order than its effects, for it to be the direct cause not only of their becoming but also of their being. Of such a nature is either the principle with regard to the consequences, or the validity of the end with regard to that of the means.

God is the supreme cause, who is the self-subsisting Being, and every creature is being by participation. Therefore it follows that the creature not only depends upon God for its becoming, at the moment when it is produced, but also depends upon Him for its very being, and this at every moment of its existence. It would immediately fall into nothingness if, for one moment, God ceased to preserve it in its being; just as the scientific knowledge of a conclusion disappears when the principle upon which it rests is forgotten, and when the objective light which causes this knowledge in us is lost to view.

If the inferior cause which accounts for the becoming of its effect, ceases to act, there is a stop to becoming. If the higher cause which directly accounts for the very being of its effect ceases to act, at this very moment the effect ceases to be.7?

“The preservation of things by God is not effected by a new divine action, but it is a continuation of that creative action whereby He gives existence. This divine action is without either motion or time” (la, q. 104, a. 1 ad gum). “Nor does He preserve things in existence otherwise than by continually pouring out existence into them” (Jdid., a. 3).

God, who freely created all things, by reason of His absolute power could annihilate all creatures by ceasing to preserve them

77 St. Thomas (Ia, q. 104, a. 1) says: “Therefore as the becoming of a thing cannot continue when that action of the agent ceases which causes the becoming of the effect: so neither can the being of m thing continue after that action of the agent has ceased which is the cause of the effect not only in becoming but also in in being. But de facto nothing is annihilated by God, neither spirits nor matter. He does not do so, either according to the ordinary course of things in nature,’® or even by working a miracle, for He has no motive for doing so. Annihilation would not be a manifestation of any divine perfection (Ia, q. 104, a. 4).

Such is the Thomistic and classical teaching of the theologians concerning the preservation of creatures. With Descartes it lost its simplicity and its profundity.

c) The divine motion (Ia, q. 105). After treating of the preservation of beings, which is a consequence of creation, St. Thomas speaks of the divine motion. We shall see what are the essential points in his teaching without insisting much on it here, for we have already spoken of the relations between the divine motion and our freedom of action in connection with God’s foreknowledge of free acts of the future (n. 49, 6). We shall have to return to this subject when we give the solution of the antinomies relating to liberty (nn. 64, 65).

St. Thomas (Ia, q. 105, a. 1) begins by saying that God can immediately transform prime matter. He alone has this power, just as He alone has been able to produce matter, which can come into existence by creation only. Only the proper cause of a determinate effect can immediately transform it; for the immediate transformation of a thing is of the same order specifically as that of its immediate production. Only God, who is able to create or produce the whole being of a substance, can change the being, inasmuch as it is being, of this substance or transubstantiate it (Illa, q. 75, a. 4). God, who alone can bring matter into existence, can transform it immediately, can change, for instance, in a

78 The corruption of animals and of plants is no more annihilation than their generation can be called creation. Their essential form was not created out of nothing like the human soul, This form was in the potentiality of the matter, and when they die, it is not annihilated but remains in the potentiality of the matter (Ia, q. 104, a. 4 ad 3um).

moment, water into wine without any predisposing accidental alterations. On the contrary, a created agent can only mediately transform matter, by means of the accidental changes it is capable of producing in it (la, q. 110, a. 2, 3, 4). Thus only our intellect can immediately modify its own judgment; the imagination can do so only mediately through the intermediary of images. This conclusion is of great importance for the discernibility of miracles. The immediate transformation of matter surpasses all created powers, both known and unknown. Now this transformation is verified in the resurrection of a dead person, in the multiplication of the loaves, in the instantaneous change of water into wine, and other such instances.

For the same reason, God, who alone was able to bring our intellects into existence by creation, can move them immediately not only by the presentation of an object, but also subjectively by enlightening them and reinforcing the intellectual faculty. Thus God alone is the cause of certitude in prophetic knowledge 7° and in supernatural faith.

God alone can move a created will subjectively. He alone was able to create it and direct it to universal good and to the sovereign Good which is Himself. The order of agents must correspond to the order of ends. He moves the will interiorly without doing any violence to it; for He maintains it in its natural inclination for universal good, and awakens in it this natural inclination when He prompts it to determine itself for some particular good (Ia, q. 105, a. 4; q. 111, a. 2); “God alone can enter the soul” (Illa, q. 64, a. 1).

Does God move all secondary causes in all their actions? (Ia, q. 105, a. 5.) Holy Scripture replies: “He worketh all in all” (I Cor. 12:6). “For in Him we live and move and are” (Acts 17:28). “Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Is. 26: 12).

We must not understand this as the Occasionalists do, in the

79 See Ia, q. 105, a. 3; q. 111, a. 1; Ila Mae, q. 173, a. 23 q. 172, a. 5 ad 2um, sense that God alone acts in all things, that it is not the fire that gives out heat but God in the fire or that the fire is the occasion of this. If it were so, remarks St. Thomas, secondary causes would not be causes and could not act, and their existence would be to no purpose. Their powerlessness would prove, moreover, that God was unable to communicate action and life to them, after the manner of an artist who can produce only lifeless works; and this would imply lack of power in the Creator. Occasionalism leads to Pantheism, for operation follows being; and the mode of operation, the mode of being. If there were only one operation, the divine operation, then there would be only one being; creatures are absorbed in God; abstract being becomes identified with the divine being, as required by Ontological Realism, which is so dear to Malebranche and, according to his theory, is so closely connected with Occasionalism.

Molinism is, as we shall see, diametrically opposed to Occasionalism. It maintains that the secondary cause can act without divine premotion. Whereas Malebranche admits the theory of Ontological Realism, according to which we see all things in God, Molina, as we know, has much in common with the Nominalists.

The view taken by St. Thomas is more exalted than these extreme doctrines, which are true in what they affirm, but false in what they deny. The basic principles of the Thomistic thesis have been already stated. They are moderate realism and the analogy of being. Only God is Being itself; the creature is a composite of essence and existence. Now, operation follows being; and the mode of operation, the mode of being. Therefore only God is self-active; the creature really acts just as it really exists, but it acts only by God’s help.

How are we to understand this? St. Thomas answers (Ia, q. 105, a. 5): “(1) God moves all secondary causes, first as an end. For every operation is for the sake of some good and every good participates in the likeness to the Supreme Good. (2) God moves every secondary cause in the right of first agent. Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the first agent always moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself; and therefore He is the cause of action in every created agent.8° (3) God not only moves all things to operate, as the workman applies the axe to cut, but He gives to each creature its nature and preserves this in each. He gives what is innermost to each, its very being, preserving this in each. Thus God works intimately in all things.”

“God not only gives things their form (or nature), but He also preserves them in existence, and applies them to act (applicat eas ad agendum), and is the end of every action” (ibid., ad 3um). “One action does not proceed from two agents of the same order. But nothing hinders the same action from proceeding from a primary and a secondary agent” (ad 2um). “God works sufficiently in things as First Agent, but it does not follow from this that the operation of secondary agents is superfluous” (ad rum).

St. Thomas develops the same doctrine in the Contra Gentes

80 St., Thomas (Ia Mae, q. 111, a. 2), when treating of operating and cooperating grace, undoubtedly distinguishes two movements in the will: “A first in which the will is moved without moving itself, and it is with reference to this that we speak of operating grace. There is a second movement in which the will both moves and is moved, and it is with reference to this that we speak of cooperating grace.” But even in this second act in which the will moves, the divine co-operating motion has a priority of nature over the motion which the will exerts upon itself, It is a case of applying the principle enunciated in the fifth article of question 105, the one which we are now explaining: “Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the first agent moves the second to act. And then all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action tn every agent,”

“And He alone can change this inclination (of the will), who bestowed on the creature the power to will” (Ia, q. 106, a. 2). “Every act of the will, inasmuch as it is an act, not only is from the will as the immediate agent, but it is also from God as the primary agent, who more vehemently impels it. Wherefore, just as the will can change its act for another, much more so can God do this in it” (De veritate, q. 22, a. 8; also a. 9), “Man cannot make use of the will power given to him except inasmuch as he acts by God's power” (Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, ch. Ixxxix).

(Bk. III, ch. xvii). In the De potentia (q. 3, a. 7) he shows that God is the cause of every created action and this in four ways: (1) because He has given to the creature the power or the faculty to act; (2) because He preserves this in the creature; (3) because He applies this to action inasmuch as He moves it to act, by which is not meant a bestowal or preservation of the active power but the application of the faculty to action; (4) because He moves it, as the principal agent moves its instrument so as to produce in the effect what is beyond the proper power of the instrument to produce, which in this case is the being itself of the action. In fact, being is that which in all things is most profound and most universal; consequently it is the effect which belongs properly to God, just as the effect which belongs properly to the artist is that which he alone produces by the way in which he animates and ennobles his instrument. “Nor does anything act to produce being except by God’s power. For it is precisely being that is the most common of all effects, the first effect and more intimate than all other effects; and therefore it befits only God in accordance with the proper power of such effect.” Likewise every participated absolute perfection (simpliciter simplex, absolutely simple), such as liberty or intellect, requires for its actualization God's intervention, in the rôle, for instance, of the First Intelligent and of the First Free Being.*?

What then does the second cause do? St. Thomas answers in the article just referred to, that it is the cause of the action precisely inasmuch as this latter is this individual action. In like manner, he says (Ia, q. 104, a. 1): “Of two things in the same species one cannot directly cause the other’s form as such (of such a species), since it would then be the cause of its own form which is essentially the same as the form of the other; but it can be the

81“A more perfect order prevails in spiritual beings than in corporeal. But in corporeal beings, all motion is caused by the first motion. Therefore, in spiritual beings, it must needs be that every movement of the will be caused by the first will, which is the will of God.” Contra Gentes, Bk. III, ch. Ixxxix.

cause of this form for as much as it is in matter; in other words, it may be the cause that ¢Ais matter receives this form. Thus it is the cause of the becoming of the effect and not directly of its being,” as we have shown in the preceding section apropos of the preservation of creatures,

The second cause is therefore the instrumental cause of the being precisely as being of its effect, which under this aspect depends directly upon God. Does it follow, as maintained by Occasionalism, that it is not properly the cause of anything? Not at all, for st is the proper cause of the becoming and consequently of the individuality of its effect.

Must we say with Molina, whose view is the very reverse of Occasionalism, that the secondary cause exerts its own causality without the need of its being premoved by the first cause? That is impossible, for the secondary cause exerts its own causality only under the influence of the first cause, which applies it to its act.8* Why is this? Since of itself the secondary cause cannot reduce itself from potentiality to act, it must be moved or applied to act. Besides, the individuality of its effect is still being, and for this reason it depends upon the first cause.

Just as being is common to all things and penetrates their most minute particularizations, so the transcendent cause of the being precisely as such of things, remains the first cause of everything that exists. But whoever speaks of a first cause does not speak of the sole and immediate cause of everything that exists. We cannot, says St. Thomas, distinguish in the reality of a given effect, between what would depend exclusively upon God and what would depend solely upon the secondary cause: “non est distinctum quod est ex causa secunda et ex causa prima, there is no dis-

82 Thus the instrument produces its proper effect only because it is applied to produce this, and it produces its instrumental or higher effect only because it is ennobled by the principle agent. The pen leaves its imprint on the paper only because it is moved by the hand, and it leaves an artistic imprint because it is manipulated by an artist. He alone knows how to move it with artistic effect.

tinction between what proceeds from a secondary cause and from a first cause” (la, q. 23, a. 5). Thus the resulting action is attributed entirely to the created agent which acts as a secondary cause, and it is attributed entirely to God who acts as primary cause. It is only evil which, since it is a deficiency, depends exclusively upon the created and defective cause.

Thus Thomism avoids the two opposite extremes of Occasionalism and of Molinism. It excels them, only their negations being rejected, by means of an affirmative of a higher order. The reason for this is because it contains every positive element found in them. Occasionalism suppresses created causality. Molinism views the first and secondary causes as two partial and co-ordinated causes of one effect, which may be likened, says Molina, to two men pulling a boat. This does away with the universal causality of the primary agent. Thomism looks upon the first cause and the secondary as two total causes, one of them being subordinate to the other. Both created causality and the universal causality of the First Cause are affirmed by it. It is neither dualism nor Monism nor Pantheism, but the perfect subordination of the created to the uncreated. There is an abundance of texts in which St. Thomas applies these principles to liberty.**

83 We have quoted them already (n. 49, $) in connection with God’s foreknowledge of future free acts, and we will again refer to them in nn. 64, 65, when we offer a solution of the antinomies relative to liberty. It suffices here to quote Ia, q. 19, a. 8; q. 22, a- 2 ad gum: “But since the very act of free will is traced to God as to a cause, it necessarily follows that everything happening from the exercise of free will must be subject to divine providence.” Also Ia, q. 83, a. r ad 3um: “God by moving voluntary causes does not deprive their actions of being voluntary, but He is the cause rather of this very thing in them.” Sce also Ia, q. 103, a. 5-8; q. 105, a. 4; q. 106, a. 2: “He alone can change this inclination (of the will), who bestowed on the creature the power to will.” Cf. also Ia Iae, q. 10, a. 4 ad rum and 3um; la Iae, q. 109, a. 1.

Also Contra Gentes, Bk. I, ch. lxviii; Bk. III, chs, lxx, Ixxxix, xc, xci, xciv: “How the movement of the will is caused by God and not solely from the power of the will. That choice and the human will are subject to divine providence.” “All intellects and wills, like instruments which depend upon the principal agent, are dependent upon God who is the first Intellect and the first Will.” Bk. HI, ch. cexlviii, De veritate, q. 22, a. 8, 9; q. 24, a. 14. De malo, q. 6, a. t ad 3um; q. 16,

But how are we to conceive of the divine action which produces in this way an effect that is external to God? This action, as was said in connection with creation, is formally immanent and virtually transitive. There is no real distinction between it and the being itself of God (Ia, q. 25, a. 1 ad 3um). It is not formally transitive as is the accidental action of a created agent which is received in the “patient” upon which it operates. But it is said to be virtually transitive since it possesses in an eminent degree all the perfection of a transitive action to the exclusion of its imperfections, and since it can consequently produce an external effect.

Is there not, however, any created motion which is received in the secondary cause? Is operating or co-operating actual grace merely the uncreated action of God, or is it the salutary act of which this uncreated action is said to be the cause?

St. Thomas replies in the article in which he treats this question ex professo and more at length (De potentia, q. 3, a. 7 ad 7um). He says: “What is produced by God in the secondary cause and in virtue of which it actually acts, is in it in a way intentional and transitory, just as colors are in the air or artistic motion is in the instrument manipulated by the artist.” 54 Likewise, in connection with actual grace, he says that it is in the soul “a gratuitous effect on the part of God, a certain movement of the soul . . . inasmuch as man’s soul is moved by God to know or will or do something” (Ia Iae, q. 110, a. 2). Finally we read in Contra Gentes (Bk. III, a. 8; q. 3, a. 2 ad gum: “When anything moves itself, this does not exclude its being moved by another, from which it has even this that it moves itself. Thus it is not repugnant to liberty that God is the cause of the free act of the will.”

84“That which is effected by God in the natural thing, by which it actually acts, is only as intentional, having a certain incomplete existence, in the way in which colors are in the air and artistic power is in the instrument of the artist. . . . The proper power could be conferred upon the natural thing, as its permanent form, but not as m force by which it acts to produce being as the instrument of the first cause, unless there were given to it to be the universal principle of being. Nor again could there be conferred upon it by natural power that it should move itself, or that it should preserve itself in being.”

ch. cxlix): “By right of reason and causality the motion of the mover precedes the motion of the thing movable.” And in Book III, ch. lxvi, we read: “For the secondary agent receives its complement of power from the primary agent.”

Such is the teaching of St. Thomas upon divine motion. We are astonished that certain persons should have sought to see in this merely an extrinsic assistance on the part of God. The texts do not permit of such an interpretation.®*

85 Sce John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, philosophia naturalis, q. 25, a. 2: “That motion cannot be the operation itself of the created cause, if indeed that motion is previous to such operation and moves the being to the same. It is not, therefore, the action itself of the created cause, for this action cannot move the cause as agent but as patient.”

Sce also Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio (1907 ed.), Part Il, pp. 178-295, and Part III, ch. xii, pp. 478-521, for his criticism of the interpretation of St. Thomas and of Cajetan given by Cardinals Pecci and Satolli, as well as by Bishop Paquet and Bishop Jansens. In opposition to the Molinists and the Suarezjans, these theologians teach that middle knowledge is inconceivable, and that the divine influx necessary for the free act is a physical motion, co-operating and intrinsically efficacious. But in addition to this they say that this motion is not previous and that it has neither priority of time nor of nature over the secondary cause. They tell us that St. Thomas spoke only of motion, and not of premotion, which latter would be to favor Determinism,

Del Prado (Bk. III, pp. 501-507) shows that this new interpretation cannot be called Cajetan-Thomist, but merely Bellarmine-Congruist. In fact, it must logically end in Bellarmine’s thesis on both motion and foreknowledge.

It is evident that, according to St. Thomas and Cajetan, the divine co-operating motion has a priority, not of time, but of nature or of causality over the secondary cause, since it is in virtue of this cause that the secondary cause acts. True, it moves itself, but as a subordinate agent and in virtue of the first agent (la, q. 105, a.5).

If St. Thomas does not use the word “premotion” it is because this word implies a tautology; all motion has a priority of nature and of causality over its effect. If the Thomists use this word, they do so in order to prevent the divine motion, such as it is conceived by St. Thomas, from being confused with the simultaneous concurrence as devised by Molina. Finally, premotion does not lead to Determinism; rather it is the only answer to the Determinists’ objection based upon the principle of causality.

Co-operating grace retains a priority over our activity. “Grace is said to be cooperating inasmuch as it gives the inclination to the intrinsic and extrinsic act, and inasmuch as it endows the faculty with the gift of final perseverance” (De veritate, Q. 27, a. 5 ad rum). See also la Hae, q. 111, a. 2.

Father Sertillanges (S. Thomas d'Aquin, I, 265) writes: “How much dust has

Objections of the Molinists to the Thomistic doctrine. With regard to the divine motion, Molina and Suarez thought they must abandon the teaching of St. Thomas. Molina, after presenting this doctrine as given by St. Thomas (Ia, q. 105, a. 5), writes: “There are two difficulties in it for me: (1) I do not see what is in secondary causes, this application by which God moves and applies these causes to act. I think rather that the fire heats without the need of its being moved to act. And I frankly confess that it is very difficult for me to understand this motion and application which St. Thomas requires in secondary causes. (2) There is another difficulty. According to this doctrine, God does not concur immediately (¢mmediatione suppositi) in the action and in the effect of secondary causes, but only through the intermediary of these causes.”

Molina could have found the solution of these two difficulties in the passage of the De potentia (q. 3, a. 7 ad 7um) which we have just quoted, in which it is said that there is a direct influx been raised about these two words, ‘physical premotion,’ The greater number of people have not taken into account that, if one wishes by this phrase to qualify the very action of God, conceived as in relation to ours, what in the first place is forgotten is the general law that the relations are not from God to us, but solely from us to God. And afterwards, as regards the present case, a threefold verbal heresy is committed. First, a heresy as regards the plan of action, which is not ‘physical’ but ontological. Then there is a heresy as regards its form, which is not properly ‘motion,’ but creation. Finally, there is a heresy as regards its measure, which is not temporal (prae: before), but immobile and adequate with eternity.”

As a matter of fact, the Thomists all teach that even God's external action (ad extra) is formally immanent and virtually transitive. When they speak of the divine motion, as in the case of operating and co-operating grace, if they call it physical, it is not as opposed to metaphysics but to morality or objectivity. If they say it is premotion, that is not because they admit a priority of time, but only of nature. Finally, we cannot admit that the divine action which moves secondary causes to act is properly creation and not motion; for creation is the production of the whole being of a thing from nothingness, If God were to create our acts instead of moving us to produce them, He alone would act, and then Occasionalism would be true. St. Thomas, who always speaks in a formal manner, distinguishes between creation and motion, and he does not even admit that sanctifying grace is produced in our soul by creation, but that it is deduced from the obediential potentiality of the soul.

from God upon the entity of the action and of the effect. But what interests us in his objection is the way he avows that physical premotion is really to be found in the works of St. Thomas. Later on, indeed, many Molinists, in order to avoid being in direct opposition to St. Thomas, claimed that this doctrine had been devised by Bannez, and they called it Bannezianism.*® Even now several manuals thus designate it.

The Jesuits of Coimbra,8* like Molina, acknowledge that physical premotion was taught by St. Thomas and his earliest commentators, Capreolus and Ferrariensis. lt is a previous motion, a certain influx and motion which is, as it were, an intentional entity of the divine power by which secondary causes are aroused to action. Bellarmine ** and also Toletus, S.J.,°° speak in the same way. Suarez °° also admits it, although he gratuitously asserts and maintains that later on St. Thomas made a tacit retractation of it. (Cf. Dummermuth, op. cit., p. 216, note 1.)

Rejecting the divine premotion, Molina and Suarez acknowledge merely a simultaneous divine concurrence. “This general concurrence on God's part,” says Molina,®! “is not an influx received in the secondary cause which premoves it to act and to produce its effect, but it is an influx immediately exerted upon the action and the effect along with the secondary cause.” If such be

86 On this point see Billuart, De gratia, diss. 5, a. 7, sec. 3; Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio, Part IIl, p. 427; Dummermuth, S. Thomas et doctrina praemotionis physicae. Cardinal Gonzalez, O.P., in his Philosophia elementaris (Bk. IV, Theodicea, ch. iv, a. 3), writes as follows: “Certain persons, in their endeavor to turn light into darkness, are not afraid to assert that it was only the doctrine of simultaneous concurrence but not that of physical premotion which St. Thomas so ardently defended. . . . To be sure, Molina and certain disciples of his treat this subject in a more honorable and dignified manner when they candidly acknowledge that, on this point, they depart from the teaching of St. Thomas.”

87 Conimbricenses, In physicam, Bk. Il, ch. vii, q. 15.

88 De gratia et libero arbitrio, IV, ch. xvi.

89 See the texts of Toletus quoted by Dummermuth, S. Thomas et doctrina praemotionis physicae, pp. 689-699.

90 Suarez, Disp, metaph., disp. 22, sec. 2, and De auxiliis gratiae, III, ch. xxxviii.

the case, it is no longer true to say that God moves secondary causes to act or applies them to their operations. Quite to the contrary, God and the secondary cause would be two partial and co-ordinated causes. Says Molina: “It is as when two men are pulling a boat. All the motion comes from each of them, although each one is not the total cause of the motion.” ®? Moreover, Molina expressly says: “For us the divine concurrence does not determine the will to consent. On the contrary, it is the particular influx of the free will which determines the divine concurrence in the act, according as the will proceeds to will rather than not to will, willing this thing rather than that.” °° Secondary causes, far from being determined by God, by their action determine the very exercise of the divine causality,®°* which of itself is indifferent. But if it be so, then there is something which escapes the universal causality of the first agent; for, in fine, the influx exerted by the secondary cause is really something, this being a perfection for it to pass into act?” How can it, of itself alone, give itself this perfection which it did not possess? The greater does not come from the less, this being contrary to the principle of causality and to the principle of the universal causality of the first agent. Is it by going against the principle of causality that we can refute Determinism? Is it not rather by insisting upon the transcendent

94 As Goudin remarks in his Philosophia (De praemotione, art. 1), the Thomists teach with St. Thomas that the divine motion adapts itself to the nature of secondary causes, for God moves beings according to their nature; whereas Molinists teach that the divine concurrence is determined effectively by the secondary causes.

95 The Molinists answer this by saying: "The transition to act” is nothing which is external to the being of the cause and to the being of the operation which explains the simultaneous concurrence, The Thomists do not claim that the “transition to act” is an entity distinct from the act. It is the act itself im fieri: in the becoming. But the fact of producing its act, of “determining itself,” is so truly a perfection for the will, that the entire system of Molinism is devised to safeguard this delicate perfection, which not even God can influence, so they say. On this point, cf. H. Gayraud, Thomisme et Molinisme, p. 167.

efficacy of the first cause that this is accomplished? The Molinists have a dread of the intrinsic efficacy of divine grace; they fear that it does away with liberty. On the contrary, St. Thomas says (Ia, q. 19, a. 8) that if liberty remains intact it is precisely because of the transcendent efficacy of the divine causality which is capable of realizing not only what it wills, but also as to the manner of its being done (either necessarily or freely), which has been willed from all eternity.°°

In the second place, in the transition to act independently of God, how can the secondary cause determine the divine concurrence both as to its functioning and as to its specification? To determine it in this manner is to perfect it, which would be a reversal of the rôle assigned to each. God cannot wait for the human being to arouse himself from a state of indifference and perfect his own concurrence. God would thus be under the influence of created causes and would be submitting to their direction.

It would be the same as if we were to admit an indifferent premotion, by which God would determine us merely to an indeliberate act, in such a manner that the free will would determine itself and the divine motion to produce this or that particular act. Something real would escape God’s universal causality. There would be a determination independent of God’s supreme determination, which is that of pure Act. A secondary liberty would be found acting independently of the primary liberty. The main thing in the work of salvation, the determining of our salutary act, would not come from the Author of salvation. 2T

They bring forward the objection that the will, already moved by God to will its happiness, is in act and consequently can of

96 “Since, then, the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills” (Ia, q. 19, a. 8).

97 Cf, infra, n. 65, and Appendix IV, “St, Thomas and Neomolinism,” ch. i, art. 1; ch, iv, art, r.

itself alone reduce itself to the act which consists in choosing the means. This interpretation claims to be based upon a passage of St. Thomas (Ia Iae, q. 9, a. 6 ad 3um). This passage cannot be understood in this sense.®® To the objection that, “if God alone moves the will, it can never commit sin,” St. Thomas replies: “The will is not only moved by God but it also moves itself; consequently it can fail.” St. Thomas does not say that the will of itself alone reduces itself in act to choose the means.

This answer by no means excludes the divine motion necessary for the act to be a free one, a motion which is, as we have seen, always affirmed by St. Thomas,*® even for the physical act of sin (Ia Illae, q. 79, a. 2).1°? Moreover, concerning the manner in which the will ts moved by God and moves itself under the influence of the divine motion, this point is clearly explained (Ia Ilae, q. 111, a 2): “There is a first kind of act in which the will 1°? is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover; this is called operating grace. There is a second act in which the will both moves and is moved, then the operation is attributed not only to God, but also to the soul, and in this case the grace is said to be co-operating.” Likewise (Ia, q. 63, a. 5) it

®8 We have already quoted and explained this passage in n. 49, B. “God moves man’s will, as the Universal Mover, to the universal object of the will, which is good. And without this universal motion, man cannot will anything. But man determines himself by his reason to will this or that, which is true or apparent good. Nevertheless, sometimes God moves some specially to the willing of something determinate, which is good; as in the case of those whom He moves by grace, as we shall see later on” (Ia. Ilae, q. 109, 112). From this passage we see that God is not alone in moving the will but that the will also moves itself under the influence of the divine motion, In the following question (Ia Ilac, q. 10, a. 4), St. Thomas states precisely the manner in which the will is moved by God in the emission of its free act. “It is moved freely as befitting its nature.”

99 St. Thomas often insists upon this in these terms: “When anything moves itself this does not exclude its being moved by another from which it derives even this that it moves itself. Thus it is not repugnant to liberty for God to be the cause of the act of the free will.” De malo, q. 3, a. 2 ad gum.

100 See infra, n. 65, “Moral evil and the divine universal causality.”

101 In the text the word “mind” occurs, for the divine motion is exerted not only on the will but also on the intellect.

is stated that the angels could not have sinned in the first instant of their creation, but only in the second.

In its second act the will is not only mobile but also agent; we have here an application of the general principle enunciated by St. Thomas (Ia, q. 105, a. 5), when he discusses this question ex professo: “Where there are several agents in order, the second always acts [in this case the will which moves itself] in virtue of the first: for the first agent moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent.” The secondary cause acts only in virtue of the influence exerted upon it by the first cause. But God is not bound to prevent a naturally defectible agent from failing sometimes,

Neither can we say that premotion is merely required for the transition from the potentiality of choosing to the actual choice of a thing, and that it depends solely upon ourselves whether this choice is accepted or refused (volitio vel nolitio, volition or nolition). If such were the case, our act, inasmuch as it is an entity, would but imperfectly depend upon God, and inasmuch as it is determined, it would not depend upon Him. Now, liberty in us is, like being, the participation of an absolute perfection (perfectio simpliciter simplex, an absolutely simple perfection). Also, since every being as such depends upon the uncreated Being, every secondary liberty as such depends upon the primary liberty; and for the same reason, every created determination depends upon the supreme determination, which is that of pure Act. God would no longer be pure Act if there were a single determination or a single act not dependent upon Him for its existence. Moreover, if in these given circumstances the divine motion is indifferent, then it would be actually inclined to both good and evil; the determination of our salutary act would not come from the Author of salvation. Contrary to the testimony of St. Paul when he says: “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7), it would be man himself who does the distinguishing.

Finally, if we reject premotion in the Thomistic sense, we are led to the theory of middle knowledge, which attributes a passivity to God and which, instead of safeguarding created liberty, implies determinism of the circumstances. (See n. 49, B.)

“Every being, whatever the mode of its being, must be derived from the First Being . . . God is the cause of every action, in so far as it is an action” (Ia Iae, q. 79, a. 2). “Every movement of the will must be caused by the first will which is God's will” (Contra Gentes, Bk. III, ch. Ixxxix). “Thou hast wrought all our works for us” (Is. 26: 12).

Conclusion, From this we see that Thomism, which is at the terminus of descendent metaphysics, while explaining the startingpoint of ascendent metaphysics, reunites itself to it. This startingpoint was twofold: rational and experimental. On the rational side we have the first principles of reason, especially the principle of identity or of contradiction; on the experimental side we have the facts of experience, especially the movement of sensible things and that of our conscious life. From the closeness of approach of the principle of identity (affirmed by Parmenides) to that of movement (affirmed by Heraclitus), has originated the Aristotelian doctrine of potentiality and act, the only one capable of upholding the existence of becoming without denying the real validity of the first principle of reason. This doctrine contains what truth there is in the exaggerated realism of such Intellectualists as Parmenides and the more modern Spinoza, and in the Nominalism of such Empirics as Heraclitus and many modern philosophers. It serves as a guide for the distinction made in every finite being between potentiality and act, between essence and existence. In virtue of the principles of identity and causality, it leads us necessarily to affirm the existence of a first cause, of a pure act, of one who is Being itself in whom essence and existence are identical. Such a concept of God makes Him essentially distinct from beings in the world, which are composed of essence and existence and which are subjects of motion. It is the terminus of ascendent metaphysics.

The descendent metaphysics is explained by the higher principles, by the supreme Cause and by those facts which served as starting-point for us and especially by the principle of movement. Operation follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being. Therefore He alone who is Being itself can be self-active, and no other being can either exist or act except by reason of its dependence upon God. This doctrine is that of the creation and the preservation of beings and of the divine motion. Thus we come back to motion and explain it without causing any detriment to the principles of identity and causality.

It has not been sufficiently pointed out how the systems opposed to Thomism in the descendent metaphysics are closely related with those opposed to the ascendent metaphysics of Aristotle. When Aristotle gave us his teaching on potentiality and act, in the first two books of his Physics, and in the ninth book of his Metaphysics, he had against him on the one hand the Megarians who were disciples of Parmenides and who denied potentiality, admitting only act; they were Determinists and the forerunners of Spinoza and Leibniz. On the other hand, Aristotle had against him the disciples of Heraclitus who denied all determination or all act. This sort of contingency has often reappeared among modern philosophers.

Thomism in its descendent metaphysics, when seeking to reconcile the divine with created causality, likewise encounters two opposing systems: on the one hand, Occasionalism, denying created potentiality and created causality; Leibnizian Dynamism, reducing potentiality to a prevented act, which it calls force; and Jansenism, maintaining there is no proximate power of doing good apart from the very performance of the good act. All these ways of viewing the subject recall what the Megarians said, namely, that there is no potentiality as distinct from act. (See Metaphysics, Bk. IX, ch, iii; St. Thomas, lect. 3.)

On the other hand, Thomism encounters Molinism, which is a sort of Indeterminism, in which the absolute exigencies of the principle of causality are no longer safeguarded. Determinism is not answered by imposing a restriction upon the principle of causality; rather the answer is to be found in the concept of potentiality (undetermined being), and in the transcendent efficacy of the first agent, a transcendence which, instead of clashing with created causality, is the cause of it and of the freedom of our acts.

Thomistic metaphysics, whether it reaches God by the ascendent order or the descendent order, is certainly not an Eclecticism, a middle system, favoring a sort of half-way position between the extremes, Its method has nothing in common with Opportunism. The very essence of Thomism is based upon a law which is peculiar to itself. It is therefore superior to the contrary systems which it attacks, and to the intermediate systems which it surpasses. Thus good is superior to evil, by way of excess in the former and by way of defect in the latter, and it is also above the mediocre. From this point of view, the opposing systems appear true in what they affirm, and false in what they deny. In accordance with the findings of philosophy, Thomism effects a reconciliation between the demands of reason and those of experience, and it ultimately reconciles even divine with created causality, without taking anything away from either. (See infra, ch. iv.)

d) The possibility of miracles (Ia, q. 105, a. 6-8). For the completion of this question of God’s omnipotence, it remains for us to say a few words about the possibility of miracles. A miracle, as the word implies, excites admiration and is an effect accomplished by God outside the order of nature. Rationalism aims to reduce a miracle to an extraordinary event that results from natural laws still unknown, but an event which religious feeling regards as a manifestation of divine benevolence toward us. Contrary to this, the Church considers a miracle to be a divine fact which manifestly displays the intervention of divine omnipotence: “factum divinum Dei omnipotentian luculenter commonstrans.” 19? St. Thomas explicitly defines “miracle” as an effect produced by God in the world, an effect which is beyond the sphere of action of all created natures. “In this anything is said to be miraculous, in that it is against the order of the whole created nature. But God alone can do this” (Ia, q. 110, a. 4). Thus defined, a miracle is not beyond the ordination of divine Providence, but is merely beyond the sphere of action of all created natures. At any rate, it would not be enough for a miracle to be beyond the causal laws of some particular nature, for otherwise to throw a stone upward would be a miracle, since according to the very law of its nature, the stone must fall. But if the miraculous effect must exceed all created forces, it does not have to exceed all created natures. The resurrection of the body restores supernaturally to the corpse a natural and not a supernatural life, as is that of grace. Only grace, which is a participation of the divine nature, exceeds all created natures. Therefore, in defining miracle, we must speak only of the order of action and not of the order of being or of essence in created natures,

Thus defined, there is an essential difference between a miracle and natural occurrences whether extraordinary or fortuitous; as also between a miracle and either diabolical manifestations or ordinary divine interventions such as the preservation of created things, the creation of souls, and the divine motion required for every agent that it may act. It is also distinct from the infusion of grace as in the case of conversion (Ia Iae, q. 113, a. 9, 10).

102 Vatican Council, Denzinger, 1790. On this question of miracles, cf. also Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, Il, 35-106,

Miracles are divided into three kinds according to the various ways in which they surpass all created powers (Ia, q. 105, a. 8). (1) A miracle may surpass these powers in the very essence of the effect produced, as in the case of the glorious resurrection from the dead. The glorification of the body, reflecting that of the soul, is an effect which by its nature exceeds the power of every created cause. (2) The miraculous effect may surpass all created powers as regards the subject in which it is produced, and not as regards its essence, as when these powers are able to produce it in another subject. Thus nature is able to produce life, but not in a corpse. The raising of a person to life and the cure of a person incurably blind, are miracles of this class. (3) The miraculous effect may surpass all created powers merely according to the mode in which it is produced. Of this kind are the instantaneous cure of a disease which cannot be cured by natural means except after some time, or again the immediate changing of water into wine.

The possibility of miracles when so defined, is denied by those who reject God's existence or His providence or His liberty or His omnipotence. To prove this possibility, it does not suffice to appeal to His omnipotence viewed apart from His liberty, for a miracle is the effect of an exceptional intervention of God’s liberty in the world. And Spinoza who, though directly denying God’s omnipotence, rejected His liberty, must deny the possibility of miracles. In fact, if God acted externally, always according to a necessity of nature, He could produce effects which surpass created powers (such as creation, preservation, concurrence, or ordinary motion), but He would always produce them in the same manner, just as the vital principle in plants always produce in the same way the vital phenomena which are superior to the physico-chemical phenomena. St. Thomas, too, has recourse formally to the divine liberty in proving the possibility of miracles (Ia, q. 105, a. 6).

His proof may be reduced to the following demonstration. A free cause, upon which depends the application of hypothetically necessary laws and which is not restricted to laws of a certain order, can act externally. Now, God is a free and omnipotent cause, upon which depends the application of all hypothetically necessary laws which constitute the natural order of action of created agents, and the divine liberty is not restricted to this order. Therefore this cause can act externally or perform miracles.

The major of this demonstration is made clear by examples and by an analysis of the concepts.

A current example is the following: a man is free to throw a stone up in the air, and this is a suspension of the hypothetically necessary law that the stone left to itself will fall to the surface of the earth, tending toward its center. Likewise the artist produces an artistic effect beyond the natural power of the instrument which he uses. The musician elevates and animates, so to speak, the harp which he holds in his hands; manipulated by another, whatever effect this instrument would produce, there would be nothing artistic about it. Moreover, if the musician is an artist of genius, he can act beyond and above the ordinary laws of his art; then he produces a work which is not only beautiful but sublime and, as it were, a miracle in the order of art. By this fortunate exception the ordinary laws of art are neither destroyed nor contested. The only thing is that their application has been suspended.

This is also made evident by an analysis of the concepts implied in the major of our proof. If, indeed, the application of the hypothetically necessary laws depends upon a free cause, this cause enjoys in this respect liberty of action. If, besides this, it is not restricted to this order of laws, it thus enjoys liberty of specification. Therefore it can, not only suspend the action of natural laws, but act positively outside of them.

The minor of our demonstration is comprised of two parts. Beginning with the second part, that referring to the world, which is the object of our sense experience, we shall arrive at the first, which relates to divine liberty.

The order of action of all created natures is established by hypothetically necessary laws. Hypothetical necessity is that which is based upon the extrinsic cause of a thing (efficient and final causes), in opposition to absolute necessity, which is based upon the intrinsic causes (formal and material causes), Now, the order of action of all created natures is established evidently by causal laws which have reference to efficient causality. Therefore the order of action of all created natures is established by laws which are hypothetically necessary.

For a complete understanding of this, it suffices to contrast absolute with hypothetical necessity. Absolute necessity is based upon the intrinsic causes or upon the very nature of a thing. Thus it is that a triangle of necessity has its three angles equal to two right angles by reason of its very nature. And whatever Descartes may have said, not even by performing a miracle can God make a triangle the three angles of which would not equal two right angles; for in that case the triangle would be at the same time a triangle and not a triangle. Spinoza’s error consisted in trying to reduce the physical laws to mathematical laws. This necessarily led him to deny the possibility of miracles. God cannot act outside of absolutely necessary laws, such as mathematical and metaphysical laws, which are based intrinsically upon the very natures of things. On the contrary, hypothetical necessity is based upon the extrinsic causes of things. Granted that a certain agent may act, according to the natural conditions it produces of necessity a certain effect. Thus it is that fire, if it acts, burns, and does not chill. But this hypothetical law does not prevent the action from being arrested or modified by a higher law. So in reference to the final cause, man must have two eyes in order to see well. However, he does not cease to be a man if he becomes blind in one eye or in both eyes. (See St. Thomas, Met. Arist, Bk. V, ch. 5, lect. 6; and Ia, q. 19, a. 3.)

Is the order of action of all created natures established by hypothetically necessary laws? The answer is evident: since it is an order of action, it is established by causal laws which have reference to efficient causality and which express the mode of action of created agents. Such a natural agent, if it acts, necessarily produces this effect, but that does not exclude the possibility of the intervention of a higher agent which arrests or modifies the action of the first. We may divide natural laws into positive and negative. The former express what created nature can do if left to itself. These hypothetical laws do not exclude the intervention of a higher agent. Negative laws express what created nature, if left to itself, cannot do; for instance, nature cannot raise a dead man to life; but this hypothetical law does not make the resurrection of one from the dead absolutely impossible. Why could not God do what created powers are unable to effect?

If God intervenes by working a miracle, these hypothetically necessary laws are not destroyed nor in any way impaired. It is only their application which is suspended by a fortunate exception which proves the rule. If only God can raise a dead person to life, this proves, moreover, that nature cannot do so; and it follows that a corpse naturally putrifies. Even if God prevents the action of fire, the fire retains its natural power to burn. It is only the exercize of the power that is suspended.

The second part of the minor of our proof has reference to divine liberty. God is a free and omnipotent cause upon which depends the application of all the hypothetically necessary laws of the natural order and which is not restricted to this order.

We have already established the fact that God is free with regard to created good things, which cannot increase His infinite happiness. Therefore He is free to create and choose such or such a world rather than a certain other. He could not have created better, that is, with more wisdom, but He could have made a better world. Thus the animal has not its parts arranged better than those of the plant, but it is a better or more perfect being. There is always an infinite difference between a creature, however perfect it may be, and the infinite goodness that it reflects; it could not exhaust the divine omnipotence.

The application of all hypothetically necessary laws is evidently dependent upon the divine liberty. For the application of these laws presupposes the presence of the action of created agents. Now, the action of every created agent depends upon the free action of the first cause, as every natural end is subordinate to the ultimate end willed by God. As the action of our hand depends upon that of our liberty, so the action of created causes depends upon that of the divine liberty.

Therefore God can act outside of and above the order of action of all created nature; He can work miracles. In an unseen manner He can prevent a natural action, for instance, that of fire. He can also produce an effect which surpasses all created powers either as to its essence (the glorification of the body), or as to the subject in which it is realized (the non-glorious resurrection), or as to the mode in which it is produced (the sudden change of water into wine).

There must be, it is true, a sufficient motive for God thus to intervene outside the natural laws. But if He, the pure Spirit, wills to manifest Himself to our souls held captive by the senses, if He wills to reveal to us a truth of salvation or the sanctity of one of His servants who will be a model for us in the practice of virtues, is not this more than a sufficient motive? All bodies are subordinated to the spirit, and the created spirit has for its end to know God. If God wills to reveal Himself to us, why could He not suspend for a moment the course of things in the sensible order? In comparison with a soul, all bodies taken together count for nothing. (See Contra Gentes, Bk. III, ch. xcix, in fine.)

Such is the Thomistic and classical demonstration of the possibility of miracles. By means of the principles we have just stated, it would be easy to solve the objections, which can readily be shown not to differ from those examined by St. Thomas in the Summa (la, q. 105, a. 6), and more at length in his De potentia (q. 6, a. 1).

As to the discernibility of miracles, the principles expounded in the beginning of the preceding chapter enable us to answer the current objection that, before we can affirm that an effect is by its nature miraculous or that it surpasses all created powers, we should have to know all these powers, whereas many of them remain unknown to us.

In order to discern the miraculous nature of an effect, it is not necessary for us to know all that nature can do; it suffices for us to know what it cannot do. And that we know, because we know the principal effects which belong properly to God.

It is metaphysically certain that God alone can produce, and consequently immediately modify,’ the very being of creatures: prime matter, the human soul, the intellect, and the will. Now these immediate modifications of being or of matter are necessarily found in such great miracles as the resurrection, the sudden change of water into wine, the multiplication of the loaves. Therefore only God can be the author of these extraordinary effects.

103 We have shown that only the proper cause of a determinate effect can modify it, for the immediate modification of a thing has a specification which is of the same order as its immediate production. Thus it is only our intellect that can immediately modify its own judgment; the imagination can modify this judgment only mediately by means of images. Likewise, created agents cannot modify the being of creatures or prime matter except through the intermediary of phenomena or of accidents. God alone has immediate power over the substantial being of things.

We have shown elsewhere (Le sens commun, pp. 91-94; De revelatione, Il, 70-78) that common sense or natural reason grasps at once confusedly in certain miraculous effects that there is a modification of the being itself of things which can have only the First Being as its cause. That is possible because reason is a faculty the object of which is being and not merely phenomena.

For a full understanding of this it suffices to apply these principles to each of these facts.

Only God, who can produce by way of creation both matter and the human soul, can reunite them substantially without the accidental dispositions which are the prerequisites of generation (De potentia, q. 6, a. 7 ad gum).

Only God who can produce matter, can immediately transform it, instantaneously change, for instance, water into wine, without predisposing accidental alterations, or He alone can multiply loaves of bread by an instantaneous change of the same kind (IIIa, q. 44, a. 4 ad gum). On the other hand, a created agent can only mediately transform matter, by means of the accidental modifications it is able to produce in matter (la, q. 110, a. 2, 3, 4).

If we consider not so much the nature of the extraordinary effects but their existence, this latter is an object of physical certitude, since these are effects of the sensible order. Experience enables us to discern a true from a fictitious resurrection. The examination of the moral and religious circumstances which precede, accompany, and follow these effects, affords a confirmation which at times is indispensable for certain miracles. For instance, in the case of many cures, it would be difficult to prove metaphysically that God alone can produce them.

If a miracle, thus verified, has been given as a sign of a divine revelation, this revelation cannot be false, for God by an exceptional intervention of His liberty and omnipotence would then be confirming a lie, and He would be leading us invincibly into error. This is an absurdity, for He who is Truth itself would cease to be so.

Finally, omnipotence is not limited to miracles of the sensible order. Revelation teaches us that this omnipotence not only can in a supernatural manner restore the natural life to one who is dead, but that it can produce in our soul a life entirely super- natural, which is that of grace. The least degree of grace is of more value than all miracles and all created natures combined, because it is a participation of the intimate life of God. It remains for us to say a few words about this intimate life of God, so that we may see the harmony between what reason can find out about the First Cause and what revelation alone is able to teach us about it.

53. The Intimate Life of God: mystery of the Holy Trinity.

We can prove by reason that there is life in God; only revelation can make known to us the profound mystery of the divine life, the mystery of the Trinity. Aristotle has shown that, although God is absolutely immutable, it is fitting for Him to have life.

In fact, the higher life does not call for motion. Motion, which presupposes imperfection and potentiality, is but an imperfection of created life which does not possess all at once the plenitude that it must have; this is especially so of that material life which is incessantly changing because it is constantly dying (assimilated and disassimilated motion).

What is absolutely essential to a living being, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 18, a. 1, 3), is for it to have in itself the principle of its action, which is immanence of action; and the nearer one approaches to God, the greater is the increase of this immanence. A stone is non-living, for it has not in itself the principle of its action. The plant lives because it moves itself inasmuch as it sustains, develops, and reproduces itself, but of itself it does not determine either the form or the end of these movements. This form and this end are assigned to it by the author of its nature. An animal has a higher form of life, because it perceives by the senses the various objects toward which it can tend; and the more perfect are the senses of an animal, the more vitality it has, because it can so much the better vary its action. Life in man is of a still higher kind, because he knows not only the objects which can specify his various movements, but also the reason of the end and is able to consider an end and see in this end the raison d'être of certain means which he determines for himself. Thus he is master of his action in so far as he determines it as regards its form and end. However, the human intellect needs to be moved objectively by an external truth, for it is not the supreme Being. The human will has as its ultimate end one that is external, for it is not itself the supreme Good, and both faculties in the order of efficient causes need to be premoved by the First Cause. It is the self-subsisting Being who is in the highest degree living, because He possesses so completely in Himself all the principles (formal, final, and efficient) of His action, that this action is His own self. It is not a case of adherence to an external truth, it is Truth itself as Thought ever in act, ever living, the Good as eternal Love. Therefore God is not only living, He is Life.

Aristotle said of pure Act: “Life also belongs to God, for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality. God’s selfdependent actuality is life most good and eternal: ov didiov aprov, We say also that God is a living being, eternal, perfect. Life eternal, therefore, belongs to God, for this is God.” (Met., Bk. XII, ch. vii.)

When we say that God is immutable, we do not mean that He is therefore inert, We affirm, on the contrary, that as He is plenitude of being or pure act, He is essentially activity itself and has no need of transition to act that He may act.

It is solely by revelation that the intimate life of God can be made known to us. Reason, indeed, attains to a knowledge of God only by means of His perfections reflected in creatures, and what these perfections can tell reason about God is only what He possesses in common with creatures, What properly constitutes Him is naturally knowable by us merely in a negative way, as when we say that He is the non-finite Being, or in a relative way, as when we say that He is the supreme Being or the sovereign Good. It is only divine revelation that can positively make known to us what properly constitutes the Deity.

It would be vain for us to try to define solely by physicochemical laws what properly belongs to the vital phenomena of plant life, or to reduce the sensation of animal life to these latter phenomena. It would also be impossible to explain the proper activity of the intellect solely by knowledge of sense perception. For the same reason it is useless to seek to know definitely by means of creatures the intimate life of the Deity. We must distinguish, as constituting so many irreducible orders, between the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, and between these and the kingdom of God or the essentially supernatural order which is infinitely above all the rest.

Only revelation can make known to us the mysteries of the supernatural order. First it presents them to us obscurely when it appeals to our faith; afterwards, it will show them more clearly to us when we are raised to the beatific vision. Here on earth God alone must be our master, and it is the rule that the disciple must believe what the master says before he arrives at the certainty of evidence.

Revelation has made known to us the mystery of the intimate life of God by means of a formula that Catholics repeat several times a day when making the sign of the cross. It is the formula of Baptism by which we are made Christians. Jesus said: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28: 19).

A superficial consideration of the mystery of the Holy Trinity makes us ask ourselves in what way this incomprehensible formula bears upon our life: only one God in three persons. What difference would it make in our life if there were but one person in God?

The mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption, however supernatural they may be, answer deep-felt needs in our nature. They reveal God’s infinite love for us, and we have much need of feeling that we are loved by God and of hoping in Him. But how can the mystery of the Trinity enrich our faith, arouse our hope, increase our charity?

Rationalism at times reduces this dogma to a mere symbol of a truth of the natural order. Hegel in his atheistic Evolutionism considers this dogma as the fundamental law of the evolution of the universal spirit: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, to which correspond subject, object, and their union. But as a general rule Rationalism does not deign even for one moment to consider the Trinity, claiming to find in it a manifest contradiction, in that it is a negation of the unity of God and a relic of Polytheism, as if God were under the same aspect both triune and one. On the contrary, faith affirms that He is absolutely one by nature, that the divine nature is neither multiplied nor divided, and that there exist three divine persons who possess this indivisible nature. Thus the three angles of a triangle are really distinct and yet they are contained in the same plane.

A number of Protestants assign to the mystery of the Trinity but an indirect importance, by reason of its connection with the dogmas of the Incarnation in its redemptive aspect, and of the mission of the Holy Ghost, which presuppose three persons in God. It is only for guarding against any contradiction in the essential beliefs of Christianity, they say, that we must admit the mystery of the Trinity, which of itself is of no importance to us.

On the contrary, in the eyes of the Church, if this single mystery is a safeguard against contradiction in the other mysteries, this is so because it is their supreme principle, the very center of the whole faith, having for its primary object the intimate life of God. If this supreme mystery were to become evident for us, as it is for the blessed in heaven, then all the other mysteries would be illumined from this sublime source. This mystery is the one toward which all the truths of the faith converge, the one toward which, in this mortal life, the saints in their contemplation aspire with increasing ardor.

To make evident the importance of this mystery, we will show: (1) that the revelation of the Holy Trinity confirms our natural knowledge of God and raises it to a higher plane by manifesting the infinite fecundity of the divine nature; (2) that it proposes to us the highest object of faith and of supernatural contemplation, by manifesting the intimate life of God, or the highest degree of both the intellectual life and the life of charity.

1. Reason alone suffices to make known to us God’s existence and His principal attributes, such as goodness, life, wisdom, liberty, sanctity; but the intimate reconciliation of all these divine perfections remains very obscure for us.

How can there be life in unity and in absolute immutability, which seems to denote sterility? Does not life mean fecundity? If we answer that the divine fecundity is manifested by creation, a new difficulty arises. If the divine life is of necessity fecund, then creation cannot be a free act. How can the creative act be a free one? If God is infinitely good, He must of necessity be diffusive of Himself. No being which reaches perfection can be content to remain within itself in a sterile state. Fire gives out heat, the mind having come into possession of truth seeks to communicate this to others. If God were to remain shut up within Himself in a sterile state, He would be neither good nor wise, say the Pantheists. God is essentially diffusive of Himself; the universe is, as it were, the very life of God communicated externally, and creation is therefore a necessary act. This doctrine, which excludes liberty, leads us to see something divine in the worst things and in the most perverse souls,

The Church proclaims emphatically that the creative act is absolutely free. God could have chosen not to create, precisely because He is already infinitely good in Himself, and because creation cannot increase His infinite perfection. Mortal beings feel the need of reproducing themselves, so as to perpetuate themselves and leave after them a new being that continues them. But God is eternal.

In this manner theology explains the freedom of the creative act. Yet it remains obscure. Fecundity is not merely a remedy for this transitory life of mortal beings; it is a perfection, and good naturally tends to communicate itself to others. If God had not created, how would this principle be verified in Him, namely, that it is the characteristic of good to be diffusive of itself and to give itself to others? It would seem that an infinite being must have infinite fecundity, which cannot be manifested by the creation of beings that are necessarily finite.

This obscurity is dispelled by the light thrown upon it from the dogma of the Trinity. This supreme diffusiveness of self, this infinite fecundity which must be the property of the sovereign Good, these God would possess even if He had not created. To explain the meaning of this mystery, without in any way claiming to demonstrate it, theology appropriates this principle which has been urged against it: that good is naturally diffusive of itself, that goodness essentially tends to communicate itself. Theology states the principle with exactness, develops it, and applies it to the Infinite Being.

A scientific exposition of revelation tells us in the words of St. Thomas 1 that goodness is not only by nature diffusive of

104 It is especially in the Contra Gentes (Bk. IV, ch. xi, in the article, “How generation is to be understood in the divine Persons") that St. Thomas has developed this principle. That article is one of the most forceful treatments ever written concerning the Trinity; the more often we read it, the more we realize its depth. St. Thomas begins by the enunciation of the principle which concerns us here. He says: “To carry out this purpose we must begin by observing that, where things differ in nature, we find different modes of emanation, and further, that from the Aigher nature things proceed in a more intimate way.” St, Thomas shows the truth of this principle by going through the various grades of being and itself, but the more perfect it is, the more abundantly and intimately it communicates itself, and the more also what proceeds from it remains closely united to it. With the Angelic Doctor as our guide, let us contemplate the truth of this principle, going through the grades of beings, starting from the inanimate, until we reach God.

The sun gives out light and heat that is beneficent, and these separate from it. Plants or animals, having reached their full growth, generate a new being. This new being leaves them and takes their place when they die. In man there is a combination of both material and spiritual fecundity. The artist who has become a master in his art, conceives in his mind a masterpiece such as a picture or a symphony. This masterpiece thus conceived and begotten is, as it were, the offspring of his mind; he cannot help loving it and he seeks his utmost to make it a reality. But this work of art is external to the thought which gave birth to it, and is not, like the thought, something vital. It is very inferior to it. The artist cannot completely realize his inmost inspiration. It is a spiritual fecundity of a very imperfect kind which does not deserve to be called generation.

A great scholar, too, through long labors of spiritual childbirth, succeeds in conceiving, in revealing the laws of nature, which sometimes are named after him. But once his thought is applying the principle finally to God so as to throw light upon the mystery of the Trinity. Likewise, in Ia, q. 27, a. 1 ad 2um, we read: “Whatever proceeds (from another) . . . the more perfectly it proceeds, the more perfectly it is one with the source whence it proceeds. For it is clear that the more a thing is understood, the more closely is the intellectual conception joined and united to the intelligent agent. . . . Thus, as the divine Intelligence is the very supreme perfection of God, the divine Word is of necessity one with the Source whence He proceeds, without any kind of diversity.”

So too, in explaining the fitness of the Incarnation, he says: “Essence of goodness is of the very nature of God. Hence, what belongs to the essence of goodness, befits God. But it belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others. Hence it belongs to the essence of the highest good to communicate itself in the highest degree to the creature” (Ila, q. 1, a. 1).

expressed in words, it is separated from him and the written formula is but a faint reminder of the intuitive genius that the thought seeks to express. If this scholar writes about the human soul, how cold and poor his pages are, as compared with the spiritual reality they seek to reveal. The master, it is true, can leave his writings after him, and he can also train disciples. He imparts his knowledge to them and endeavors to impart something more intimate, his spirit. Seldom does he attain this end completely. A day comes when the disciples, having learned all they can from the master, leave him and go their way. It is only great intellects that have the profound and intimate mode of operation which causes their disciples to remain attached to them. The more perfect a being is, the more it gives of its inmost self and the more closely united to it is that which proceeds from it.

This law is verified in the virtuous and especially in the apostolic man who gives to others the best that is in him, his love. It is his whole soul that he wishes to bestow on others. So, too, a friend places at his friend’s disposal all his property, all his faculties; it is the whole of his being that he wants to give, retaining nothing for himself, in order that he and his friend may become but one being, one mind, one will. The more perfect a being is, the more it gives of its inmost self. What must be the fecundity of the supremely perfect Being? He who is the sovereign Good, the plenitude of being, communicates Himself as fully and as intimately as it is possible for Him to do so, which means in an infinite way. He cannot generate in a material way since He is pure spirit. But is there not in Him a spiritual generation which more than anything else is entitled to be called generation?

In the spiritual order God is not content, after the manner of an artist, to reproduce His divine ideas in the world of corporeal beings. To make us His disciples, it is not enough for Him, as it is for the master, that He should communicate His ideas to us. It is not even enough for Him to have us share in His love. The sovereign Good must give fully something still more profound than His ideas and His love. For Him to be supremely diffusive of Himself He must +°% give His intimate life, His very nature, in the ineffable mystery of His divine Paternity. “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee” (Ps. 2:7).

God gives His very nature. He generates not because of the need of substituting a new life for one which must end. He generates because of the superabundance of His infinite fecundity. It is the most absolute diffusiveness of Himself. It is also the most perfect intimacy. He does not generate, as man does, by producing a new being, external to Himself and separated from Him. In generating, He does not multiply His nature. He communicates the whole of His nature without either loss or division or multiplication of it, somewhat as we communicate an idea or a spiritual gift. It is truly the whole of Himself that He gives to His Son, reserving for Himself only His relation of Paternity. From the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love who constitutes the bond of union between them. The three are one and the same God, since the divine nature is not multiplied. It is God communicating Himself in the most intimate manner, and with the most absolute diffusiveness of Himself.

The more perfect a being is, the more completely it communicates itself, and the more that which proceeds from it remains intimately united with it.

Even before God had created, it would have been true to say of Him, that the divine goodness is infinitely communicative. The sovereign Good has given Himself, and so completely and intimately that this other partial and external giving of Himself, which is creation, is infinitely inferior. This latter cannot add any

105 This act by which God the Father generates the Son is a necessary act, as also is that act of spiration by which the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, But this necessity is not evident for us, and what is adduced in argument is but an argument of congruity.

necessary perfection to the divine goodness and remains therefore an absolutely free act.

It is thus that the dogma of the Trinity, in spite of its obscurity, confirms what we are already able to know in a natural way about God, His goodness, His life, and the liberty of the creative act.

2. The revelation of the mystery of the Trinity not only confirms our natural knowledge of God, but it proposes to us the highest object of faith and contemplation, by manifesting to us the intimate life of God and the life both of the intellect and of charity, each in the highest degree.

Intellectual life in the case of us poor mortals, since our mind is united with the body, is something so imperfect, so deplorable at certain times, that many have despaired of reason. Great intellects remain for years in the quest of truth, and succeed passably in acquiring certain very imperfect ideas about the problems which interest us most, ideas partly erroneous, scarcely ever decisive, ideas which we must always reconsider. Our interior locution is slow in its formation; it is also fragmentary to an extraordinary degree. Our petty ideas are so numerous that sometimes they are an inextricable jumble in which we become lost. We do not succeed in classifying them, in grading them, so as to embrace them in one glance of the intellect, They are present to us as though not present; often we have eyes that we may not sce, an intelligence that we may not understand. Truth, goodness, justice, charity, are words of very deep meaning, frequently uttered by us, but we have scarcely an idea of the infinite reality contained in them. We ourselves are possessed of intelligence, and we know so little as to what constitutes an intelligence.

On the other hand, revelation tells us that in God there is an eternal and unique Word, generated once and forever by the divine intellect of the Father. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God” (John 1:1). This Word is a perfect idea from the first and single instant of eternity, a definite idea, absolutely true, expressing adequately the reality of God and the infinite participations of which the Deity is capable. “The brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty” (Wisdom 7:26). This Word, too, is “the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance” (Heb. 1:3).

This eternal Word is not divided; He is unique and absolutely simple. In Him the Father’s intelligence embraces, in one glance, His own intellect and all possible worlds, all natures and all supernatural gifts conceivable. The Father’s intellect sees in the Word the final answer to the problems that philosophy and theology do not even succeed in positing. In this unique Word the Father’s intelligence also actually knows the universe even in the least details, and our own selves even to the most delicate shades ef our physical, intellectual, and moral temperament. This intellect beholds in the Word the ultimate mysteries as yet hidden from the blessed: our predestination and the exact number of the elect. The uncreated infinite Being and the unlimited number of our acts which will be realized in eternity, all these truths this intellect embraces in a single glance.

But there is another and more profound difference between our word and that of God. Our word, our interior locution, does not suffice for our intellectual life. We cannot converse with it, for the word is but an accident of our intelligence, a mode of our mind. Our conception is very imperfect. It does not succeed in generating spiritually something like to ourselves. If we speak to our word, we get no response from it. We are alone with our thoughts. We also have need of communing with other intelligences, of associating the weakness of our intellect with that of another, for the purpose of endeavoring to throw more light, if possible, upon the infinite mystery of those things which interest us most. Here new difficulties arise. How are we to communicate to another person the inmost meaning of our thought which is often in itself somewhat obscure and does not reach the stage of full development? At times we are separated from those who, like us, are sincerely seeking the truth, from those we love, by a thick wall composed of all manner of misunderstanding.

Revelation, on the contrary, tells us that the divine Idea or the Word is not an accident, a simple mode of the divine intelligence. Like it, the Word must be substantial and consequently vital and intelligent as the divine intelligence is. Moreover, the Word is a person, because a person is an intellectual substance conscious of itself.°® Such is the perfect intellectual conception which is literally a spiritual generation,!°" the Father generating spiritually one like to Himself in the absolutely indivisible unity of the divine nature.

We cannot converse with our thoughts. The Father can converse with His Word, receive an answer from Him, be comprehended by Him as He comprehends Him. Our thought leaves us isolated. God the Father is no longer alone, having His Word.

In order to get away from our sterile isolation we are forced to enter into relationship with other intelligences, and there are many obstacles separating us from them. The intelligence both of the Father and of the Word not only are interpenetrative in a most absolute manner, but they are the same indivisible intel-

106 But reason, left to itself, cannot prove, even after the doctrine has been revealed, that there is in God an intellectual procession terminating in a person, the formal constituent of which is incommunicable, and really distinct from the person in opposition,

107 John of St. Thomas (De Trinitate, disp. 12, a. 6, n. 15) has this to say: “The procession of the Word, by purifying the idea itself of intelligible procession from all potentiality and imperfection, because of the very property and inmost being of the intelligible procession, becomes substantial and generative. . . . But because of its defect and imperfection, the result is that it is an accidental image and only representative as in us, in whom the intelligible entity is not the substance itself of the thing, but something accidental. ... The reason for this is based on the argument given by St. Thomas in Ia, q. 27, a. 2, and q. 27, a. 1 ad 2um.

ligence, the same act of the mind vital with the same truth. Such is the supreme degree of the intellectual life. It consists of two completely spiritual persons who live by the same truth, by one and the same act of the mind. The two persons are fully accessible to each other, and there is opposition between them only because they are mutually related to each other. The two persons essentially refer to each other, and their whole personality consists precisely in a subsistent and incommunicable relation of the one to the other. Their life is not at all one of solitude but of communicativeness in the highest degree.

But God is not only truth and intelligence, He is also goodness and love. The intimate life of God is the life of charity in its highest degree and the eminent exemplar of this life.

If we look at this life of charity in ourselves, we often find it arrested, deadened by selfishness; pride, which brings about a profound isolation in souls, separates them and at times is the cause of their spiritual death. The saints consoled themselves concerning these separations, by thinking of the intimate life of God. What do persecutions and hatreds amount to, said St. Hilary? They cannot disturb the intimacy of the divine persons, nor separate them.

The Father, indeed, does not merely contemplate in His Word the plenitude of truth contained in Him; He also loves the infinite goodness expressed by Him. Reciprocally, the substantial Word, living and intelligent, is not an intelligence which stops at the mere contemplation of the Father who generates Him. The Father is infinitely good, and the Word loves Him as He is loved by the Father. The intelligence which perceives the good and does not cause us to love it, is an accursed intelligence. “He who does not love,” that is St. Theresa's definition of the devil. The Word, therefore, breathes forth love, “Verbum spirat amorem.” This love that the Word has for the Father is one and the same indivisible act with the love which the Father has for the Word. This love is not only mutual but identical. This ineffable friendship of the first two persons has a terminus, just as the thought has, This terminus of their love is substantial, like the Word which is the terminus of the Father’s conception. This terminus is living, intelligent, loving, like the Word, and is, therefore, like Him, a person, the spirit of the first two persons, the bond between them, and He is called the Holy Spirit.

As the Father can converse with His Word, so they both can converse with the Spirit of love. It is the supreme type of the life of charity. It consists of three totally spiritual persons who live by the same truth, by one and the same act of the mind; three persons who live by the same good, by one and the same act of love. Where do we find here the least trace of egotism? The ego is no more than a subsistent relation in respect of the one loved; He appropriates nothing more to Himself. The Father gives the whole of His nature to His Son, and the Father and the Son communicate the same to the Holy Spirit. It is only by His relation of paternity that the Father differs from the Son, and the Son differs from the Father only by His relation of sonship; and what causes them to differ, unites them by referring them essentially the one to the other The Holy Ghost does not differ from the other two persons except in that He proceeds from them. Apart from the mutual relations of opposition between the persons, everything else is common and indivisible between them.!°° The Father has nothing belonging peculiarly to Himself except His paternity which is a subsistent relation with regard to His Son. The Son has nothing belonging peculiarly to Himself except His filiation, and the Holy Spirit has only His procession which belongs properly to Him. Where do we find here the least trace of egotism? The whole egotism of the Father consists in His giving His infinitely perfect nature to His Son,

108 “In God all things are one and the same when there is no relation of opposition to prevent this.” Denzinger, 703: Council of Florence.

and retaining nothing for Himself except His relationship of paternity by which He is still essentially related to His Son. The whole egotism of the Son and that of the Holy Ghost consist in being related to each other and to the Father from whom they proceed, These three divine persons essentially related to each other constitute the eminent exemplar of the life of charity. “All My things are Thine and Thine are Mine” (John 17:10). We find vestiges of the Trinity even in sensible things.*°® And there is in our soul, above all when it has been raised to the supernatural order, not only a vestige but an image of the Trinity.

Grace is a participation in us of the divine nature or of the intimate life of God. It follows that in the life of grace there is contained a reflection of the relations in the Trinity. By grace we are “born of God,” says St. John (1:13), and this spiritual birth bears a faint resemblance to the eternal generation of the Son.1*° Our adoptive sonship is in its supernatural reality a reflection of the sonship of the Word. God has not communicated to us the whole of His nature, but a participation of it. And as the Word reverts to His Father in order to love Him, so the main duty of all “those who are born of God” by grace, is to love God, and their charity bears a faint resemblance to the Spirit of love who unites the Father and the Son.

109 Among sensible signs of the Trinity the most common one is that of the equilateral triangle. The three angles of the equilateral triangle are: (1) really distinct; (2) they are, however, of the same nature and formed by the same surface which belongs entirely to each, as if each were in sole possession of it; (3) they are equal to each other; (4) they are essentially related to each other and are distinct from each other precisely because of this relation of opposition inherent in this very surface; (5) it suffices to examine one of them so as to enable us to know the magnitude and position of the others. The base angles are determined by the angle at the apex, and it is what it is, only if they are what they are; (6) between these three angles there is an order, but not a priority of causality. The first having been formed, the others proceed from it without having been caused by it, and they are in no way less perfect than it. The triangle is an infinitely faint symbol of the Holy Trinity.

110 “Adoptive sonship is a certain participation of natural sonship” (Mla, q. 3, a. 5 ad 2um).

The more this life of grace increases in the soul, the more there appears in it the image of the Trinity. Our soul is an image of the Trinity by reason of its being a spiritual substance, and because of the two faculties, intellect and will, which proceed from it. The image becomes the more distinct in proportion as our soul lives more in accordance with the thought and the love of God. The unitive life of a sanctified soul, that almost continuous union with God, constitutes in this world the most perfect image of the Trinity. It is supreme spiritual fecundity and perfect intimacy. In this soul God the Father is present together with the Word and the Spirit of love. In the obscurity of faith, the soul which has been supernaturalized is made conformable by the Holy Spirit, to the image of the Word who is the splendor of the Father. It is a child of God before being finally admitted to enjoy Him in the glory of the beatific vision. “And the glory which Thou hast given me, I have given to them: that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:22).

Such is the harmony prevailing between this incomprehensible mystery and the truths which our reason is able of itself to discover, We must not think, as the Semi-Rationalists and Rosmini did, that this harmony can attain the force of a demonstration. Rosmini was condemned for claiming that an indirect demonstration of the Trinity can be given, and for upholding that reality, ideality, and morality in God can be conceived only as persons (Denzinger, nn. 1915, 1916). The Vatican Council states precisely what reason can and cannot do (Denzinger, n. 1796). Illumined by faith, reason can, indeed, says the Council, acquire a certain and very beneficial knowledge of the supernatural mysteries; that is the province of theology. But it can never succeed in demonstrating these mysteries, nor in tracing them back to rational principles: for the mysteries of the intimate life of God are of another order, entirely supernatural.

We must now return to the divine perfections which can be known by the natural power of reason. We deduced them successively from the idea of the self-subsisting Being. It remains for us to consider them in their ensemble, so as to see how they can be reconciled. Agnosticism claims, indeed, that our conclusion is of no value, because it ends in positing perfections which are irreconcilable with one another. In other words it ends in antinomies. The rest of this book will be concerned with the presentation and solution of these antinomies.

Footnotes

1. Thomists often speak in this way. They mean that there can be no question in this case of an intrinsically virtual distinction which has its foundation in the divine reality itself, since the divine essence is not in potentiality for anything whatever; but we can speak of an extrinsically virtual distinction, which has its foundation in created things, in that these serve us as the means by which we come to know God. ↩