Chapter XXV. Question 25

THE POWER OF Gop FIRST ARTICLE WHETHER THERE IS POWER IN GOD

Wuart has already been said permits us to dismiss this question with a few brief comments.

Passive power cannot be attributed to God, who is pure act; active power, however, can rightly be attributed to Him. For it is manifest that everything, according as it is in act and is perfect, is the active principle of something.

It must be observed that the idea of active power is retained in God, inasmuch as it is the principle of an effect ad extra; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for God’s action is His essence, which is His esse and His agere.

Reply to second objection. Hence “God’s action is not distinct from His power,” and God’s action ad extra is formally immanent and virtually transitive, inasmuch as it produces the effect ad extra.

Reply to fourth objection. Active power in God is the divine command itself, inasmuch as this latter is the principle of His works ad extra.

SECOND ARTICLE WHETHER THE POWER OF GOD IS INFINITE

It is of faith that God’s power is infinite. The Second Council of Constantinople says: “If anyone says or thinks, either that God’s power is finite, or that He has done all the things that He was able to have in mind, let him be anathema.”(1)

Proof. The more perfectly an agent has the form by which it acts, the greater is its power to act, for instance, in giving heat. But God's essence, by which He acts, is infinite,? or ‘His power is infinitely perfect.

THE POWER OF GOD 21

Reply to second objection. “Even if it were to produce no effect, the power of God would not be ineffectual; because a thing is ineffectual which is ordained to an end to which it does not attain. But the power of God is not ordered toward its effect as toward an end; rather it is the end of the effect produced by it.”

St. Thomas in this reply observes that “the power of a univocal agent is wholly manifested in its effect. The generative power of man is not able to do more than beget man. But the power of a nonunivocal agent does not wholly manifest itself in the production of its effect,” just as the power of the sun is not wholly manifested, for instance, in the ripening of the fruits of the earth. But God evidently is not a univocal agent. “Hence His effect is always less than His power.” Nevertheless His infinite power is manifested in the mode of producing things, inasmuch as He produces something out of nothing, or from no presupposed subject.

Analogically we say that men of great genius are superior to the works they produce; but it is, nevertheless, in the way they produce these works that their superiority is seen. On the contrary, men of ordinary ability are, so to speak, univocal agents, and the whole of their power is manifested in the effect produced. They could not do more.

THIRD ARTICLE WHETHER GOD IS OMNIPOTENT

It is of faith that God is omnipotent * as His power is infinite. God is said to be omnipotent, inasmuch as He can do whatever is absolutely possible, that is, whatever is not repugnant to existence, whatever is capable of existing, or whatever can be conceived as real being.

Proof. “The divine existence, upon which the nature of power in God is founded, is infinite, and is not limited to any genus of being; but it possesses within itself the perfection of all being. Therefore whatever has or can have the nature of being, is numbered among the absolute possible beings, in respect of which God is called omnipotent.”

Reply to third objection. “God’s omnipotence is particularly shown in sparing and having mercy . . . , and in that He freely forgives sinners, thus leading them on to the participation of an infinite good.”

Reply to fourth objection. “The wisdom of the world is deemed foolish because what is impossible to nature, it judges to be impossible to God.”

FOURTH ARTICLE WHETHER GOD CAN MAKE THE PAST NOT TO HAVE BEEN

The answer is that God cannot make the past not to have been, because what implies contradiction does not come within the scope of God’s omnipotence. But that the past should not have been implies a contradiction. Thus God cannot remove from the sinner the fact of his having sinned, and of having lost charity. God removes sin, indeed, by justification, but He cannot remove from the sinner the fact of his having sinned.

FIFTH ARTICLE WHETHER GOD CAN DO WHAT HE DOES NOT

The Council of Sens condemned the following proposition of Abelard: “It is possible for God to do only those things which He has done, and not to do only those things which he has not done: and to do things only in the manner and at the time in which He does them, and not otherwise.” 5

St. Thomas recalls two erroneous opinions: (1) That God acts from natural necessity in such a way as the sun illumines. So said the Neoplatonists and subsequently Spinoza. (2) That God acts indeed by His will, but by His will determined by reason of the necessity of His knowledge. Thus, among modern philosophers, Leibnitz says that God by reason of a moral necessity was bound to create the best among possible worlds, otherwise He would not have been either infinitely wise or infinitely good. Rosmini said practically the same.®

These errors deny the dogma of divine liberty, which is expressed by the Vatican Council in these words: “God, of His own goodness and almighty power, not for the increase of His own happiness, nor to acquire but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows upon creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel, created out of nothing from the beginning of time, both the spiritual and corporeal creature, to wit, the angelic and the mundane; and afterwards the human creature... , consisting of both spirit and body.” 7

St. Thomas explained the divine freedom in a previous article,® and he now recalls the principal argument as set forth by him in that article, saying: “The whole idea of order which a wise man puts into

T Ibid., no. 1783. Cf. ibid., no. 428 (Fourth Lateran Council). 8 Summa theol., Ia, q-19, a. $.

THE POWER OF GOD 723 things made by him is taken from their end. . . . But the divine goodness (that must be manifested) is an end exceeding beyond all proportions things created. Therefore the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen.”

Thus the apparent movement of the sun could be in the reverse direction; likewise there could be other species of plants and of animals, God could create angels of a higher order, and many other things similar to these.

Reply to first objection. Whatever is not in itself a contradiction in terms is absolutely possible, or is possible by God’s absolute power, such as the annihilation even of all spiritual creatures. But this annihilation of souls and angels is not possible by God’s power as ordained by His wisdom, whether this power be ordinary or extraordinary, because there can be no motive for this annihilation.

WHETHER GOD CAN DO BETTER THINGS THAN WHAT HE DOES

The answer is given in the words of St. Paul: “God is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand.” ° St. Thomas enunciates and proves three propositions:

1. God cannot make a thing essentially better than it is itself; because the specific difference, by which it is constituted in its essence, does not admit of increase or decrease. Thus He cannot make the number four greater than it is, or man essentially better, because man is essentially and immutably a rational animal.

2. God can make accidentally better the things He made. Thus He can make a thing brighter, a man wiser or more virtuous; also God, by His absolute power, could increase the light of glory in the most holy soul of Christ.?°

3. Absolutely speaking, God can make something else better than each thing made by Him. Thus He can always create more perfect angels, who would be loftier in intellect and who would have a better knowledge of created and possible things. Hence there is no limit to what is possible for God, because His infinite omnipotence is inexhaustible.

Reply to first objection. Nevertheless God cannot make a thing better, if the word “better” is taken substantively, and not as an adverb. Thus God cannot maké a thing from greater wisdom and

9 Eph. 3: 20. 10 Cf. Summa theol., Ula, q.7, a-12 ad gum; Ila, q.10, a.4 ad gum.

goodness; but He can always make something better, in this sense, that He can always make a better thing. Thus the animal is better than the plant, but it has not a better arrangement of its parts than the plant has, for even in the plant there is the best arrangement of its parts to its end.

Reply to third objection. “The universe (the present creation being supposed) cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God. . . . For if any one thing were bettered, the proportion of order would be destroyed; as if one string were stretched more than it ought to be, the melody of the harp would be destroyed.”

This orderly arrangement is true not only as regards the subordination of essences, but also as regards singulars and their characteristics; it even applies to good on account of which evils are permitted, as in the permission of persecution to try the patience of the martyrs. But, as St. Thomas says at the end of his reply to the third objection: “Yet God could make other things, or add something to the present creation, and thus there would be another and a better universe,” which means it would be better, but not disposed better, taking the word “better” as an adverb.

The above reply is the answer that must be given to the objections of Leibnitz, who wanted to prove that the present world is the best possible world. There is, indeed, a highest created nature, this being the highest angel, but there can be no limit to what is possible for God, because “He can always make something else better than each thing made by Him.”

Reply to fourth objection. “The humanity of Christ from the fact that it is attributed to the Godhead, and created happiness from the fact that it is the fruition of God, and the Blessed Virgin from the fact that she is the mother of God, all these have a certain dignity from the infinite good, which is God. And on this account there cannot be anything better than these; just as there cannot be anything better than God.” Nevertheless, by His absolute power, God could increase the light of glory in the most holy soul of Christ, and likewise in the Blessed Virgin Mary and the other saints.”

What we have said suffices tor God’s omnipotence, and it confirms the teaching of St. Thomas, who declared in a previous article:

Since the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of t for the building up of the universe.” 12

hings,