Chapter II. Question(2) prologue

Tue prologue to this question is concerned with the orderly arrangement of the whole Theological Summa. The definition of sacred theology, however, is the foundation for this division; for it is the knowledge of God as such, as acquired by the light of revelation. Hence it follows that theology must treat: ¹ of God in Himself,t and as He is the principle of creatures, especially of rational creatures; ² of the rational creature’s advance toward God as its end; (3) of Christ, who as man, is our way to God. Thus there are three parts to the Theological Summa.

It must be noted that the order is not philosophical but strictly theological. St. Thomas says: “For in the teaching of philosophy, which considers creatures in themselves and leads us from them to the knowledge of God, the first consideration is about creatures, and the last about God; whereas in the teaching of faith, which considers creatures only in their relation to God, the consideration about God takes the first place, and that about creatures the last. And thus it is more perfect as being more like God’s knowledge; for He beholds other things by knowing Himself.” ?

This theological order is known as the synthetic order. It begins by considering the higher and more universal things in causation, and it descends to the lower and less universal; and this is in accordance with the very order of nature and causality.

Moreover, in this order, those things that are necessary receive first consideration, which, in the first and second parts of the Summa, are God and created natures, especially human nature. These are considered before the great contingent fact of the Incarnation of the divine Word for the redemption of the human race in accordance with the following statement in the Apostle’s Creed: “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.”

Finally, this order is of the nature of a complete revolution, in that its starting-point is God, the beginning of all things; and in the treatise on the last things it returns to this same starting-point, which is God, the ultimate end of all things. Thus it embraces everything, and for this reason the work is truly a Summa in which the dogmatic and moral parts of sacred theology are united under one formal aspect.

It is not exactly the same order that is observed in the Summa Contra Gentes, because in that work St. Thomas proceeds by the apologetic method. Yet it is not a philosophical summa that begins with a consideration of creatures, for it begins with a consideration of God Himself. In the first three books, however, God and creatures are considered according to what can be known of these by reason alone, whereas in the fourth book strictly supernatural mysteries are discussed, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Although St. Thomas proceeds by the synthetic method in these two theological works, nevertheless, in beginning the treatise by considering the question of the demonstration of God’s existence, he brings together arguments which had been given by Aristotle.’ Thus he makes use of them, as was said, “not because of the defect or insufficiency of sacred theology, but because of the defect of our intelligence, which is more easily led by what is known through natural reason (from which proceed the other sciences), to that which is above reason, such as are the teachings of this science.” 4 It is, indeed, under the guidance of a higher light that this assembly of philosophical arguments concerning God's existence is effected, and by this means certitude rests on more solid grounds.

There is a threefold division in the first part of the Summa. Here are considered: (1) whatever pertains to the divine essence, or de Deo uno; (2) whatever pertains to the distinction of Persons, or de Deo trino; (3) whatever pertains to the procession of creatures from God, or de Deo creante et elevante.

The treatise on the one God is likewise divided into three parts. First, whether God exists (q. 2). Secondly, the manner of His existence, or rather, what is not the manner of His existence. This is discussed from the third question to the end of the thirteenth, in which the metaphysical attributes of God are considered, many of them expressed in the negative form, such as the simplicity, the perfection, the infinity, the immutability, and the unity of God. These pertain to God as He is in Himself, and are considered from the third question to the end of the eleventh. Then in the twelfth

8 Physics, Bk. VIII; Metaph., Bk. XII.

and thirteenth questions God is discussed in His relation to us, how He is known and named by us. The analogical method is employed here, namely, the method of speculative theology. Thirdly, whatever concerns God's operation is discussed from the fourteenth question to the end of the twenty-sixth. In these questions the knowledge, life, will, love, justice, mercy, providence, predestination, power, and beatitude of God are considered.

From this division it is already apparent that the theological treatise on the one God is concerned with several truths that cannot be known by reason alone. Such are the beatific vision (q. 12), God’s providence even as it concerns those creatures that are of the supernatural order, or predestination (q. 23). These must be the subject of special consideration, because there are other attributes that have already been discussed by philosophy in their metaphysical aspect.

It must be pointed out that this order proposed by St. Thomas is a great improvement upon the order established by Peter Lombard in the Books of the Sentences. This theologian, as we remarked, divides the subject matter not as it refers to God (the subject of sacred theology), but as it refers to the human will, the two acts of which are enjoyment and use. Thus his treatise is concerned first of all with those things in which we must find our delight, with those things that bring us happiness, namely, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or, with the triune God. Then he discusses the knowledge, power, and will of God. He afterward comes to a consideration of those things which we must make use of, namely, creatures; in other words, angels, man, and grace. Original sin and actual sin are here discussed. Afterward he takes up the consideration of those things that must be the object both of our enjoyment and of our use, namely, Christ as man, and the virtues. Finally he discusses the sacraments and our last end.

In this division a discussion of the moral part of theology is not directly intended, but only as the occasion requires, as in the third book of the Sentences, although the division of the entire treatise gives one the impression that it is concerned more with moral questions, namely, with those things that can be the object of our enjoyment and use.

Several modern authors, such as Scheeben, after the treatises on the one and triune God, and on creation, begin at once with the treatise on Christ before discussing grace and the infused virtues. Thus grace is presented more in its Christian aspect; but, on the other hand, grace must be considered as it existed even in the stato, of innocence and in the angels, who were not redeemed by Christ.’

Tue EXISTENCE OF Gop

THERE are three articles to this question: (1) whether the existence of God is self-evident; (2) whether it can be demonstrated that God exists; (3) whether God exists. Thus three possible standpoints are considered. (1) There is the standpoint of those who, like St. Anselm, say that God's existence is self-evident; (2) then there are those who, like the agnostics, hold that God’s existence is neither self-evident, nor possible of demonstration; (3) and we have the stand taken by St. Thomas, who shows that God’s existence can be and is demonstrated by a consideration of existing effects.

John of St. Thomas asks why St. Thomas treats in theology of God's existence. He replies that the reasons given by sacred theology in proof of the existence of God as the Author of nature, are not its own but are taken from metaphysics. These reasons, however, are corrected and perfected by theology guided by the light of revelation, which says those men are inexcusable ë who, from the orderly arrangement of all things in the world, did not know that there is a supreme Ordainer. This constitutes the preamble to the faith. It is also of faith that God exists as the Author of grace and salvation; and this is not proved but supposed by sacred theology, and is afterward explained and defended by it.

This question begins by taking for granted what is meant by the name God or the nominal definition, namely, that by this name men generally understand the intelligent and supreme Cause of the universe, which He has designed. Hence the question is, whether this highest and most perfect cause truly exists as really and essentially distinct from the world. Thus any demonstration of God’s existence begins by some nominal definition of God, and the existence is proved of the first Mover, the first Cause, the first necessary Being, and the supreme Ordainer.

FIRST ARTICLE WHETHER THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS SELF-EVIDENT

State of the question. That proposition is self-evident which, as soon as the terms are known, and without the medium of demonstration, is known as true and necessary. Such are the first principles of reason, which are immediately evident and which therefore cannot be demonstrated except indirectly or by a reduction to absurdity. Is the proposition, God is, self-evident; is it evident from the terms alone?

In the state of the question St. Thomas first gives the reasons for affirming this. (1) Damascene says: “The knowledge of God is naturally implanted in all,” ° and therefore the proposition seems as self-evident as the first principles of reason are. (2) St. Anselm’s argument 7 is proposed by the following syllogism: Nothing greater can be thought of than what is signified by the word “God”; but what exists actually and mentally is greater than what exists only mentally; therefore, as soon as the word “God” is understood, it evidently follows that God exists not only mentally but also actually. This argument was later on revived by Descartes, Leibnitz, and the ontologists. It was admitted even by Spinoza, but according to the pantheistic type of ontologism. (3) It is evident that truth exists, says St. Thomas (for if it is said that truth does not exist, then it is true that truth does not exist); but God is truth; therefore God exists.

It must be noted that St. Anselm’s argument, as de Wulf® relates, was admitted by William of Auxerre, Richard Fitzacre, and Alexander of Hales. St. Albert the Great seems to be of the opinion that this argument appeals to philosophers. It is rejected, however, by St. Thomas, Robert Middleton, Scotus, and many Scholastics. Among modern intellectuals it is rejected by Kant who, moreover, in accordance with his subjectivism, maintains that St. Anselm’s deceptive argument, which he calls the ontological argument, is implied in all the classic proofs of God’s existence. In this difficult question that must be carefully considered, as we shall at once see, there are three systems of thought that are in opposition to one another, namely, the exaggerated realism of St. Anselm and the ontologists, the subjective conceptualism of Kant, and the moderate realism of St. Thomas, this latter being, so to speak, the just mean and summit between the other two.

The reply. That God exists, is not self-evident, at least to us.

1. The indirect proof is given in the counterargument as follows: no one can mentally admit the opposite of what is self-evident (e.g., of the principle of contradiction, or of causality); but “the fool said in his heart, there is no God”; °? therefore, that God exists, is not self-evident.

To this the followers of St. Anselm reply: This proposition, “God is,” is self-evident only to the philosophers, as this other, that “incorporeal substances are not in space.” It is not self-evident, however, to those whose intelligence is obscured by reason of inordinate

T Proslogium, chap. 3.

passions, and who, therefore, do not consider what is signified by this name God. Truly this indirect argument does not seem to be apodictic. On the contrary, what is said in the body of the article constitutes a cogent argument for St. Thomas.

2. The direct proof is then given. The entire argumentation has its foundation in the distinction between “what is self-evident in itself and to us,” and “what is self-evident in itself, but not to us,” and is reduced to this conclusion: A proposition is self-evident in itself, but not to us, when the predicate is included in the essence of the subject, the essence of either subject or predicate being unknown to us. Now in this proposition, “God is,” the predicate is included indeed in the essence of the subject (for God is His own existence), but we do not know the essence of God. Therefore this proposition is self-evident in itself, but not to us, not even to philosophers; it needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature, namely, by effects.° The major is evident; but the difficulty is in the minor, as regards the words, “we do not know God’s essence.” For a better understanding of this difficulty the objections of St. Anselm's followers must be presented as they increase in urgency.

The followers of St. Anselm object that we have not the quiddative knowledge of God which the blessed enjoy in heaven, which means that we do not know the Deity as it is in itself; but we do know what is meant by the name God, namely, that if God exists, then He is the first Cause and the most perfect Being; and this suffices.

St. Thomas would reply to this, as he points out in the reply to the second objection of the following article, by saying: The names given to God are derived from His effects (as first Cause, most perfect Being), and this point will be more clearly explained later on in the first article of the thirteenth question in which the analogy between names taken from creatures as applied to God is discussed. “Consequently, in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we may take for the middle term the meaning of the word God.” 1! In other words, the nominal definition of God does not include actual existence, and from this definition all that can be concluded is that God is self-existent and independent of any other being, if He exists. It follows then that God's existence must be

10 As Cajetan observes, although a proposition that is self-evident in itself excludes an a priori middle term of demonstration, it can admit with reference to us an a posteriori middle term; that is, a middle term by which we acquire a greater knowledge of the subject. Scotus objects, saying that a proposition selfevident in itself and not to us, is not a proposition. In reply to this we say that

St. Thomas has in mind the fundamental aspect of the proposition. 11 Summa theol., la, q.2 ad 2um.

demonstrated a posteriori, that is, from those effects already known to us. This is just what is said in the reply to the second objection of this article.

The followers of St. Anselm again object that, even apart from the effects, we at once know God's essence, namely, that He is the primal Truth and the supreme Good. And it is at once evident that truth exists, especially primal Truth; and it is likewise evident that good exists, especially the supreme Good.

In the reply to the third objection of this article, we read: “The existence of truth in general is self-evident; but the existence of a primal Truth is not self-evident to us.” This is proved indeed a posteriori in the third article by the fourth way as follows: “Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But ‘more’ and ‘less’ are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which :is the maximum .. . and consequently something which is uttermost being.”

Likewise in the reply to the first objection of this article, we read: “Man naturally desires happiness (or to be happy), and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him.” Thus he has a confused knowledge of the supreme good. “This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good, which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else.”

From these replies to the first and third objections, we see that St. Anselm’s argument would be valid and fundamentally true if absolute realism were true, that is, if the formal universal had objective existence, as Plato, the Platonists, the ontologists, and Spinoza thought, though the latter applied this theory only to the notion of substance. Even long ago Parmenides formulated the principle of contradiction in accordance with the theory of absolute realism, when he said: “Being exists, non-being does not exist.” The principle of contradiction would be then not only an abstract principle (abstracting from actual existence), but also a judgment pertaining to the order of existence. Contrary to this, Aristotle formulated this principle in the abstract by saying: “Being is not non-being’”; something cannot at the same time be and not be.

But if absolute realism were true, that is, if the universal existed not only fundamentally, but formally apart from the thing, then being in general would be identical with the divine being, as Parmenides maintained, later on Spinoza, and also the ontologists, though with some modifications. That such is the conclusion of their teaching is clear from their condemned propositions. These are: “An immediate and at least habitual knowledge of God is essential for the intellect, so that without this there is no possibility of its acquiring any knowledge since this is intellectual light itself. That being which is in all things and without which nothing is perceived by the intellect, is the divine being. There is no real distinction between universals considered apart from things and God. All other ideas are but modifications of the idea by which God as being is simply understood.” 1?

Hence, whereas St. Thomas says: “What first comes to our mind is intelligible being” of sensible things, these extreme realists say that what first comes to our mind is the divine being. In other words, the ontological First or the first Being is what is first known by our mind. But in this case being in general is identified with the divine being, as Parmenides maintained among the ancient philosophers and Spinoza among the moderns. Evidently, if this extreme realism were true, St. Anselm’s argument would be valid and undoubtedly a fundamental truth even in the order of invention (like the principle of contradiction). But this absolute realism leads to pantheism and is without any foundation; for what is first known is intelligible being of sensible things, and this will be more clearly seen later on.1* Sometimes we have a superficial refutation of St. Anselm's argument. Its true refutation does not leave out of consideration the problem of universals.

Several followers of St. Anselm object that, even independently of absolute realism, God’s essence is sufficiently made known to us by the name God, so that we can at once affirm that God is not a stone, or a man, but that He is “the greatest being that is possible of conception.” It is especially this that the philosophers understand the name implies. But the greatest being possible of conception must exist not only mentally but also actually; otherwise it would be possible to conceive a greater being, namely, one that would exist both mentally and actually. Thus God's existence is demonstrated, but by an a priori proof derived from the notion of God.

About the end of the reply to the second objection of this article the minor of the preceding syllogism is denied, for we read: “Nor can it be argued that this being actually exists, unless it be admitted (by the adversary) that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought.” In other words, the atheist or the

18 Summa theol., la, q.88, a.g: “Whether God is the first object known by the human mind.”

agnostic will say: Most certainly God is self-existent and is independent of any other being, if He truly and actually exists; but it must be proved that He actually exists. This is‘not proved from merely the abstraction of God, a notion that does not include actual existence. In other words, if extreme realism is untrue, in this argument given by St. Anselm there is an unwarranted transition from the ideal order of essences to the real order of actual or de facto existence. Against the proof of the minor it must be said that neither God existing is greater than God viewed as possible as regards His essence, to which the nominal definition refers; but in addition to this He has actual existence, and this cannot be proved merely from the abstract notion of God.

To state the case more briefly, in the ideal order of essences conceived by us there cannot be anything greater than the most perfect being; 14 but in the order of real and de facto existence, a fly that really exists is greater as regards actual existence than a creatable angel, and even than the most perfect being that is conceived as merely possible of existing. From this we more clearly see what St. Thomas meant when in the body of the article he said: “We do not know the essence of God.”

Similarly, St. Thomas had said in the prologue to this second question: “We must consider whether God exists and the manner of His existence, or, rather, what is not the manner of His existence”; this means that He is not finite, not mobile, not corporeal, and so forth. To know positively what God is would be to have a proper and positive knowledge of the Deity, and not a knowledge that is analogical and as it refers to creatures. In this case, the proposition, “God is,” would be self-evident, as St. Bonaventure says, who, on this point, does not seem to differ from St. ‘Thomas.

If we had an intuitive and quiddative knowledge of the Deity, then we would see actual existence in the same, because God is His existence.25 But we know God's essence only in an abstract and analogical way, and essential existence is of course included in this abstract notion, but not actual existence. In other words, it is in-

14 Cajetan says in his commentary on this article: “The reason for this surpassing excellence is the nobility of the thing signified in itself,” and there is no contradiction implied when we say, “Existence is not,” but only when we say, “What exists is not.” The whole of Cajetan’s commentary on this article should be read.

15In God, as He is in Himself, there is no distinction between essence and existence, not even between the ideal order and that of actual existence. 7 am who am, or Who is, each is a judgment that pertains both to the essential and to the existential order. Identity of the two orders (the ideal and the real), which Hegel posited as the foundation of his system, is found only in God. See Summa theol., la, q.12, a.2 (end).

deed a priori evident that, if God exists, He is self-existent and independent of any other (this being a hypothetical proposition that concerns essential existence); but it is not a priori evident solely from the abstract notion of God, that He truly and de facto exists.

This already virtually excludes the opinion of those who posit either some impressed or expressed species in the beatific vision. From this species we would have only an abstractive and analogical knowledge of God, and we would not know God just as He is. As St. Thomas says: “The essence of God, however, cannot be seen by any created similitude representing the divine essence as it really is,” because the essence of God is the self-subsisting Being. We cannot know of God what He is, unless we directly see the Deity, without the intermediary of any created species or representation. We shall then at once see not only that God is self-existent if He exists, but that He is actually self-existent, existing as such externally to the soul.'é

In other words, as with our abstract notions, so our abstract and analogical notion of the most perfect Being does not include actual existence, but abstracts from it. It differs, however, from our notions of contingent beings, such as of an angel or a stone, in that it includes essential existence. Thus we already have evidence of the truth of the hypothetical proposition that, if God exists, then He is self-existent.

THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT AND THE OPINIONS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHERS

Several modern philosophers sought to confirm St. Anselm’s argument by a consideration of the objective validity of our intellect. Descartes says: Whatever is contained in the clear and distinct idea of anything, the same is true; but real existence is contained in the clear and distinct idea of God; therefore God exists."

We reply to this by distinguishing the major. In the ideal order of essences known by abstraction, whatever is contained in the clear idea of God is true, this I concede; in the order of real and actual existence, this I deny. We contradistinguish the minor in like manner; for our idea of God is, like our other ideas, an abstract one and, moreover, is analogical, derived from creatures.

Leibnitz says: For the argument of Descartes to be valid, this

16 St. Thomas says (De veritate, q.10, a.12, the end): “But in heaven, where we shall see God’s essence, His essence will be far more self-evident to us than the following truth is now self-evident to us: that affirmation and negation of a thing are not both true.”

17 Médditalions et réponses aux objections.

must prove that it is really possible for God to exist objectively, or outside the mind. His argument is as follows: If God is really possible, He exists, because His essence implies existence; but it is a priori manifest that God is really possible, for neither contradiction nor negation is implied in the idea of God; therefore God exists.48 Father Roselli, O.P., incautiously admitted this argument.

We reply to this by neither affirming nor denying the major, because in absolutely necessary things, existence that is necessary and not contingent follows from real possibility. Thus if the Trinity were proved a priori to be really possible, then its existence would follow from this. We distinguish the minor, That it is a priori manifest that God is really possible, and that this is negatively apparent, I concede; positively so, this I deny. This means that we do not see the existence of the most perfect Being to be an impossibility; but neither can this be positively proved a priori. Why so? It is because, as St. Thomas says, in the body of the article, we do not know God's essence; we have not a positive and proper knowledge, but only an analogical knowledge of the Deity. In a relative and negative sense we know that God is the supreme Being, the principle of other beings. In other words, because we do not know God’s essence, we cannot know a priori whether He is capable of existing. Moreover, it is difficult to reconcile certain absolute perfections that are clearly properties of the most perfect Being, such as God’s absolute immutability and His liberty. It is also difficult to reconcile the free act which, as an act, could be non-existent in God, with His absolute immutability and necessity. Likewise, the intimate reconciliation between the omnipotent God’s mercy and justice, as also between His goodness and permission of evil, these are hidden from us. They do not indeed impair the forcefulness of the a posteriori demonstration of God’s existence, but they do not allow of an a priori demonstration.

But Leibnitz objects that there is nothing of negation implied in the idea of God. Therefore it evidently excludes contradiction, for this latter is the result of some negation.

In reply to this we say that concealed contradiction can be the result only of the association of two ideas for which there is no foundation. Thus there is no negation involved in the idea of the swiftest motion; yet it implies contradiction bécause it is always possible to think of a swifter motion, just as the sides of a polygon inscribed in a circle are always divisible. So also there is no negation involved in the greatest possible creature, but it implies a contradiction because “God can make something else better than

18 Monadologie, § 45; Méditation sur les idées, p. 516.

each thing made by Him.” 19 Likewise, there is perhaps no foundation for the union of the two concepts of being and infinite.

Hence we cannot positively affirm a priori the possibility of God’s existence. For a positive knowledge of the analogical validity of our ideas of being, goodness, and the like, as these relate to God, this postulates God as the cause of finite beings from which our notions of being, goodness, and the like, are abstracted; for between the cause and its effects there is a certain similarity, at least that of analogy.?°

Being is that the act of which is to exist (whether it be selfexistent or dependent upon another for existence), and it is only from the similitude of the inferior analogate previously known to us that we can know the supreme analogate of being; but this similitude has its foundation in causality,” and from the existence of the effect we conclude the actual existence of the cause.

In more recent times Father Lepidi ?? sought to revive the ontological argument by having recourse to the principle of the objective validity of our intellect. His argument is as follows: The intellect clearly makes known to us that being is either logical or real; there is no intermediary. But the objective idea of the most perfect and infinite Being clearly represented in our mind is not a logical being. Therefore it is a real being. Yet it is not, as is selfevident, being that is possible of realization, existing potentially in its cause. Therefore it is actually existing real being.

We reply to this by conceding the major. Concerning the minor, we say, please prove it. Probable reasons, to be sure, are advanced, just as persuasive reasons are given to show the possibility of the Trinity; but they have no demonstrative value. It is not positively proved a priori that God is really possible or that the Trinity is really possible. This possibility is neither efficaciously proved a priori, nor is it efficaciously disproved by unbelievers.

But Father Lepidi persists in his objection by proving the minor as follows: Logical being is that which in no way exists in itself, nor can it so exist, but exists only in the mind. Because logical beings are not in the true sense entities, they are absolute non-entities, squared circles or negations, as a not-man, or privations, such as blindness. But, on the contrary, the most perfect Being is conceived as having plenitude of being. Therefore the idea of the most perfect Being is not the idea of a logical being, but of a real being, and it is not only possible of existence, but it also actually exists.

22 Revue de phil., December, 1909; Ontologia, pp: go f.

In reply we say that this proves only that we do not see the impossibility of the most perfect Being existing; in fact, we are persuaded of the same (just as we are persuaded of the possibility of infinite internal fecundity), but we have no positive proof of the same. The atheist can say: Perhaps there are no legitimate grounds for uniting in one concept the notions of being and infinity. An infinite man implies a contradiction; infinite being does not seem, indeed, to imply a contradiction; but yet we do not know a priori whether the notion is correct that has reference to something extramental. It may be like the notion of a supreme and infinite possible being, which at first sight does not seem to imply a contradiction, and yet it does if “God can make something else better than each thing made by Him.” *S

Finally, Father Lepidi objects that the aforesaid argument presupposes the five a posteriori proofs given by St. Thomas; but these are required only for acquiring the true notion of the most perfect Being, and from this correct notion, due to the objective validity of our intellect, the existence of this most perfect Being is proved. Thus the five proofs would serve as the ladder of ascent to the roof of the edifice, and after we have reached the roof, the ladder is no longer necessary.

We reply to this with the following distinction: If this notion of the most perfect Being were univocal or at least of itself immediately referred to God, as our notion of being of sensible things has immediate reference to the being of sensible things, then I agree. But this notion is analogical and for this reason does not bring us to a knowledge of God, the first analogate, except by the way of causality, by beginning from the previously known inferior analogate, which is finite being. By reason of the principle of causality, when imperfections have been removed from the absolutely simple perfections in which finite beings participate, these are attributed to God, the first Cause. Hence the five classical proofs of God’s existence, as we shall see farther on, are not only guides but are truly a posteriori demonstrations. ‘They would be merely guides if our intellect had a confused intuition of God, as the ontologists contend, in accordance with the realistic tendency of Plato.”

Yet there is an element of truth in what Father Lepidi and others of like mind say, for it will be more clearly seen later on that the

24 Father Lepidi admitted a certain naturally innate idea of God, inasmuch as the soul, since it is according to God’s image, received, at the moment of its creation, a certain irradiation from God, or a confused notion of the Creator. But this is not proved, nor can it be proved. Moreover, according to the principles of Thomism, all our ideas are the result of abstraction from sensible things (cf. Summa, Ia, q.84, a.3, 6).

five classical proofs are in some way co-ordinated since they all have their remote foundation in the notion of being and in the principle of contradiction or of identity (of being with itself, in that it is opposed to not-being), and their proximate foundation is in the principle of causality.

Thus we construct the following apodictic but a posteriori argument: Because of the objective validity of our reason, the principle of contradiction or of identity is the fundamental law not only of reason but of extramental being. But, if such is the case, the fundamental or supreme reality must be one of absolute identity, which means that it is not composite but is most simple and immutable, so that it is its being and its act, which means that it is the selfsubsisting Being. Therefore the most simple and immutable selfsubsisting Being exists above all composite and mutable beings.

‘This proof is apodictic but a posteriori. It is, as it were, a combination of the five classical proofs, clearly setting forth the opposition that prevails between the principle of identity and the changeableness of the world (first three proofs), and its composition (fourth and fifth proofs). Thus, by reason of this opposition, it would make it at once evident, at least for the philosophers, from the very fact that the world is composite and changeable, that it is contingent, which means that it is not self-existent. From this, too, the immediate conclusion is that the self-existing Being must be to existence, as A is to A, that it must be identical with it, so that He is the self-subsisting Being.

In other words, at the beginning of our discovery by the way of finding, it is first of all apparent, by reason of the real validity of the principle of contradiction or of identity, that being is being, nonbeing is non-being, or being is not non-being. And at the end of our discovery by the way of finding, due to the same principle of identity, it is evident that the supreme reality is absolutely identical with itself, without composition and change, that it is the self-subsisting Being: “I am who am.” In this, indeed, we have the refutation of pantheism, since the most simple and unchangeable self-subsisting Being is really and essentially distinct from every composite and changeable being.” But this distinction is clearly seen only after a profound penetration of the five a posteriori proofs.

God’s existence is known not a priori solely from the notion of being, as the followers of St. Anselm declare; but a posteriori from the notion of being and its first principles by means of the light reflected in the mirror of sensible things.

Confirmation of this proof. The existence of God who transcends the world cannot be denied without denying the real or ontological

25 Ibid., q.3, 2.8, “Whether God enters into the composition of other things.”

validity of the principle of contradiction or of identity. We already have precise evidence of this in the ancient teaching of Heraclitus, and more so in Hegelianism, which declares that the principle of contradiction is only a grammatical law and at the same time a law of the lower reasoning faculty, ‘but not the supreme law of the higher or intuitive reason and of reality. Instead of the most simple and immutable God we then have universal pantheistic evolution; for the denial of the existence of the immutable and self-subsisting Being means that the creative evolution of itself or universal becoming is the only fundamental reality, in which being and not-being are identified, since what is becoming does not as yet exist and still in some way does exist. But if this becoming is its own reason for such becoming and needs no extrinsic cause, then we have the denial of the principles of efficient and final causality and hence of the real validity of the principle of contradiction or of identity. For if evolution is creative of itself, that is, if this becoming is its own reason for such becoming, then it is without an efficient cause, and so in evolution of this kind the greater proceeds from the less. It is likewise without a final cause, because this evolution lacks a directing agent; it has no material cause and is like a flux without a fluid, because this evolution is not in any subject that is distinct from it and that would necessitate being moved by another; it is without formal cause, for “in effect, God is produced in man and in the world, and God is one and the same thing with the world, and therefore, spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, good with evil, justice with injustice.” 2 In all this we have the very negation of the real validity of the principle of contradiction, which would be merely a grammatical law of speech, and a law of logic governing the discursive process of the lower reason, but it would not be a law of the higher intellect directly perceiving the universality of this flux. Hence if Hegelianism were uon-existent, the theologians could devise it as a means of proving by the method of absurdity God's existence and His distinction from the world. Thus we pass from the criticism of St. Anselm’s argument, which in our opinion is insufficient, to the a posteriori proofs of God's existence.

THE DECLARATIONS OF THE CHURCH ABOUT ONTOLOGISM

A decree of the Holy Office (September 18, 1861) condemned seven propositions of the ontologists, stating that the propositions cannot be safely held.2? In this decree it is not the ontological or a priori argument, or its possibility that is rejected; but the doctrine

is condemned which states that “the immediate knowledge of God, at least habitual, is essential for the human intellect, so’ that without it the intellect can have no knowledge of anything; since it. is intellectual light itself.” The following two propositions are also condemned: “That being which is in all things and without which there is not anything we do understand, is the divine being. Universals objectively considered are not really distinct from God.” Ontologism confuses being in general with the divine being, and thus would end in the pantheistic ontologism of Spinoza.

Equally condemned is the ontologism of A. Rosmini, who declared that “being, which is the object of man’s direct perception, must of necessity be something of the necessary and eternal being.” #8 We say that the intelligible being of sensible things is the proper object of our intellect, and the ontologists apply this to the divine being about whom we have a confused knowledge.

SECOND ARTICLE WHETHER IT CAN BE DEMONSTRATED THAT GOD EXISTS

State of the question. Posited that God's existence is not selfevident to us, the question is whether it can be demonstrated. The difficulty is threefold: 1) that God’s existence is the first article of the Creed, “I believe in God,” and it is not the articles of the faith but only the preambles to the articles that are demonstrated; (2) that the medium of demonstration is the essence of a thing, and we do not know God's essence; (3) and that God's existence cannot be demonstrated from effects, for there is no proportion between the finite effect and the infinite God.

This last difficulty is variously proposed by modern agnostics, whether they are positivist empiricists such as Stuart Mill and Spencer, or idealists such as the Kantians. According to the positivists, we have indeed knowledge only of phenomena, and of their laws or constant relations. According to Kant, the theoretical reason cannot prove God's existence, because the principle of causality is only a subjective law of our mind; at least it is not clearly seen to be a law of real being, for the notion of causality seems to be a subjective category of our understanding, useful indeed for the subjective and for us necessary classification of phenomena, but without any ontological validity, and a fortiori without any transcendent validity for acquiring a knowledge of the transcendent Cause.

According to Kant only the practical reason proves God's existence with a certainty that is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient, namely, from the postulates‘of moral action. Kant indeed says: It is a synthetic a priori or subjectively necessary principle that the just person is deserving of happiness. But the just do not enjoy permanent happiness in this life. Therefore God the rewarder must exist, who is the only one who in the other life can effect a permanent union between virtue and happiness. This is not theoretically demonstrated, but it is reasonably believed by moral faith.

Likewise the traditionalists or fideists, condemned in the year 1855,2° held that reason left to itself (without the aid of primitive revelation handed down by traditions among the nations) cannot demonstrate God's existence. Already in the Middle Ages Nicholas of Ultricuria *° upheld fideism, denying the real validity of reason, especially the real validity of the principle of causality.

The reply is that God’s existence can be demonstrated by effects known to us.

1. The authority of Scripture is proof of this, for we read: “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” ** But this would not be the case if, by the things that are made, God's existence could not be demonstrated. All Scholastics, except such radical nominalists as Nicholas of Ultricuria, so understood this and similar texts of Holy Scripture.? The above-mentioned text from the Epistle to the Romans is quoted by the Vatican Council in defining against traditionalists, fideists, Kantians, and positivists that “the same Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, may be known for certain by the natural light of human reason by means of created things; for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made,” 33 The same is defined in the corresponding canon.*

Moreover, there is a better explanation of this text against the agnostics of our times in the antimodernist oath that expresses the faith of the Church in the following words: “I (name) firmly hold as true and accept everything which the infallible teaching authority of the Church has defined, maintained, and declared, especially those points of doctrine which are directly contrary to the errors of the present time. And first of all I profess (profiteor) that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known for certain and proved by the natural light of reason, that is to say, through the visible works of His creation, just as the cause is made known to us

by its effects.” °° The word “profiteor” in the Latin of this oath expresses a profession of faith, and this is especially evident from what is stated a little farther on, for we read: “Thirdly, I firmly believe that the Church was instituted by the true and historic Christ.” We have elsewhere fully examined each word of the above quoted dogmatic definition of the Vatican Council, which is explained by this oath.*¢

In the definition as explained by the oath we have the condemnation of the fideism of the traditionalists whose theses had already been proscribed.’? Kantianism is likewise condemned.** Moreover, the Church declares that God’s existence can be proved not only from the postulates of practical reason, but from the visible effects. Nor is the proof founded in the primacy of the immanent method of sufficient weight, because the proof does not give us objectively sufficient certitude. This has already been shown at length in another work.*?

Hence the Church in some measure gives her approbation to the validity of the a posteriori traditional proof of God’s existence, but she neither approves nor condemns St. Anselm’s argument and Descartes’ theory of innate ideas.

Moreover, the above-quoted definition as given by the Council is concerned with “the existence of the true God, the beginning and end of all things.” + It is not, however, formally defined that reason can demonstrate creation out of nothing, but that it can demon- Strate the existence of God, the first Cause, and that the divine attributes of infinity, eternity, supreme wisdom, providence, and sanctity are included in this notion. ‘To avoid the charge of heresy, therefore, it would not suffice to say with several agnostics that reason can demonstrate the existence of some first eternal cause, which however is perhaps an immanent principle in the world,

ss Cf. Acta Concilii, Collectio Lacencis, VII, 130, Which explains the word “certo.” The council is speaking of objectively sufficient certainty and not solely of subjectively sufficient certainty, as Kant said it was.

89 Cf. God, His Existence, 1, 40-60. Maurice Blondel in his “L’Action,” pp. 437 Ê. writes: “The knowledge which before option was purely subjective and propulsive, after the choice becomes privative and constitutive of being (according as the free choice is good or bad)... . The second kind of knowledge .. . is no longer merely a subjective state of mind; for instead of positing the problem in the practical order . . . it directs the attention to what is an accomplished fact (in the free choice), to that which is. Thus it truly is an objective (but practical) knowledge, even though it is obliged to admit a deficiency in action.” But quite recently Blondel made a retractation of this last chapter of his first work, and he is now more in agreement with the traditional teaching.

neither transcendent nor personal, that is to say, intelligent and free. This would not be proving the existence of the true God.

It is not defined whether reason alone can deduce explicitly the proper attributes of the true God, especially infinity. However, Bautain had to acknowledge his acceptance of the following proposition: “Human reasoning can with certainty prove the existence of God and the infinity of His perfections. Faith, being a supernatural gift, presupposes revelation, and hence cannot be consistently invoked to prove the existence of God against an atheist.” 4 Hence, if the denial of the demonstrability of God's infinity is not heretical, it is at least erroneous.

Finally, the aforesaid definition is concerned not with the fact but with the possibility of proving God's existence. It is defined to be physically possible even in the state of fallen nature.‘? Moral possibility, however, or a possibility that presents no great difficulty, is proximate to the faith, this being the common teaching of the theologians; otherwise the Scripture would not have said: “But all men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God: and who by these good things that are seen could not understand Him that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the workman.” 43 At least from the order to be seen in the world there is no difficulty in concluding as to the probability of a supreme Ordainer, and then man is bound to make further inquiries. If he does not do so, his ignorance is not entirely involuntary or invincible. ‘Therefore theologians commonly reject the possibility of invincible ignorance about the existence of God as the author of the natural moral law. The first principle of this law, namely, “good must be done, evil must be avoided,” #4 is known without difficulty; and there can be no law without a lawgiver, nor can there be any passive designing without active designing, or without a supreme Designer.

Hence the following proposition was condemned as temerarious and erroneous, namely, the proposition about a philosophical sin that would be against right reason and yet not an offense against God, because it would be committed “by a man who either has no knowledge of God, or does not advert to Him.” **

Revelation is morally necessary, however, as the Vatican Council says: “that such truths among things divine as of themselves are not

• beyond human reason can, even in the present condition of man-

kind, be known by everyone with facility, with firm assurance, and with no admixture of error.” 4# These are the principal arguments drawn from authority.

2. The conclusion is proved by reason. In the body of the article St. Thomas: (1) distinguishes between two kinds of demonstration, one being a priori, the other a posteriori; (2) he shows that the demonstration a posteriori, or from the effect, is valid; and (3) he shows how this applies to the demonstration of God’s existence.

3. Demonstration is of two kinds. The a priori demonstration is through the cause, and it assigns the reason for which of the thing demonstrated. Each of the four causes can give us this kind of demonstration. Thus the spirituality of the soul is assigned as the reason for its incorruptibility (formal cause); likewise, man is mortal from the fact that he is composed of contraries (material cause); also that we are free is proved from the fact that we are endowed with reason and have knowledge not only of particular but also of universal good (directive formal cause). In like manner, the necessity of the means is demonstrated a priori from the end; thus grace is necessary for the supernatural vision of God. The same is true of the efficient cause. Given the cause in the act of causing, as in the case of the sun illuminating, then the effect follows. Thus this kind of demonstration can be effected by means of the four causes.

Demonstration through the effect, however, is called a posteriori, because the effect is something posterior to the cause; but sometimes it is previously known to us. This demonstration shows that the cause is, quod vel quia est, for in the Latin terminoloy of the Scholastics, quia est means the same as quod est. Thus it is called demonstratio quia in opposition to demonstratio propter quid. It is therefore a demonstration by means of those things that are previously known to us. The order of invention is then ascendant, whereas the order of things is descendent.

It must at once be noted from the reply to the second objection that, “in demonstrating God’s existence from His effects, we must take for the middle term the meaning of the word ‘God: ” This means that we must begin with the nominal definition of God, since by the name “God” is understood the supreme Cause, the most perfect Being, the supreme Ordainer, and the question is whether the supreme Cause exists.

2. The reason for the validity of the demonstration from the effect and the kind of demonstration required. It is valid in virtue of the principle of causality, for, as St. Thomas says in the body of

46 Ibid., no. 1786. For an explanation of this, consult author's commentary on q.1, acl.

4 the article, “since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist.”

But this principle of causality must be properly understood. The Positivists understand it as referring only to the phenomenal order, since every phenomenon presupposes an antecedent phenomenon. Thus if we have expansion of iron, this presupposes the phenomenon of a greater degree of heat, because heat expands iron. If such were the case, this principle would hold good only in the order of phenomena, and as an experimental Jaw but not as an absolutely necessary law. But a miracle would be out of the question, because a miraculous phenomenon does not suppose an antecedent phenomenon, but proceeds from God’s exceptional intervention as first Cause, operating beyond the ordinary course of nature. Nor does it suffice, as the Kantians say, that the principle of causality should be a subjectively necessary law of our mind for the necessary subjective classification of phenomena. To prove the existence of the transcendent Cause, this principle must have, moreover, ontological validity as regards extramental being; in fact it must have transcendent validity.

As a matter of fact, this principle is commonly formulated not only in the phenomenal but also in the ontological order, and not only does it state that “every phenomenon supposes an antecedent phenomenon,” but it also says: “Everything that comes into being has a cause”; or rather, to express it more universally, every contingent being is efficiently caused by another. Even if de facto this contingent being eternally existed, it would still need a productive and conservative cause, because a contingent being is not its own reason for existence.

Nor need we be surprised that this principle is thus formulated with reference to extramental being and not only to phenomena, because the proper object of our intellect, as distinct from the object of either the external or internal senses, is not only color, | sound, extension, hardness, and such like, but it is the intelligible : being of sensible things. Whereas the object of sight is colored being ` considered as colored, the object of the intellect is colored being considered as being; and at once our intellect perceives the truth of the first principle of contradiction or of identity, that “being is being, not-being is not being,” or “no being is not-being.” This pertains to the ontological order, which is above the order of phenomena.

Moreover, one cannot deny the principle of causality without denying the principle of contradiction. This is evident from an analysis of the terms, for this principle of causality is immediately evident without any middle term of demonstration; but it can, moreover, be demonstrated indirectly by the method of reduction to absurdity, as all Scholastics admit.

In fact, uncaused contingent being is repugnant to reason. In other words, nothing is what results from nothing, without a cause nothing comes into being. Parmenides already expressed the same in the negative form (for it was the negative formula of the principle of causality, in which the efficient cause was not as yet sufficiently distinguished from the material cause). Why is an uncaused contingent being repugnant to reason? It is because a contingent being is that which can either exist or not exist (this being its definition). Therefore it is not self-existent, and must be dependent upon another for this; otherwise, if it were neither self-existent nor dependent upon another for existence, it would have no reason for existing, and so would be the same as nothing. “Nothing is what results from nothing.” To say that from nothing, or that from no cause either efficient or material, something comes into being, is a contradiction.

It is not, indeed, so clearly and directly contradictory, as if one were to say, “the contingent is not contingent”; but to say, “something that is contingent is not caused,” is to deny a property of the same that directly enters into its definition, and indirectly this means to nullify its definition.* Such would be the case if Lucifer were to say: “Therefore I came forth from nothing, not having been caused.” To say, “Something contingent exists that is not caused,” is to affirm a positive relation of agreement between two terms which are in no way related to each other. Most certainly nothing comes into being without a cause. l

Hence the ontological validity of the notion of being and of the principle of contradiction or of identity being admitted, this means that the ontological and not only the phenomenal validity of the notion of cause and of the principle of efficient causality must be admitted. The experimental law that heat expands iron pertains to the order of phenomena, and is hypothetically necessary, which means that if heat exerts its influence, the expansion of iron is the result; but this does not exclude the possibility of this expansion being produced by a higher cause beyond the ordinary course of nature. On the contrary, the principle of efficient causality is a law of the ontological order and is of absolute necessity; we cannot conceive of even a miraculous exception, for nothing comes into being without a cause. This formula extends to every cause whatever, whether the proximate and lowest, or the supreme cause.

It must be noted that for our demonstration it is not absolutely

4T For a more complete explanation of this, consult, God, His Existence, J 181-91.

necessary to prove that the notion of cause is not innate to us, but that it is abstracted from sensible things. Even if it were innate to us, it could and would have not only phenomenal but also transcendent and ontological validity; for it manifests to us something deeper than phenomena, namely, the dependence of contingent being upon another being, for that which is not self-existent is dependent upon another for its existence.*#

St. Thomas says: “From every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated.” Why does he say “the proper cause”? It is because, if it is not a case of the proper cause, then the demonstration is invalid. Thus the following inference is valueless: this man exists, therefore his father exists, and yet the father is the cause of the son. Very often the father dies before the son. Likewise, very often the antecedent phenomenon disappears when the subsequent phenomenon makes its appearance, as in the case of the local motion of rubbing the hands together by which heat is produced. Hence the agnostics would merely say that “from every effect it can be demonstrated, not that its cause does exist, but that it did exist.” Thus heat is produced by local motion, and this latter presupposes heat, and so on indefinitely. In like manner, rain comes from the clouds, the clouds from the evaporation of the water, the evaporation is caused by the heat of the sun, and so on indefinitely, so that there was never a first rain, or a first evaporation. The case is the same in the series of generations of plants, animals, and men. There was never a first oak or a first lion or a first man. In fact, even Aristotle admitted that the world and generations are eternal, yet according to a certain mysterious dependence on the pure Act.

St. Thomas would reply that we are concerned with the proper cause, whereas the proposed difficulty does not refer to the proper cause.*® What is the proper cause? It is the cause on which the effect absolutely first of all, or necessarily and immediately, depends, as Aristotle said, just as the property depends on the specific difference, for instance, the faculty of reasoning on the ability to reason. The proper effect is like a property manifested ad extra in its relation to the proper cause about which we are concerned in this article.

St. Thomas presupposes from the works of Aristotle 5° the philosophical and profound notion of the required proper or absolutely first cause. Of the four modes of per se predication, the fourth pertains to causality, as the killer kills, light illuminates, the sculptor is

48 In Adam, since he was created an adult in the state of innocence, with his ideas, the idea of cause was per accidens infused, or innate; in us it is acquired by abstraction as the notion of being is. Cf. Summa, la, q.84, a.6.

49 This is explained more fully in God, His Existence, pp. 71-81.

the cause of the statue.®! St. Thomas also examines more closely this notion of cause in his discussion of creation.? The most universal effect (that is, being inasmuch as this term applies to all existing things) must be reduced to its most universal cause, as the proper effect of this cause. St. Thomas again refers to this causality when treating of the conservation of all things by God.5 These articles constitute the most sublime comment on the doctrine of the present article, and this because they treat of the same relation of causality, but they do so by starting from above, from God already . known, and not by ascending to Him as we do here by the way of finding out.

For a more profound understanding of the proper or proximately direct cause, that is, of the one that is necessarily and immediately required, we must recall the five evident propositions taken from the Metaphysics of Aristotle. In this we see the methodical transition from the natural reason or the common sense to the philosophical reason, in accordance with Aristotle’s accustomed way, who thus gave metaphysics its elements as Euclid did to geometry.

1. The proper cause must be the direct or necessarily required cause,°* and not the accidental cause. We have an example of a direct cause in the following: a man generates a man, or the man generating is the direct cause of the generation of the man. An accidental cause would be: Socrates generates a man; because for a man to be generated it is not necessary that the one generating be Socrates or Plato. A fortiori, it is accidental that the musician generates a man, because it is accidental for the one generating to be a musician. In like manner and with far greater reason, the grandfather is the accidental cause of the generation of the grandson, for he is not directly concerned in it, and often he is already dead. His son generates inasmuch as he is a man, and not inasmuch as he is the son of another man, as St. Thomas says.** Hence a series of past causes, as grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on, is a series of accidental causes and in Aristotle’s opinion was infinite in the past, that is, there was no first generator; but, according to St. Thomas, this is not repugnant to reason, as we shall state farther on.5* We

51 The first mode of per se predication is the definition of the thing; the second is the property that is necessarily connected with the essence of the thing; the third is the first substance, which exists in itself; the fourth is the necessarily required cause.

54 It is said to be necessarily required, rather than necessary, because it can be a free cause. Thus we speak of God.

maintain it to be of revelation, however, that the-world had a beginning, and Adam the first man was able to generate because, as we have said, man generates inasmuch as he is of adult age, and not inasmuch as he is the son of another man.

2. The proper cause must be not only direct, but proximately or immediately required for its proper effect, as the specific difference is the cause of the property that is derived from it. Thus to say that an animal generates a man, is to assign the direct cause, but not the proximately direct cause, not the proper cause. We must say that a man generates a man.

3. Hence a most particular or singular cause is the proper cause of a most particular effect. Thus Socrates is the proper cause of the generation, not of a man, but of this man, his son. St. Thomas says: “Of two things in the same species (as a father and son), one cannot directly cause the other’s form as such, 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 cause of this form for as much as it is in matter, in other words, it may be the cause that this matter receives this form.” 57 Thus Socrates is said to be the proper cause of the generation not of a man but of this man.

4. The most universal cause is the proper cause of the most universal effect. As St. Thomas says: “For the more universal effects must be reduced to the more universal and prior causes. Now among all effects, the most universal is being itself. Hence it must be the proper effect of the first and most universal cause, and that is God.” "8 Thus only God can create or “produce being absolutely, not as this being (for instance, this wood), or such being (for instance, wood rather than stone).” °® In like manner, “this movement is produced by this mover,” °° for example, the movement of the carriage by the horse; but if motion taken in the absolute sense is not its own reason for existence and needs a cause, we must reduce motion taken in the absolute sense and hence all motions to a higher universal cause, namely, to the first mover, who will be the proper or proximately direct cause, not of this particular motion, but of motion itself taken in the absolute sense (as it is a universal effect); and hence this first mover, the cause of all motions, will be immobile, at least as regards local motion. In fact, if immobility is a requisite for the mover not only of bodies but also of spirits, whatever kind of motion this may be, then our soul is mobile, not

60 Likewise my will is the proper cause not of the free choice, but of my free choice as being mine.

by way of local motion, but because of the discursive and deliberative process of its reasoning faculty.

5. Finally, we must distinguish between the proper cause of the beginning of the effect and the proper cause of the being of the effect.** Thus the builder is the proper cause of the building of the house, and when the actual construction of the house ceases, then its construction in the passive sense also ceases; but the builder is not the proximately direct cause of the being of the house, for its being does not depend on the being of the builder; in fact, when the builder dies the house continues in its being. Likewise, Socrates is the cause of his son as to his becoming, or as to his passive generation, but not as to his being; for the son’s being is independent of the father’s being; in fact, whereas the father dies, the son continues to exist.

On the other hand, the illumination by the sun is the cause of the air being illuminated, and when the sun ceases to illuminate, then the air is no longer illuminated. In like manner, the object seen is the objective cause of the seeing, so that the seeing ceases with the removal of the object. Likewise the evidence of the principles is the cause of the evidence of the conclusion, not only as to its becoming, but also as to its being. Also the attraction of the good that is desired is the cause of the desire not only as to its becoming, but also as to its being and continuance in being.

These five subordinate propositions not only give us a more profound insight into the meaning of the proper or proximately direct cause as understood by Aristotle and St. Thomas, but they also explain the following words of this article: “From every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated,” and not only that it did exist.

This is the same as saying with Aristotle,®? that the positing of the cause (as it is the cause) means the positing of the effect, and, on the other hand, the removal of the cause means the removal of the effect. Thus the positing of a potential cause means the positing of a potential effect; for instance, the builder can build, and the house can be built. The positing of the cause in the act of causing the becoming of the effect means the positing of this becoming (the one who builds, is building); the positing of the cause in the act of producing the being of its effect means the production of this being. Thus, as long as the sun illuminates the atmosphere by its presence, this latter remains illuminated.

It is now easy to explain the end of the argumentative part of this article, which is but the application of the preceding to the e2 Metaph., Bk. V, chap. 2, lect. 3 (end).

proof of God’s existence. This means that, if there are in the world effects proper to God, the supreme Cause, then God’s existence can be demonstrated a posteriori from them, and, indeed, by an absolutely necessary metaphysical demonstration, if these effects pertain to being, inasmuch as it is the being of created things. But these effects proper to God are investigated in the following article.

Already from the aforesaid it is clear that these effects must be universal, since the most universal effects are the proper effects of the most universal cause, as being by participation is the proper effect of Him who is essential being. Thus our conclusion will be that this motion is caused by this previous motion; but if motion taken absolutely in its generic sense is not its own reason for existence, then we must seek for the proper cause of motion in the generic sense, and of all motions.

So we shall conclude: (1) that the proper cause of all motions is the first and immobile Mover (first way); but that it does not follow immediately from this that the first Mover is infinite and intelligent; (2) likewise that the proper cause of all caused causality is the first uncaused Cause (second way); (3) that the proper cause of all contingent being is the necessary Being (third way), and this necessary Being will manifest Himself to us as the cause not only of the becoming but also of the being of contingent beings; (4) that the proper cause of those things that admit of greater and less in being, in truth, and in goodness, is the greatest in being, in truth, and in goodness (fourth way); (5) finally that the supreme and intelligent Ordainer of all things is the proper cause of the ordaining of all things. ‘This means that the supreme Ordainer is the absolutely first cause of the ordaining and preserving of all things in the world, just as the sculptor is the proximately direct cause of the formation of the statue as to its becoming (but not as to the being of the statue, for this continues in existence after the sculptor’s death).

First doubt. The question is whether the aforesaid demonstration from effects ought to have its foundation in a series of accidentally connected causes, or in a series of actually existing and essentially connected causes.**

This difficulty arises from another general principle that together with the principle of causality is included in all proofs of God's existence. The principle is that we cannot proceed to infinity in a series of subordinated causes. Therefore we must come to a first uncaused cause. What sort of subordination are we concerned with here?

Some, having failed to grasp the meaning of St. Thomas in the es This has been more fully explained in God, His Existence, 1, 77-84.

following article, think that he considers an infinite series of accidentally subordinated causes to be a contradiction in terms, so that this necessarily implies that creation was not eternal, which means that there must have been a first man, a first lion, and no series of eternal generations of men, animals, and plants. But afterward, these same persons find St. Thomas, in the article in which he asks whether it is of faith that the world began, writing as follows: “But it is not impossible to proceed to accidental infinity as regards efficient causes,” °t in a series, for instance, of past generations. This shows that they misunderstood the proofs of God's existence.

We find the solution to the doubt precisely in the complete reply of St. Thomas from which the above-mentioned quotation is taken. He writes: “In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to absolute infinity; for example, there cannot be an infinite number of causes that are absolutely required for a certain effect; for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on to infinity. But it is not impossible to proceed to accidental infinity as regards efficient causes; as for instance, if all the causes thus infinitely multiplied should have the order of only one cause, their multiplication being accidental; as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be taken. It is accidental, therefore, that one particular hammer acts after the action of another; and likewise it is accidental to this particular man as generator to be generated by another man; for he generates as a man, and not as the son of another man. For all men generating hold one grade in efficient causes, namely, the grade of a particular generator. Hence it is not impossible for a man to be generated by man to infinity; but such a thing would be impossible if the generation of this man depended on this man, and on an elementary body, and on the sun, and so on to infinity.” 65

Hence the ancients said that “man and the sun generate man,” which means man acting in conjunction with the general agents actually existing; for, if there were a cessation of solar heat on the earth, this would mean the end of the generations of animal and plant life. But the influence of the sun directly depends on the actual influence of a higher cause, and we cannot proceed to infinity in a series of directly subordinated efficient causes; as Aristotle said: dvdyxn orvan or we Must come to a first in this series. Otherwise all movers would be moved and no reason could be as-

signed for the being or cause of motion itself. We must therefore come to a first cause that is its own principle of action.%¢

In accordance with the modern physics of our times, we may express the series of directly subordinated efficient causes as follows: the ship supports the sailor, the sea enables the ship to float, the earth holds the sea in check, the sun keeps the earth fixed in its course, and some unknown center of attraction holds the sun in its place. But we cannot proceed to infinity in this series; otherwise all movers would be moved, and so we could not assign any cause for motion itself, which needs a cause, since it is not its own principle of motion. Hence we must come to the supreme Mover that is not of the past but is actually existing, who is His own action and His own being, because operation follows being, and the mode of operation the mode of being.

Similarly there may be many wheels in a clock, but we must come to that part of the mechanism ‘whose elasticity, whether you call it tension or weight, is the cause of the local motion of the wheels and of the index hand of the hours. Thus local motion originates from some force, from some dynamic influence that must be explained by some higher cause.

In the opinion of St. Thomas, that creation was not eternal but took place in time, so that there was a first day, a first revolution of the sun, is dependent on God’s most free will and is known only by revelation.®*

So also Aristotle," although he admits the eternity of motion, proves the existence of a supreme and immobile mover who does not need to be premoved so as to act. In fact, he says that the greatest motion must be infinitely powerful to move in an infinity of time (that is to say, eternally).®° In like manner, from the fact that act is prior to potency, Aristotle seeks to prove the perpetuity of eternal generation. Hence he concludes that the first Mover is permanently unmoved.” Indeed he shows that there is no process to infinity in any genus of directly subordinate causes.”

66 Of course the Augustinians generally rejected, as St. Bonaventure did, the possibility of eternal creation, whereas, contrary to this, the Averroists held with Aristotle that the world actually is eternal, being somehow dependent, however, in the order of causality, on the pure Act. St. Thomas holds in all his writings that eternal creation is not repugnant to reason, and that temporal creation is an article of faith, which cannot be demonstrated.

87 Summa theol., Ia, q.46, a.2; Contra Gentes, Bk. II, chap. 38; De potentia, q-3, a.14. Quodl., XII, q.6, a.1; Opusc., 27, De aeternitate mundi.

1. In the genus of material cause we must admit the presence of first matter, namely, some first material subject; otherwise there would be no second matter or what is disposed to receive this or that form. In such a case there would be no earth, air, water, fire, or bodies composed of elements. To deny first matter would be to do away with the material cause, which is a necessary requisite as constituting the subject of alteration.

2. In the genus of formal cause there must be a substantial form underlying the accidental forms, and also in the category of substance, as in the categories of quantity, quality . . . we must come to the supreme genus, for without this there would be no directly subordinate genera, and so there would be nothing definable and nothing intelligible. Thus the supreme genus of substance is divided into corporeal and incorporeal substances; the corporeal are divided into non-living and living; the living into non-sensitive and sensitive; the sensitive into irrational and rational. Likewise there is no proceeding indefinitely in a series of demonstrations, but we must come to those first indemonstrable and to us selfevident principles.’* It is always a case of dvdyxy ørvar (necessity of a first).

Similarly, in the genus of efficient cause there is no proceeding indefinitely in a series of directly connected causes, although there may be such a series of accidentally connected past causes. Thus, as Aristotle says, man is moved to take off his clothes when it is warm, but this happens because of the sun, but now the sun is moved by a superior force, and we cannot proceed to infinity in this series of directly connected causes; otherwise there would be no cause for movement as such or in the absolute sense (and not merely as it is this particular motion). But motion needs a cause, because it is not its own principle of motion; it is not as A is to A in its reference to being, that is to say, it is not identical with its being.

Lastly, in the genus of final cause there is no process to infinity in a series of directly subordinated ends, otherwise there would be no final causality. As St. Thomas says: “Absolutely speaking, it is not possible to proceed indefinitely in the matter of ends from any point of view. For in all things whatever there is an essential order of one to another, so that if the first is removed, those that are ordained to the first, must of necessity be removed also... . In ends, that which is first in the order of intention, is the principle as it were, moving the appetite. Consequently, if you remove this principle, there will be nothing to move the appetite (that is, attract it). . . . But since accidental causes are indeterminate ...

it happens that there is an accidental infinity of ends and of things ordained to the end.” 73

There is direct subordination when it is said that we walk so as to keep in health, and that we seek health for the sake of happiness. But if we were to say that happiness is sought for some other reason and so on indefinitely, then this would do away with all finality and hence with every desire and action. The ultimate end, considered at least under the aspect of happiness in general, is prior in intention. Thus all men wish to be happy, although many do not know what truly constitutes happiness.

Hence in the four kinds of causes there can be no process to infinity in a series of directly connected causes, otherwise this would do away with every kind of cause. Thus we see that this principle of the impossibility of proceeding indefinitely in such a series of causes is, as it were, the corollary of the principle of causality; in fact, it is the corollary to the commonly accepted principle of causality according as this latter is proportionately or analogically verified in the four kinds of causes.

Corollary. But if the process were to infinity in a series of accidentally connected past causes, as regards generations of men, animals, and plants, then the first Cause would have only a priority of dignity and causality in its relation to the world. This will be more clearly explained farther on when we show that there is no necessity for a first man, a first lion, a first day, or a first revolution of the sun.7* So it would have been if God had most freely willed an eternal creation; yet in this case He would have priority of causality as regards the created world, just as the foot would have with reference to its imprint or trace left in the sand, if the foot were eternally implanted in the sand. Hence in the proofs for God’s existence, we must not proceed according to a series of past causes, but we must get away from this series and rise above it to an actually existing higher cause. For it is evident that any contingent being, such as Abel the son of Adam, does not necessarily require another contingent being as cause, but they both postulate the necessary Being as higher cause.

Second doubt. What is to be our method of procedure as regards agnosticism, in showing the ontological and transcendental validity of the ideas and principles from which the proofs for God’s existence are deduced?

This question has been fully discussed by us elsewhere,7> and only the outstanding principles will be discussed here. Agnosticism

73 Summa theol., Ia Iae, q.1, a.4. 74 Ibid., la, q.46, a.2, c. ad 6um et 7um. 75 See God, His Existence, I, 111~242.

in general rejects the demonstrability of God’s existence because it denies the ontological and transcendental validity of first ideas and principles of reason, especially the principle of causality. For their formula of the principle of causality is not: every contingent being has an efficient cause; but they say: every phenomenon presupposes an antecedent phenomenon, and so on indefinitely. Hence, by virtue of this principle thus formulated in the order of phenomena, it is impossible to transcend this same order.

These agnostics are either of the empirical or idealist type. The empiricists, such as the Positivists, reduce the principle of causality to an experimental law which is repeatedly confirmed and corroborated by heredity; but in their opinion we do not know whether the law applies beyond the scope of our experience. Perhaps, beyond the limits of our experience, there is a phenomenon without one preceding it, or perhaps something comes into being that is not caused. But this is contrary to common sense or natural reason, for something to come into being that is not caused.

The idealist agnostics, however, such as Kant, seek somehow to explain this intimate persuasion of the common sense and of the absolute necessity and universality of the principle of causality. But they say that this necessity is subjective, and is the result of the subjective application of the category of our mind, namely, of the category of causality as regards phenomena. Thus they say that it is for us unintelligible for something to come into being that is not caused; but perhaps this is not absolutely impossible outside our mind.

But we cannot in the course of this theological treatise engage in a lengthy and philosophical discussion of this question, which we have done in another of our works as above mentioned. It suffices to point out the fundamentals, the ignorance of which does not excuse one.

The ontological validity of first ideas and of the first principles of reason is shown inasmuch as these ideas and correlative principles do not express sensible phenomena but being that is in itself intelligible and accidentally sensible, and also the first modes of being. Hence they are said to have not merely phenomenal validity, as the ideas of color, heat, or sound have, for these express phenomena; but their validity is ontological since by means of them we acquire a knowledge of being that underlies the phenomena.

Of such a nature are the ideas of being, substance, and also of causality. For causality is not anything directly sensible (either the proper sensible, as color or sound; or the common sensible that affects several senses, such as extension or figure); but it is the accidentally sensible and directly intelligible which, as St. Thomas says, “is apprehended by the intellect immediately that the anje of sense perception is presented to it; just as, when I see someone speaking or moving, I apprehend by the intellect (without anyi illative process of reasoning) that there is life; hence I can say that I see him living,” 7 although life is not directly sensible as color is. Just as only the intellect, reading what is within, can directly apprehend being, and substance or substantial being, so only this faculty is able directly to apprehend efficient causality and finality. For efficient causality is the production or realization of actual being, and this realization is apprehended only by the faculty whose object is real being. It is not apprehended by sight which is specified by the colored object, or by hearing which is specified by sound. But, whereas sight apprehends the colored being as colored, the intellect apprehends colored being as being and, if this being undergoes a change, the intellect apprehends its passive and active realization. Likewise, whereas the sense of touch is aware of the extension and hardness of bodies, the intellect knows that the passive pressure produced upon us by the resistance of bodies is a reality.

f

Hence St. Thomas says: “Understanding implies an intimate | knowledge, for intelligere (to understand) is the same as intus legere (to read inwardly). This is clear to anyone who considers the difference between intellect and sense, because sensitive knowledge is concerned with external sensible qualities (or phenomena), whereas intellective knowledge penetrates into the very essence of a thing (at least the intellect has a confused knowledge, which means that it penetrates to the intelligible being of sensible things). The object of the intellect is what a thing is, as stated in De anima (Bk. III, chap. 6). . . . Thus, under the accidents lies hidden the nature of the substantial reality (and only the intellect knows the difference between the natures of a stone, a plant, and an animal); under words lies hidden their meaning . . . and effects lie hidden in their causes, and vice versa.” ™ In like manner, St. Thombs shows that although the irrational animal knows by sense perception the thing toward which it tends as its prey, yet it does not see in it the idea of an end as such, or the reason for the existence of the means. These cannot be apprehended except by the faculty whose object is intelligible being and the reasons for the existence of things.78

Nor can it be said that the idea of causality is merely a subjective category of the mind, the sole purpose of which is to express something mental or logical being; for this idea, just as that of

78 Com. on De anima, Bk. II, chap. 6, lect. 13. 17 Summa theol., Ila Mae, q.8, a.1. 78 Ibid., la Uae, q.1, a.2.

extramental being, is a representation that is essentially related to the thing represented. As St. Thomas says: “That which is primarily understood is the object, of which the species is the likeness.” Just previous to this he had said: “But since the intellect reflects upon itself, by such reflection it understands both its own act of intelligence, and the species by which it understands.” 7° Similarly he writes: “Yet it is the stone which is understood, not the likeness of the stone, except by a reflection of the intellect on itself; otherwise the objects of sciences would not be things, but only intelligible species.” 8° That the sciences are concerned with things is a truth held by all men as in accordance with natural reason. ‘Thus these sciences are distinct from logic, which is concerned with mental being. Otherwise we should have to identify direct with reflex understanding; yet the two are distinct, because the latter presupposes the former.

Confirmation. The ontological validity of the first ideas of reason and of the correlated principles is admitted by all as naturally evident, even by the agnostics when they are not actually defending their own opinion, which is a denial of this validity. Thus all men are convinced that even in some world of which we know nothing it is absolutely impossible that anything should come into being without a cause. Therefore, in opposition to empiricism, we say that this principle transcends experience. Even the idealist agnostics hold that they are really the authors of their books; hence they admit that causality expresses a reality, and not only what is merely subjective. Otherwise we should have to say that the murderer was not really the cause of death, and that he does not deserve really to be punished; but we must say that he was the cause of death only in the manner in which we conceive of it. In like manner, we should have to say that Kant was not really the author of the Critique of Pure Reason, but is said to be the author of this work as we conceive of it. According to this opinion there would be no real relation of dependence of the creature on God, but only a logical relation, just as we conceive it to be in God with reference to creatures.

Hence to deny the ontological validity of the first ideas of our intellect is to deny that the object of the intellect is intelligible being.*? In other words, this means that intelligible being is reduced

81 It is self-evident that the object of the intellect is intelligible being. This truth is established from the operations of the mind by an inductive process of reasoning; for every conception or idea presupposes the idea of being (and is concerned with the modes of being). The formal element in every judgment consists in the final analysis in the verb “is.” (“Peter runs” is equivalent to “Peter either to the order of sensible phenomena that are the objects of the external or internal senses, or else to that of mental being which is the object of logic, and thus there would no longer be any distinction between logic and the other sciences. Hence this question in its final analysis is one that concerns the problem of universals. Empirical agnostics, like all sensualists, are nominalists. For such as these the idea is but a certain composite and confused image of the imagination accompanied by a common name. The idealist agnostics are subjectivist conceptualists, and for these every idea is but an expression of mental being. Contrary to this, traditional realism holds that the proper object of our intellect is the intelligible being of sensible things which “the intellect apprehends immediately that the object of sense perception is presented to it,” previous to any illative process of reasoning.®?

But the transcendent validity of the first principles of reason and of their correlated principles consists in this, that by them we acquire certainty of knowledge as regards the first transcendent cause, or, in other words, of the Cause that is really and essentially distinct from the world. Taken in this sense, the transcendent validity of these ideas is clearly seen from the fact that these ideas express perfections which, in what is formally denoted by them, imply no imperfection. Hence the analogical but proper attribution of these ideas in an eminent degree to the supreme Being implies no contradiction, and they are actually attributed to Him, if the world demands a supreme cause having these perfections.

Such are the ideas of being, unity, truth, goodness, causality .. . for these are already analogically predicated of various finite beings; analogically, to be sure, but properly and not merely metaphorically. Thus being is first of all predicated of substance and then of accidents, of a stone, for instance, and then of its size, qualities, and other notes. In like manner, goodness is already predicated ` analogically but properly of a good stone, a good fruit, a good horse, of a virtuous and generous man. Moreover, these ideas are not only predicated analogically of finite beings, but they imply no imperfection in what they formally denote, although the way in which they are predicated of creatures does imply perfection. Thus wisdom, as found in human beings and even in angels, is imperfect; but wisdom as such is not, for it means the knowledge of all things by the highest of causes. Hence there is no repugnance in the idea that these perfections, which in themselves imply no imperfection, is running”). Every process of reasoning gives either the reason for the existence of the thing demonstrated (in a priori demonstrations), or for affirming the existence of the thing (in a posteriori demonstrations).

should be attributed analogically and in a most eminent degree to the most perfect Being. And they must actually be attributed to Him if the world requires these perfections.

Thus the idea of cause, unlike the idea of being, is not absolute, but is relative to the thing caused. It therefore admits the possibility of our raising the mind to God and of actually attributing to Him the aforesaid perfections. But before doing so we see no repugnance in this kind of attribution, since these ideas, analogical as they are in the created order, imply no imperfection.

We must therefore stress especially the transcendent validity of the idea of cause, inasmuch as it is already analogically but properly predicated in the created order and implies no imperfection in what it formally denotes. For it is quite clear that the word “cause” is predicated analogically but properly of the four kinds of causes. The intrinsic causes (the material and the formal) of course denote imperfection, especially matter which is able to be actuated and perfected, and also the form, which is a component part, something that is participated and limited by the matter in which it is received. But extrinsic causes (efficient and final) imply no imperfection, and are de facto predicated analogically but properly in the created order. Thus the efficient cause is de facto predicated of the principal cause, which operates in virtue of its own power, as in the case of a writer, and the same applies to the instrumental cause, which acts in virtue of another power, as a pen is moved by the hand of a writer. Hence it is not repugnant to the idea of efficient causality that it should be attributed analogically but properly to the most perfect Being. And it must de facto be attributed to Him, if the world requires the presence of a most perfect Cause. But the proper or uncreated mode of the divine causality will not be for us positively knowable in this life but only negatively (saying that it is the uncaused cause, not premoved), and relatively (as when we call it the supreme, most eminent, absolutely transcendent cause).

St. Thomas does not here take up professedly this question of analogy, but explains it at length later on. Why is this? It is because he proceeds as a theologian, by the synthetic method, starting from the divine Being and His knowableness by us, and not by analytical method of investigation, as the philosophers would, quiring step by step into the foundations for the donai of God’s existence.

However, St. Thomas points out what is necessary for this in his, reply to the second and third objections of this article. This dif- ficulty is presented in the second objection as follows: The middle term of demonstration is the essence, or what is called the definition; but we cannot know what constitutes God's essence; therefore we cannot demonstrate that God exists.

The reply may be expressed in scholastic form by saying: I distinguish the major. That the middle term of demonstration is the essence in a priori demonstrations, this I concede; thus the immortality of the soul is demonstrated from its spirituality. But in a posteriori demonstrations, I subdistinguish: that the middle term is the real definition of the cause, this I deny; that it is the nominal definition, this I concede. Therefore it can be demonstrated a posteriori that God exists, taking as a prerequisite for this the nominal definition of God, which states that He is the supreme and most perfect Cause; of course this definition derives its force from its reference to God's effects, and it suffices, although God's nature or His intimate life is hidden from us.

The third objection may be expressed equivalently by the following syllogism: A cause can be demonstrated only by an effect that is proportionate to it; but God’s effects are finite, and hence they are not proportionate to Him, since He is infinite; therefore God’s existence cannot be demonstrated a posteriori from His effects.

The reply of St. Thomas is that from the effects we cannot have a perfect knowledge of the first Cause, but its existence is proved. There is also the possibility of a distinction as regards the word “proportionate” in its application; for God’s effects are proportionate to Him, the proportion not being of perfection but of causality, and this suffices for an a posteriori demonstration. For there is a proportion of causality between the proper cause and its proper effect, although this latter is less perfect. Thus, just as we say that light illuminates, fire heats, so we say that the first Mover moves all things, the supreme Ordainer has ordained all things in the world, the most real Being “realizes” or produces and preserves all things in being. This proposition pertains to the fourth mode of direct predication between the effect and its proper, necessarily and immediately required, cause.

This a posteriori knowledge of God from finite effects will indeed be very imperfect, namely, analogical; but the knowledge acquired will apply properly and not merely metaphorically to God, as will be stated farther on.’ For, whereas God is said metaphorically to be angry, inasmuch as anger is a passion and not an absolute perfection, it is without any use of metaphor that justice, and a fortiori the supreme Cause, the most perfect Being, and other such terms are predicated of God.

Final doubt. In the first objection of this article a difficulty of a different kind is presented, which may be expressed by the following syllogism: The articles of faith are not demonstrated; but that God exists is an article of faith, for we say, “I believe in one God”; therefore that God exists is not demonstrated.

In the reply to this first objection it is remarked that God’s existence, so far as it is known by natural reason, is not an article of faith, but is a preamble to the faith. In other words, the major is conceded, and the minor is denied. But St. Thomas adds: ‘“There is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated.”

Two objections are raised against this reply. The first is as follows: No one can accept revelation as the motive for believing in the existence of God as the author of nature; for the act of faith presupposes the evidence of credibility, and this has its foundation in the principle that God's veracity is infallible and that He has confirmed this revelation by divine signs.

Reply. That the existence of God as the author of nature cannot begin to be known by revelation, in a rudimentary and confused manner, let this pass without comment; that we cannot have a more explicit and more certain knowledge of the same by revelation, this I deny. All men have, practically by natural instinct, a confused knowledge of God’s existence as the Ordainer of the world and the Lawgiver; for when human beings come to the full use of reason, they have knowledge at least of the first precept of the natural law, which is that “we must do good and avoid evil”; the natural law, however, like the order prevailing in the world, presupposes clearly enough a supreme Ordainer. This truth not only is known as the result of a scientific or philosophic process of reasoning, but it also arises as it were spontaneously from the rational faculty, as when we say: “The heavens show forth the glory of God.” 85

But, if afterward men doubt God's existence, influenced by their unrestrained passions and the objections of materialists and skeptics, this truth can be manifestly made known to them by revelation and confirmed by some divine sign; for, as the Vatican Council declares: “the miracle is a clear indication of God's omnipotence and liberty.” 8 Thus certain materialists, who believed in the absolute determinism of the laws of nature, when confronted by what

was manifestly a miracle, acknowledged God's existence and liberty, and accepted the Christian revelation.

They had already given their assent to the hypothetical truth that, if there is a God, He cannot lie. This suffices in conjunction with some clearly enough divine sign for the evidence of credibility that is a prerequisite to the act of faith elicited on the authority of God revealing.

For this reason we said in the reply, let the major pass without comment, rather than conceding it; for God’s existence as the Author of nature can be made known to one, if not by revelation itself, at least by some manifest and divine sign that confirms the revelation. This sign suffices in conjunction with the hypothetical truth that, if there is a God, then He cannot but say what is true. It was by this method that certain Positivists were converted. Certainly God can, if He so wills, clearly manifest Himself to unbelievers.

Second objection. The Vatican Council seems to infer that all the faithful, even philosophers and theologians, must believe in God's existence from a supernatural motive. Therefore this truth is “an indemonstrable article of faith” and not merely a demonstrable preamble to the faith. For the Vatican Council says: “The Holy . . . Church believes that there is one God. . . .”; 87 and the principal attributes of the true God are enumerated. Farther on we read: “All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church . . . proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.” ** But St. Paul says: “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.” 89

It is the common teaching of the theologians that at least these two primary truths can be the subject matter of belief, and that they always were necessary as means for attaining salvation.” Therefore all, even Christian philosophers, must believe God’s existence and say, by reason of belief and not of knowledge, “I believe in one God.”

We are confronted by two difficulties (1) the article of faith in itself, as it is distinct from the preamble to the faith, cannot be demonstrated; (2) for us, at least according to the teaching of St. Thomas,” one and the same thing cannot be both known (or

evident) and believed (or obscure) by the same person. We do not believe what we already see, for the evident object is already sufficient of itself to move the intellect. I do not believe, but I see the presence of the pen which I hold in my hand.

Certain theologians, as Mazzella and Didiot, thought it impossible, after the declaration of the Vatican Council, for the Thomists to continue to defend the thesis that, one and the same thing cannot be the object of science and of belief for the same person.

On the contrary A. Vacant,®? although he himself does not admit the Thomist thesis, shows that it was not condemned by the Vatican Council, and, in fact, that it is more easily reconciled with the declarations of the Council.

What is the more common opinion among the Thomists? They say that all the faithful, even philosophers, who know the demonstration of God’s existence as the Author of nature, must believe God's existence as the Author of grace or salvation. This is what St. Paul has in mind in the following text: “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.” 9 The reference is certainly to a supernatural rewarder, otherwise the believer would not have a supernatural end in view, since he would not have even a confused knowledge of this. There is also reference in this text, as in the parallel texts of the Council, to God's existence as the Author of salvation and grace. This truth is an indemonstrable article of the faith, and is something more than a preamble to the faith. God, the Author of salvation, is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old Testament, and the heavenly Father in the New Testament.

On the other hand, God’s existence as the Author of nature is a demonstrable preamble to the faith, as St. Thomas stated in his reply to the first objection, Thus it remains true that the same thing, taken in the same sense, is not for the same person both known (or evident) and believed (or obscure). God as the Author of nature is not called either the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the heavenly Father, but the first Mover and Ordainer of the world, pure Act.

Moreover, according to the teaching of the Thomists, when the Christian philosopher is not actually considering the demonstration of God's existence as the Author of nature, it is possible for him to believe the same, and he actually does, as included in the belief of God’s existence as the Author of grace. Finally, infused faith confirms from on high the certitude resulting from a philo-

sophical demonstration, since it is the same faculty and is concerned with the same object, considered not in its formal but in its material aspect.?4

This view, which is the one more commonly held among the Thomists, is more in harmony with the Vatican Council, which says: “The Church believes that there is one God . . .” (then His attributes are enumerated).** Certainly the whole of this previous declaration pertains directly to the faith, if the reference is to God as the Author of salvation and His supernatural providence. But from this it does not follow that God’s existence as the Author of nature must be strictly believed by Christian philosophers. Likewise, when the Council says: “All those things are to be believed by faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down ... , and which the Church proposes for belief,” 98 this does not militate against the general principle that some of the faithful are ignorant of certain dogmas that are necessary for salvation, and that Christian philosophers may hold it to be true that God exists as the Author of nature, and this solely for the reason that they have proved the same, and while they are actually considering this proof.

The foregoing suffices to establish the demonstrability of God's existence.

THIRD ARTICLE WHETHER GOD EXISTS

State of the question. From the difficultics presented by St. Thomas at the beginning of this article, it seems that he had in mind the principal objections raised by both the pessimists and the pantheists against the true God.

The first difficulty, which has often been formulated, is taken from the fact that physical and moral evil are in the world. It seems from this that the world has not been produced by a perfect cause, by one of infinite goodness whose works exclude all that is evil.’ Thus among modern philosophers, Stuart Mill admitted that God is finite, because He cannot prevent all evils. This same point of view accounts for the pessimistic doctrine of Schopenhauer and Hartmann. The second difficulty is as follows: What can be ac-

97 This objection is developed in the treatise on Providence; cf. Summa theol., Ia, q.22, a.2; De malo, Ia, q.49, a.2.

counted for by a few principles is not produced by many; but’ natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature; and voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason or will; therefore it is not necessary to admit the existence of a first transcendent cause that is distinct from the world.’ This difficulty is later on developed in its pantheistic aspect.%

From what is said in the present article, some have made the unwarrantable assertion that St. Thomas did not consider the pantheistic hypothesis and therefore did not refute it, and that his five ways of proving God's existence are of no validity in disproving the pantheism of Spinoza, who admitted in some sense the existence of a first Mover, a first Cause, a first necessary Being, a supreme Being, even to some extent a first Ordainer, but a being who is not really and essentially distinct from the world. If such were the case, the Angelic Doctor would have been ignorant of this question as it was discussed even in his time.

In answer to this we say that the pantheism of several ancient as well as of certain medieval philosophers was not unknown to St. Thomas. In fact, he has this error in mind in the second objection of this article, and he alludes to it more explicitly farther on.1% He certainly knew from the works of Aristotle about the two principal forms of monism, or the pantheism of antiquity, that is, the static monism of Parmenides, and the absolute evolutionism of Heraclitus. In the former case, the material things of the world are absorbed in the one and only immobile Being, and it is a sort of acosmism. In the latter case, and in contradistinction to the former, God is absorbed in the evolution itself of the world; God becomes in the world, and this pantheism is a sort of atheism. Pantheism must of necessity always fluctuate between atheism and acosmism.*°! Spinoza is of the school of Parmenides in the application of his absolute realism to the notion of substantial being. Hegel's evolutionism, on the contrary, is developed more in conformity with the views of Heraclitus.

St. Thomas was acquainted, moreover, with the pantheism of certain medieval philosophers. In a certain article he does indeed refute the materialistic pantheism of David of Dinant as well as

98 This is the principle of cconomy.

99 Summa theol., la, q.3, a.8: “Whether God enters into the composition of other things”; also Ia, q.19, a.3: “Whether whatever God wills, He wills necessarily.”

101 The identification, to be sure, of God with the world means ultimately one of two things: either the absorption of God in the world, or the absorption of the world in God.

the pantheistic theory that God is the formal cause of all things,102 He even refuted the pantheistic emanationism of the Neoplatonists who, to some extent, adopted the views of the Averroists.1°* The latter taught that God operates externally by reason of the necessity of His nature or of His wisdom, and that there is only one intellect for all human beings.1°%

As a matter of fact, St. Thomas radically refuted pantheism by showing that there can be no accident in God, 1% that the world postulates God as its extrinsic, most simple, and absolutely immutable cause, whereas the world is essentially composite and mobile, that nothing is predicated univocally of God and creatures,"°’ and that creation is a most free act.*°® But all these statements have at least their philosophical foundation in the five proofs which we shall now set forth in detail, since they refer to the efficient Cause, which is extrinsic to the world, and which is absolutely simple and immutable, and therefore really and essentially distinct from the world that is changeable and com posite.

Certainly the Angelic Doctor had all these points in mind when he wrote the five proofs, which we shall now carefully consider. We must preface our examination of each of the five proofs in detail by a more general statement regarding their universality and order. Are the five proofs included confusedly in this most general of demonstrations?

THE UNIVERSALITY AND ORDER OF THESE PROOFS

The five proofs given by St. Thomas are most universal in scope, being deduced from the highest metaphysical principles. The starting point, which is also the minor, and which is previously enunciated in each of these proofs, is the fact as established in any created being whatever, namely, the fact of corporeal or spiritual motion, of causality, of contingency, of composition and imperfection, and of ordination in the passive sense. But the principle or the major in each of these a posteriori demonstrations is the principle of causality with its corollary: that there is no process to infinity in directly subordinated causes. The first proof is concerned

104 Summa theol., la, q.19, a.3; q.76, a.2; opusc. de unitate intellectus; Contra Gentes, Bk. I, chaps. 26, 27, 32, 50, 65, 81, 82, 88; Bk. II, chaps. 23-27; 31-37, 73, 76, 78, 85, 87.

107 Ibid., q.13, a.5 É, with the supreme and efficient cause of motion, the second with conditioned causality, the third with contingency, the fourth with composite and imperfect being, and the fifth with the orderly arrangement of things in the world. The fourth and fifth proofs treat also, and especially so, of the supreme and exemplary directive cause. The terminating point of these five proofs is the existence of the self-subsisting Being, who is absolutely simple and unchangeable, and hence really and essentially distinct from the world that is composite and changeable. The ultimate objective, indeed, of no matter which of these proofs we take, is the establishing of some divine attribute, and this latter can be predicated only of the essentially self-subsisting Being. The five proofs reach this summit, as constituting the supreme truth in the order of finding, from which afterward the divine attributes are deduced. This highest truth, which is also revealed (“I am who am”), is, so to speak, the golden key to the entire treatise on the one God. It is the culminating point in the way of finding and the beginning in the way of judgment, and in this transcendent truth are contained the supreme reasons of things.1*°

This must be carefully noted, because several theologians, such as Suarez,''t not understanding these five proofs, so changed them as to deprive them of all demonstrative validity.

All these proofs are deduced from the laws of finite or created being, considered as such, inasmuch as any finite being whatever, ranging from stone to angel, in accordance with these five general aspects, is dependent on the first Cause. There is not one of these proofs that is deduced from objects of the sensible or physical order, although examples are given from objects of sense perception, since these are more known to us. This means that the starting point of these five proofs can also be facts pertaining to the intellective life, according as these are in our soul and also in the angels, that is, from intellectual and volitional movements, from their causality, from the contingency of mind, its composition and imperfection, and from the fact that either our mind or the angelic is ordained to something else as its universal truth and its universal good.*2?

109 /bid., q.3, a.4: “Whether the essence and existence are the same in God.”

111 Suarez (Disp. Met., XXIX, sec. 1, no. 7), in rejecting the necessity of the divine premotion for our will to act, does not admit the universality of the principle that whatever is set in motion, is set in motion by another. Also in not admitting a real distinction between created essence and existence, he likewise failed to understand the other proofs of St. Thomas, especially the third and fourth. It is the opinion of the Thomists that Suarez deprives these proofs of their demonstrative value.

112 See the answer to the second objection of this article; also Ia, q.79, a-4.

The universality of these proofs may be expressed as follows:

mobile ..............+......and is dependent on the first im-) 90 je mobile Mover £ & | caused in causing ...........and is dependent on the first un- m 3 caused Cause = g | contingent .................and is dependent on the first nec- |.2 Ẹ , essary Being = p> | composite and imperfect .....and is dependent on the most per- | @ 9 fect and most simple Being E | ordained to something .......and is dependent on the supreme | v

Ordainer - G

THE ORDER IN WHICH THESE FIVE PROOFS ARE PRESENTED

These proofs start from the more evident signs of contingency and proceed to discuss those of deeper significance, namely, from the very beginning of motion, which obviously is contingent, and they proceed to discuss the composition and imperfection even of beings that existed before our time, for instance the stars and the whole world of physical entities, or else they proceed to discuss the composition of any finite being whatever, even if it had no beginning. The ordaining of any finite being whatever to some end is also considered, for instance, even of any finite intelligence whatever, whose object is truth.

As regards the terminus of these five proofs, they manifest: (1) the necessity of a first cause, as first mover, first uncaused cause, first necessary being; (2) the perfection of the first cause, as most perfect, most simple, and the ordainer of all things to an end. Hence these five proofs start from the more elementary principles, from those already known to us, and they proceed gradually to a consideration of those that are of deeper significance and of greater perfection. This will be more clearly seen in the exposition of the proofs. The orderly arrangement of these proofs excels by far that presented by the theologians who preceded St. Thomas.

We shall see farther on that the other traditional proofs are easily reduced to these five, particularly the proof based on the contingency of mind, which refers back to the third way; and to the fourth way are referred the proof based on the eternal verities leading up to the maximum in truth, and the proof based on the natural desire for the sovereign good leading up to the maximum in good. Also the proof based on moral obligation that leads to the admission of a supreme Ordainer and Lawgiver refers back to the fifth way.

IS THERE A MOST GENERAL PROOF THAT INCLUDES CONFUSEDLY THESE FIVE PROOFS?

There is indeed a general proof which is readily understood by the natural reason or the common sense, and which includes confusedly the other proofs. It has its foundation in the principle that is derived from the principle of causality, namely, that the greater or more perfect does not come from the less perfect, but the imperfect comes from the more perfect. This principle, especially as expressed in its primary negative form, is self-evident, even for the common sense, and it concludes confusedly the principles of the five typical proofs. For the principles of the first three proofs show clearly the necessity of a first mover, a first uncaused cause, a first necessary being, and the principles of the other two proofs clearly denote the perfection of the first cause, since the imperfect is evidence of the most perfect Being, and the orderly arrangement of things of a supreme intelligence.

Hence this general demonstration, although in itself soniewhat vague, is very strong, for it contains virtually the probative force of the five typical proofs. The natural knowledge of God's existence finds expression in it, and the spontaneous certitude resulting from it, which is prior to strictly philosophical certitude is confirmed by this latter. It holds its own against objections, even though it may not give a direct answer to particular difficulties,

This most general proof may be presented in the following form: The greater does not proceed from the less, the more perfect from the less perfect, but contrariwise; but men, who contingently exist, have being, life, intelligence, morality, and sometimes holiness; therefore there must be a first Cause which possesses, by reason of itself and eternally, these perfections of existence, life, intelligence, and holiness. Otherwise the greater would come from the less, as the proponents of absolute evolutionism are obliged to admit, and it is by recourse to this method of absurdity that God’s existence is proved, who is absolutely perfect and distinct from the world.

The principle of this general demonstration refers back to the negative formula of the principle of causality, long ago expressed by Parmenides, who said: “Nothing is made from nothing,” which means that without a cause nothing comes into being. But if the greater or more perfect were to come from the less perfect, then this greater degree of being would be without a cause. Hence it is the common saying that after creation we have not more of being but more beings. This means that we have not more of, being by way of intensity, or more of perfection, because whatever of perfection

A, there is in the world pre-existed in God in a more eminent way.

The minor of this proof is a fact admitted by all. The principal perfections in the world are existence, life, and intelligence; and these are found in human beings. But evidently human beings are contingent, because they are born and die.

Hence the conclusion is, that there is an eternally existing being, life, and intelligence; more than this, there is an externally selfexisting Being, Life, and Intelligence. Otherwise, if there were only eternally existing contingent beings, since these have not in themselves the reason for their existence, they would have no reason for existing. Any contingent being does not necessarily require another contingent being as its cause, but they both of necessity require the necessary Being.

This demonstration is therefore most forceful, even though it still fails to give a definite answer to the particular difficulties that we shall afterward have to examine. This explains why the certitude either of natural reason or of the common sense persists, even though it may be incapable of giving a definite answer to all the objections. In this sense the saying is true, that a thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, provided they do not destroy the middle term in the demonstration of the declared conclusion, or its principle, but are, as it were, from some extrinsic source.

We have elsewhere examined these five proofs, $ which St. Thomas has expounded in various works of his.™*+ We shall now, however, briefly consider them as they are given in the Theological Summa, and as they are further elucidated in the subsequent articles of the same work.

Each of these proofs starts from some established fact (of motion, of conditional causality, of the presence of contingent beings, their imperfection, of order in the world), and it ascends to God by the principle of causality and its corollary, namely, that there is no regress to infinity in a series of directly subordinated causes.

THE FIRST PROOF: FROM MOTION

The fact: “It is certain and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.” It is a question of motion or change taken in its widest sense, first, indeed, of physical change (whether substantial, local, qualitative, or quantitative), which

114 Cf. Com. in Physicam Aristoteles, Bk. VIII, lect. g f.; in Metaph., Bk. XII, lect. 5 f; Contra Gentes, Bk. 1, chaps. 13, 15, 16, 44; Bk. I, chap. 15; Bk. HI, chap. 64; De verit, q.5, a.2; De pots 4-3, 2.55 Compend. theol., chap. 3.

latter is by way of augmentation. We are also concerned, as is evi dent from this article," with the spiritual motion of our intellect and our will.

The principle: “Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another.” This principle is necessary and most universal. For mo- ~ tion is the transition from potentiality to actuality, or from indetermination to determination. “But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality except by something that is in actuality . . . ; now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect.” In the same being, to be sure, one part of it can move the other, as in the case of living beings. But if the part that moves, is itself moved, by a motion of the higher order, then this requires an external and higher mover.*¢

Moreover, there can be no regress to infinity in a series of essentially subordinated movers. We are not concerned with past movers, as in the series of generations either of animals or of men; for these movers are accidentally and not essentially subordinated, and their influence as such has ceased. “Hence it is not impossible,” says St. Thomas, “for man to be generated by man to infinity.” 27 But it is contrary to reason for the absolutely sufficient reason or first cause

115 Summa theol., Ia, q.2, a.g ad gum; cf. Ia, 4-79, 4.4; q.82, a.4 ad gum; q-105, a.2-5; Ta Iae, q.g, a. 4.

116 Cf. ibid., Ia, q.105, a.5. In this article the relation between cause and effect is considered in the inverse order. Many agnostics object to this principle, that whatever is in motion, is set in motion by another. They say that it has its foundation in a spatial image; mover and moved are conceived as being spatially distinct; but the mover may be a certain immanent force, as in the case of living beings.

Our reply is that this principle has not its foundation in a spatial image, but in the very idea of motion, whether this is local, or quantitative, or even of the spiritual order, as pertaining to the intellect and will that transcend space. Likewise the distinction between potentiality and actuality is not spatial, but ontological and necessary, in order that motion, even that which is spiritual, may be made intelligible with reference to being, which is the first intelligible. From nothing, of course, nothing is made, and being does not come from what is (already determined) actual being; a statue does not come from what is already a statue. Therefore something comes from undetermined or potential being, for example, the statue is made from the wood.

Nor can it be admitted that becoming itself is simply as such prior to being, for that which becomes is less perfect than that which is, and the greater or more perfect is not produced from the less.

Nor does the argument of the first way advance the supposition against pantheism, that there are several substances distinct from one another; even though there were only one substance that is in motion, we should still have to say that, whatever is in motion, is set in motion by another, or by a part of itself: and if this part is itself moved, then this requires a mover that is not spatially, but qualitatively and by its nature, of a higher order.

of motion to be explained by this past and even infinite series of movers, which also themselves are moved. If this series is eternal, it is an eternally insufficient explanation of motion, and is not its own reason for this.

We are concerned, therefore, with a series of actually and essentially subordinated movers. St. Thomas says farther on: “It would be. impossible to proceed to infinity, if the generation of this man depended 6n that man; and on an elementary body, and on the sun, and so on to infinity.” 1e Thus we say that the moon is attracted by the earth, the earth by the sun, and the sun by another center of attraction. But in this ascending series there can be no process to infinity. For if all the essentially subordinated movers receive that impulse which they transmit, so that there is not a prime mover which imparts movement without receiving it, then motion is out of the question. So a clock, even if you increase the number of wheels, will never run without a spring, or without the ductility or elasticity of some metal, or without some weight that acts as its driving power.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, which is set _in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God as He is nominally defined. The first mover is immobile, not with the immobility of inertia or of passive potency, which implies imperfection and is inferior to motion, but with the immobility of actu-

„ality, who does not need to be premoved so as to act. In other words, we must come to a first mover, who acts by himself, who is his own action,’!® and consequently his own being, for operation follows being, and the mode of operation the mode of being. The prime and most universal mover of bodies and of spirits must, therefore, be pure Act, without any admixture of potentiality, both with regard to action and with regard to being; and hence, as will be clearly seen farther on,!** He must be the self-subsisting Being.??

122 Objection. According to the principle of conservation of energy, the quantitative totality of (actual and potential) energy remains constant throughout its various transformations. B&t, by reason of the influx from the first mover who is distinct from the world, there would be a change, that is, an increase, in this quantitative totality. Therefore, this influx is not admitted.

Reply. I distinguish the major: that the quantitative totality of energy remains constant equivalently so, this I concede; that it is absolutely identical, this I deny. The minor is distinguished in the same way. In other words, the quantitative totality of energy remains constant inasmuch as a certain motion (for example, the local motion of my hands) ceases, and an equivalent motion is produced (for example, the equivalent heat in my hands); but the prior form of energy is only

And so it is evident that this prime mover absolutely transcends the changeable world.??* We shall see farthér on +24 that the first Cause ~ is free, and that when it wills, a new effect is the result of its eternal action, and that this has been eternally decreed by it.

Thus absolute evolutionism is refuted, according to which becoming or creative evolution, which underlies the phenomena, is the principle of all things. This is impossible, since becoming is not its own reason for this; for it includes a new element that is not the effect of its action, otherwise the greater would come from the less, being from nothing. This absurdity must be acknowledged by all who believe in a progressive evolution, in the course of which the more perfect is always produced by the less perfect.1?5 the secondary cause of the other form, and produces it under the invisible influx of the prime mover.

Moreover, from the very fact that there is transformation of energy, evidently it is not absolutely the same, Only in the cause that is its own action and its own being, and hence is not transformed, is there absolute identity. Likewise the quantitative totality of human energy remains about the same in the world, yet human beings undergo a change. In fact, it is the general rule that “the generation of one thing means the corruption of another.” Finally, the principle of conservation of energy would not exclude the invisible influence either of our free will or of the first Cause, unless it were proved that the world is a closed system, constantly the same and removed from the invisible influence of a higher Cause. But this cannot be proved. Experience furnishes us only with an approximate proof that the productive energy and the produced energy are equivalent. Hence this principle no more conflicts with the conclusion of this first proof than does the old established principle that “the generation of one thing means the corruption of another.”

125 Suarez (Disp. Met., 29, sect. 1, no. 7) objects to this first proof, giving as his reason that, although a mere potentiality cannot pass from this to actuality unless it is premoved, yet, in his opinion, virtuality or virtual act can reduce itself to actuality without being premoved. But our- will is not mere passive but active potentiality, and is virtual act. Therefore it does not need to be premoved so as to act. Hence the principle of the first proof is not so universal and necessary as stated,

Reply. This objection is examined by John of St. Thomas (in Iam, q.2, disp. 3, a.2, no. 6). It is easy enough to solve the objection. St. Thomas, too, admits with Aristotle an intermediary between even active potency and its act or action. As examples of this we have artistic, scientific, or virtuous habits, which constitute the first actuality of potency. Therefore the question is*whether this first actuality can reduce itself to second actuality without being premoved by a higher cause. St. Thomas denies this, because the first actuality is in potency as to its second actuality, as to something new and more perfect; for when the second actuality makes its appearance there is some becoming, something new that is coming into being. This becoming presupposes an active potency which was not its own activity, not its own action, in fact a potency which immediately before was not in action, but was only capable of action. Therefore this first actuality, which can

THE SECOND PROOF: FROM THE NATURE OF EFFICIENT CAUSE

The fact, which is the starting point of this proof, is expressed as follows: “In the world of sense we find that there is an order of efficient causes,” for instance, of those things that are necessary not only for the production but also for the conservation of vegetative and sensitive life on the face of the earth. And from conditional causality the mind soars to the unconditioned first Cause, that is necessary not only for the production but also for the conservation of things in being.? Hence this proof is of somewhat deeper significance than the proof from motion, but the method of procedure is about the same. It is made clear from what St. Thomas says in the two subsequent articles,127 about God’s preservation of things in being. This same relation of dependence is considered in these articles, though the consideration is of the transcendent order, not by way of finding but of judgment, the descent being from God to creatures.

The minor of our proof, previously enunciated in the first way, is: We find that there are in the world essentially subordinated causes. For instance, there. are all the cosmic causes, which are necessary not only for the production but also for the conservation of animal and plant life. Thus we have the chemical activity of the air, the atmospheric pressure according to its determinate degree, solar heat. . . . But causes_of this kind presuppose a first unconditioned cause. For, on the one hand, it is impossible for “anything to be the efficient cause of itself, for in this case it would be prior to itself.” On the other hand, in actually and essentially subordinated causes, it is impossible to go on to infinity, as was already shown in the first way. Therefore, apart from and transcending the series of mundane and efficient causes, there is a first cause that is not caused, or an unconditioned cause that is absolutely independent of the others. But the unconditioned cause must be its own action, and even its own being, because operation follows being, and the mode of Operation the mode of being. In fact, this cause is the self-subsisting Being, a point that will be more clearly be called the virtual act (or the virtuality spoken of by Leibnitz), cannot bring itself into action without being premoved by an agent of a higher order.

From this objection it is evident that Suarez, in rejecting the divine premotion as regards the act of our will, fails to perceive the probative force of St. Thomas’ first proof. If now the will does not need to be premoved for it to act, then the greater proceeds from the less, the more perfect from the less perfect.

established farther on.1?28 Hence this cause merits the name God, since it corresponds to the nominal definition of God. Thus an absolutely unconditioned Cause is required, who transcends the physical energy of heat or of electricity or of magnetism, and_of whom the liturgy says:

“God, powerful sustainer of all things,

Thou who dost remain permanently unmoved.” 129

THE THIRD PROOF: FROM THE CONTINGENCY OF THINGS IN THE WORLD

This third proof, like the others, starts from a fact of experience, which serves as the minor in the demonstration, and is as follows: We find in nature certain things that manifestly are contingent, which means that it is possible for them to be and not to be. Daily indeed we see plants and animals being generated and perishing, or ceasing to exist. It is indeed a fact attested to by science, that there was a time when there were no plants, animals, or men on this earth, when the heavenly bodies did not exist as they now do, but only in a nebulous state. This fact of the contingency of corruptible things is illustrated by the following principle.

Contingent beings, however, since they have not in themselves the reason of their existence, of necessity presuppose the necessary self-existent Being. Otherwise nothing would have existed. If at any time the necessary Being had not existed, then nothing would exist. Therefore there must be something the existence of which is necessary.

Moreover, if something is only hypothetically or physically and not absolutely and metaphysically necessary (as cosmic matter is necessary for all changes), “it has its necessity caused by another.” But it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another. Therefore there is required, as the cause of all other things, the existence of a being that is not hypothetically but absolutely necessary.1%° .

The difficulty is that perhaps this necessary being is in the world as its immanent principle, and so is not God. We say in reply that this necessary being is not: (a) an aggregation of contingent beings, even though it were infinite in time and space, because to increase the number of contingent beings still leaves the series contingent, and no more constitutes a necessary being than a numberless series of idiots results in an intelligent man; (b) it is not the law governing contingent beings, since the existence of this law depends on

129 See Roman Breviary, hymn assigned for None.

the existence of contingent beings; (c) it is not the common substance of all the phenomena, for this substance would be the subject of motion (first proof), and susceptible to perfection. Thus at any moment it would be deprived of some contingent perfection, which it could not give itself, because its being and perfection can never be more than it previously had. The necessary being can indeed give, but not receive; it can determine, but not be determined; it must have, however, of and by itself, and eternally, whatever it can have.:

From this very fact that the necessary Being is self-existent, it follows that His essence is not only something capable of existing, of receiving and limiting existence, but that this necessary Being is the self-subsisting Being. This point will be made clearer in the next question.15?

THE FOURTH PROOF: FROM THE GRADES OF PERFECTION IN BEINGS

The perfection of the First Cause is what is particularly made manifest in this proof, which is as follows: Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble. This means that being and its transcendental and analogous properties (unity, truth, goodness, beauty) are susceptible of greater and less, which we do not find to be the case with specific and generic perfections. ‘Thus goodness is predicated of the stone, the fruit, the horse, the professor, the saint, on various grounds and in varying degrees. In like manner the unity of the soul excels that of the body; there is a greater degree of truth in principles than in conclusions, and in necessary propositions than in those that are contingent. So also life is found in varying degrees according as it is vegetative, sensitive, intellective, moral; and the highest degree of the moral life is sanctity. This fact of the inequality of perfection in beings is illustrated by the following principle,

More and less are predicated of different things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum and which is the cause of the others. To understand this principle, its terms must be explained.

1. It is a case of different things. But a multiplicity of things different in themselves does not explain the unity of similarity that is found in these things. To express this more briefly: multitude does not give the reason for the unity in which it participates. Ele-

131 [bid., q.3, a.6, where it is stated that in God, the necessary Being, there . t cannot be any accident. 132 Ibid., a.4.

ments that are different in themselves, do not of themselves coalesce to form some sort of unity. As St. Thomas says: “Multitude itself would not be contained under being, unless it were in some way contained under one.” 13? Thus those things that are many numerically, are one specifically; and those that are many specifically are one generically; and there are many processes of reasoning that are one in principle. Our first conception is of being, then of nonbeing, of division of being, of indivision or of unity of being, and finally of multitude, which last is logically and ontologically posterior to unity.*%4

2. We are concerned with the absolute perfections of being, truth, goodness predicated of different things in varying degrees, which means that they are predicated of finite beings in an imperfect manner. But the imperfect is a composite of perfection and of a limited capacity for perfection. Thus goodness is found in varying degrees in the stone, the fruit, the horse, the good professor, the saint; and in all of these it is found in a finite manner, although this goodness in itself is not limited, for what is formally denoted by the concept implies no imperfection.

But the composite of perfection and of a limited capacity for the same needs a cause, for, as St. Thomas says, “things in them- Selves different (perfection and limited capacity for this) cannot unite unless something causes them to unite.” 185 The reason is that the union of several things presupposes unity. Multitude does not explain the reason for the unity that is imperfectly contained in it. Union that is effected according to either composition or similitude presupposes a unity of a higher order. It is a question of the exemplary cause and also of the efficient cause, because the exemplary cause without the efficient does not actually produce anything. “Consequently there is something that is truest, something best, something noblest, and something that is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being.” So says St. Thomas in this article. But why does he add: “Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus”? He does so to show that the greatest in truth, in goodness, and in being is the true equivalent of the nominal definition of God, or of the supreme Being, and of the cause of all beings. Therefore he concludes by saying: “And this we call God.” If this greatest in being were not the cause of all beings, it would not correspond to the nominal definition of God.

Some were of the opinion that, previous to the introduction of

134 Consult St. Thomas’ Com. on Metaph., Bk. IV, lect. 3. 135 Summa theol., la, q.3, a.7.

this causal element, this proof does not proceed by the way of causality. But thore is no other way of proving God’s existence, as was previously stated,'** and we must not only come by this proof ‘ to the ideal conception of the supreme Good, conceived by us as the exemplar in this order, but also to the supreme Good as truly existing outside the mind, and as truly and actually the cause of other beings.

This interpretation is confirmed by what St. Thomas says in another of his works: “If one of some kind is found as a common note in several objects, this must be because some one cause has brought it about in them; for it cannot be that the common note of itself belongs to each thing, since each thing is by its very nature distinct from others, and a diversity of causes produces a diversity of effects... .

“(Moreover), if anything is found to be participated in various degrees by several objects, it must be that, starting with the one in which it is found in the highest dégree, it is attributed to all the others in which it is found more imperfectly. For those things that are predicated according to more and less, this they have by reason of their greater or less approximation to one of some kind; for if any one of these were to possess this perfection in its own right, then there is no reason why it should be found in a higher degree in one than in the other.” 187 St. Thomas also says: “What belongs to a being by its very nature, and not by reason of any cause, cannot be either partially or completely taken away.” 188

This argument differs entirely from St. Anselm’s, for it does not start from the idea of perfect being, but from the real grades of perfection as found in the world. Therefore, by means of the proof based upon exemplary and efficient causality, the most perfect Being is established, since actually existing imperfect beings originate from the real fount of perfection.

We find the same argument in the Theological Summa, but the order is reversed. The descent is from God, since the same relation of dependence can be considered by starting from the lowest or from the highest in the grades of being. The passage from the above-mentioned work reads as follows: “Whatever is found in anything by participation must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited by fire. Now it has been shown above (q. 3, a.4) that God is the essentially self-subsisting Being; and it was also shown (q. 11, a. 3, 4) that subsisting being must be one; as, if whiteness were self-subsisting, it would be one,

since whiteness is multiplied by its recipients. . . . Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one first Being, who possesses being most perfectly. Hence Plato said : that unity must come before multitude.” 139

Thus this fourth way proves the necessity of a maximum in being, unity, truth, and goodness; in fact, it proves the necessity of the most pure Being that is not a reality considered as distinct from the limited capacity in which it would be received. Thus the maximum in being must be to being as A is to A. It must be the self-subsisting Being.4#° And so it is quite clear that this supreme Being by reason of His absolute identity, which excludes composition, imperfection, and changeableness, completely transcends the world, which is essentially composite and imperfect.**

St. Thomas applies this proof to the intellect, truth, goodness, and the natural law.

1. The application to our intellect. “What is such by participation and what is mobile and imperfect, always requires the preexistence of something essentially such, immovable and perfect. Now the human soul is called intellectual by reason of a participation in intellectual power; a sign of which is that it is not wholly intellectual but only in part. Moreover, it reaches to the under- ‘standing of truth by arguing, with a certain amount of reasoning and movement. Again, it has an imperfect understanding. .. . Therefore there must be some higher intellect by which the soul is helped to understand.” 142? And this higher intellect must be the self-subsisting Being.1*8

2. Application to eternal truths. We perceive by the intellect truths that are at least negatively eternal, absolutely necessary and universal, such as the principle of contradiction. But the absolute necessity of these, which is the rule of every finite intellect and of every possible and actual contingent being, calls for an actually existing and necessary foundation. Therefore this necessary and eternal foundation exists, and it is the necessary and the eternal intellect.

St. Thomas says practically the same in the following passage: “From the fact that the truths understood are eternal as regards what is understood, it cannot be concluded that the soul is immortal, but that the truths understood have their foundation in

something eternal. They have their foundation, indeed, in the first Truth as'in the universal Cause that contains all truth.” 144 This means that, in accordance with the fourth proof, they have their foundation in the maximum truth.

Obviously the absolute necessity of the principle of contradiction, which is the law governing every real being, whether possible or actual, has not its foundation in either contingent being or in the different natures of contingent beings; multitude does not explain the reason for unity. There is required a supreme truth. Likewise the first principle of ethics, good is to be done and evil to be avoided,'*® has its proximate foundation in the nature of virtuous good to which our will is ordained, and its ultimate foundation is in the supreme Good and in the maximum Truth.

Thus the natural law in the rational creature is “the participation of the eternal law.” 146 This is confirmed by the fifth proof, since the passive ordination of our will to do what is virtuously good presupposes the active ordination of the supreme Ordainer or Lawmaker.

3. Application to the natural desire in us for universal good. More and less are predicated of different goods, according as these approximate in varying degrees to the highest goods. It follows psychologically from this that, in conceiving universal good, we naturally desire a non-finite good (in virtue of the principle of finality: every agent acts for an end). And this desire, being natural, cannot be to no purpose. We are not concerned here with the conditional and inefficacious desire for the beatific vision, but with the natural desire for natural happiness, which no finite good, but only the supreme Good naturally kuown and loved can satisfy. Hence St. Thomas says: “That good which is the last end, is the perfect good fulfilling the desire. Now man’s appetite, otherwise the will, is for the universal good. And any good inherent to the soul is a participated good, and consequently a portioned good. Therefore none of them can be man’s last end.” 1# And farther on he says:. “Hence it is evident than nothing can lull man’s will except the universal good. This is to be found not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has good by participation.” 148

This may be expressed more briefly as follows: If there is a natural appetite for universal good in the things of nature, since good is not in the mind but in things, then it must be the universal or

144 Contra Gentes, Bk. I, chap. 84. 145 Summa theol., la Ilae, q.94, a.2. 146 Ibid., q.gt, a.2.

most perfect good. Otherwise the existence of this appetite or natural desire would be a psychological contradiction. In such a case the tendency of this natural desire would be and would not be for infinite good.

This is an apodictic argument at least for philosophers, and it must be most clear to the angels. It is an application of the fourth proof in conjunction with the principle of finality: that every agent acts for an end, and that a natural desire cannot be purposeless. The fifth proof confirms this argument, since the passive ordination of our will to non-finite good presupposes the supreme Ordainer.

THE FIFTH PROOF: FROM THE ORDER OR THE GOVERNANCE IN THE WORLD

We see that things lacking intelligence act for an end. Not only is this an established fact, but it is the minor of this demonstration. Indeed we notice that there is a wonderful order and finality prevailing in the strikingly regular courses of the heavenly bodies. The centripetal and centrifugal forces are so regulated that the heavenly bodies move in their orbits with enormous speed and in perfect ' harmony. More striking are the unity and variety that we behold in the organic structures of plants, animals, and man. Finality, or the relation to an end, is clearly seen in the evolution of the primitive embryonic cell, which in its simplicity virtually contains all that belongs to the determinate organism of this particular species rather than of a certain other, of a lion, for instance, rather than of a dog. This evolution manifestly tends to a determined end. Hence Claude Bernard spoke of “the directive idea” of this evolution. There is something truly wonderful in this. In like manner the organs of animals are adapted to this particular function rather than to a certain other, such as the eye with its multiplicity of visual conditions and its cells is adapted to this most simple operation of seeing, and the ear to that of hearing. Similarly the instinct and activities of animals are directed to certain determined ends. Thus the activities of the bee are for the building of its hive and the making of honey.

What particularly manifests this finality, as St. Thomas notes, is the fact that natural agents of the irrational order “always or nearly always act in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.” 149 If God had created but one eye for the evident purpose of seeing, this would already be something wonderful. This best result, which is the terminus of action, is strictly entitled to the name of end;

for the end is the good in view of which an agent acts. In fact, before God’s existence is proved, the principle of finality, “every agent acts for an end,” is an evident truth. As St. Thomas says: “An agent does not move except out of intention for an end (unless it do so at least unconsciously). For if the agent were not determined to some particular effect, it would not do one thing rather than another. Therefore, in order that it produce a determinate effect, it must of necessity be determined to some certain one, which has the nature of an end.” 150

It will not do to have recourse to chance, for chance is an accidental cause, and hence is not the cause of what happens always and according to nature. Otherwise the accidental would no longer be accidental but essential; instead of being something which accrues to the essence, it would be its foundation, and in that case the essential would be subordinate to the accidental, and this would be unintelligible and absurd. The wonderful order existing in the universe would be the result of no order, the greater would proceed from the less. Neither will it do to appeal solely to the efficient cause, and to reject the final cause. For in that case we could not give any reason for the action of an agent: why, for instance, a certain organ has a certain determinate tendency; nor could we say why an agent acts instead of not acting. There would be no raison d'être for the action. The active potency or the inclination of the agent tends essentially toward something, just as the imperfect tends toward the perfect. “Potency refers to act.” For instance, the faculty of sight is for seeing. Therefore, we cannot doubt the existence of finality in the world, the order of which is the suitable arrangement of means in view of an end.**? Now the existence of order or finality in the world is illustrated by the following principle which is the major of this demonstration.

Irrational beings cannot tend toward an end, unless they are directed by some supreme Intelligence. In fact, to be directed presupposes a directing cause, which is an act that pertains to the intellect and not to the imagination. “It is for the wise man to direct.” Why? Because an intelligent being alone perceives the raison d’étre of the means. “Irrational beings,” says St. Thomas, “tend toward an end by natural inclination; they are, as it were, moved by another and not by themselves, since they have no knowledge of the end as such.” 1? Animals have a sensitive knowledge of the thing which constitutes their end, but they do not per-

150 Jbid., Ia Wae, q.1, a.2; also Ia, q.44, a.4; Contra Gentes, Bk. II, chap. 2.

151 See Aristotle, Physics, Bk. II, chaps. 8 f., and the Commentary of St. Thomas, lect. 7-14.

ceive the formal end as such in this thing. If, therefore, there were no intelligent designer directing the world, the order and intelligibility in things would be the effect of an unintelligible cause, and our own intelligences would originate from a blind and unintelligible cause, and again we should have to say that the greater comes from the less, which is absurd. This was understood to be so by Anaxagoras, and he was very much praised by Aristotle for having made this assertion.1%* There is, therefore, a supreme intelligent Being, who directs all things in nature to their respective ends.

Kant objects that this argument proves only the existence of some finite intelligence. We reply to this by saying that it is not enough for the first Ruler to have, like ourselves, an intellectual faculty directed to intelligible being, for this would at once demand the presence of a designing intelligence of a higher order. The supreme Designer cannot be designed for any other purpose. Therefore He must be the self-subsisting Intellection and self-subsisting Being, and this will be more clearly seen in subsequent articles.***

This proof, like the preceding proofs, is most universal in scope. It takes in anything whatever that denotes design, and from this it rises up to the supreme Designer. Thus it starts with equal force either from the fact that the eye is for seeing, and the ear for hearing, or that the intellect is for the understanding of truth, or the will for the willing of good.

Viewed under this aspect, there are two proofs for God’s existence that are referred back to this fifth way. One is the natural tendency of our will to do what is good and avoid what is evil; the other is the natural desire of the will for happiness, or for unlimited good, which is found only in God, who is the essential Good.

Evidently this twofold ordination of the will presupposes a supreme Ordainer, just as the ordination of sight to seeing does. This proof must be most convincing for the angels; by the very fact that they see that their will is directed to universal good, at once without any discursive process they see that passive ordination presupposes the active ordination of a supreme Ordainer. “There is no ordination without an ordainer.” 153

This fifth proof, since it starts from the consideration of the order prevailing in the world, the harmony, for instance, in the movements of the heavenly bodies, is readily understood at least

154 Summa theol., Ia, q.3, a-43 4.14, a.1, 4. 155 Contra Gentes, Bk. III, chap. 38.

in a confused way by the natural reason. Hence it is said: “All men are vain in whom there is not the knowledge of God, and who by these good things that are seen could not understand Him that is. Neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the workman.” 15ë Hence the Psalmist says: “The heavens show forth the glory of God.” 157

THE ONE END TO WHICH THESE FIVE PROOFS CONVERGE

We have already pointed out at the end of each of these five proofs that the result of each is to move us to admit the existence of a divine attribute which can be predicated only of the self-subsisting Being, as will be explicitly proved by St. Thomas. The. article referred to serves the double purpose of pointing out to us what is the terminus in the ascending order in the process of reasoning or the terminus by way of finding in proving God’s existence, which rises from sensible things until it reaches the supreme cause, and it is also the principle in the descending or synthetic process, by which reason deduces the divine attributes, and judges of all things by the highest cause.1*

In fact, the prime mover must be his own action, and, therefore, his own existence, and the same must be said of the first uncaused cause, of the necessary being, of the most perfect being, and of the ruler of the universe. Thus the supreme truth of Christian philosophy, or the fundamental truth by way of judgment, is that “in God alone essence and existence are identical.” God is “He who is.” 16° This is the golden key to the whole treatise on the one God, and its dominating principle.

These are, therefore, the principal metaphysical proofs to which all. others are reduced. If we study them carefully, we see, contrary to the assertions of modern agnostics, that the existence of God, who transcends the world, cannot be denied without denying the principle of causality, namely, that “every being which is contingent, changeable, composite, imperfect, and relative, is caused,” and so requires a first and unchangeable being, one that is absolutely simple and perfect. Now, the principle of causality cannot be denied or doubted without denying or doubting the principle of contradiction, for “a contingent and uncaused being” would exist neither of itself nor by reason of another, and consequently could

157 Ps. 18:1. On the natural knowledge of God’s existence, cf. Contra Gentes, Bk. III, chap. 38.

ia THE ONE GOD not be distinguished from nothingness, since it would have no reason for existing. This would mean the subversion of the principle of contradiction, that “being is not non-being,” and of the principle of identity, that “being is being, non-being is non-being.”

If, on the contrary, the principle of contradiction or identity is the supreme law of reality and of our reason, then the supreme reality must indeed be the identity of essence and existence, or selfsubsisting Being. Thus the five ways of proving God's existence unite in the wonderful opposition prevailing between the principle of identity and the changeableness and composition of the world. From this opposition it is at once evident that the world is contingent and depends on the immutable and pre-eminently simple Being whose name is “I am who am.” *° ;

It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to choose between the existence of God, who transcends the world, and the denial of the real validity of the principle of contradiction. Absolute evolutionism denies this validity, maintaining that motion or becoming is its own reason for such,?®? and hence that the more perfect comes from the less perfect, and that contradictories are identified in a universal process of becoming. Thus we see in absolute evolutionism an incontestable proof, by reductio ad absurdum of the true and transcendental God, since this existence cannot be denied without denying the real validity of the first principle of reason, and without positing a fundamental absurdity as the principle of all things. For if God is truly the absolutely necessary being, then the denial of His existence means the positing of a fundamental absurdity as the principle of all things.

We see the radical absurdity of this system in the first of the propositions condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, which reads as follows: “There is no supreme Being, who is all-wise, ruler of the universe and distinct from it; God is identical with the nature of things, and is, therefore, subject to changes; God really becomes or begins to be in man and in the world, and all things are God and have the same substance with Him; thus God and the world, spirit and matter, necessity and liberty, truth and falsehood, goodness and evil, justice and injustice, are all identified in the one same and only reality.” 1°? If absolute evolutionism were true, then nothing would be stable, and therefore we should have to say that there is nothing but relative truth, In such a state of knowledge the antith-

162 For this reason Heraclitus is said to have denied the real validity of the principle (of contradiction, reducing it to a grammatical law. See Aristotle's Metaphysics, Bk. IV, chaps. 3-8. 163 Denz., no. 1701.

esis would always be truer than the thesis and then there would be a synthesis of a higher order, and so on indefinitely. Contradictories would be identified in the very process of- becoming, which would be its own reason for such.

To avoid this absurdity we must affirm the existence of God, who, as the Vatican Council says, “being one, sole, absolutely simple 164 and immutable 165 spiritual substance, is to be declared as really and essentially distinct from the world (which is composite and subject to change), of supreme beatitude in and from Himself, and ineffably exalted above all things which exist or can be conceived beside Himself.” 168

St. Thomas gives us in merely a few words his solution to the objection raised against God’s existence because of the prevalence of evil in the world,2*? because he intends to examine this problem more at length farther on in this treatise.1°8 But we now merely call to mind the solution of the problem of evil given by St. Augustine, who says: “Since God is supremely good, He would not at all permit any evil in His works if He did not have power and goodness enough to draw good out of evil.” 16° Thus in the physical order He permits the death of some animal for the preservation of another, of a lion, for instance; and in the moral order He permits persecution for this greater good, namely, the constancy of the martyrs. Similarly, St. Thomas says: “God allows evils to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom. Hence it is written (Rom. 5:20): ‘Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.’ Hence, too, in the blessing of the paschal candle we say: ʻO happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer.’ ” 170

Reply to the second objection. Nature is not the first cause of those things that are done in a natural way, because, “since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause. So also whatever is done voluntarily,” as all mobile and defectible beings must be traced back to some first immobile and essentially necessary being.

This suffices for the proofs of God’s existence, which we have expounded more philosophically in another work.71

164 See the fourth and fifth proofs as above explained. 165 See the first, second, and third proofs of St. Thomas. 166 Denz., no. 1782.

169 Enchiridion, chap. XI.

171 See God, His Existence and His Nature.

Footnotes

1. The prologue says: “God, as He is in Himself,” that is, as He is the principle and end of creatures. This expression, however, does not mean “just as He is,” because it is only in the beatific vision that God is known “just as He is.” ↩

2. Cf. Contra Gentes, Bk. II, chap. 4, $3. ↩