Chapter XXVI. Question 26 or the divine beatitude

AFTER considering all that pertains to God’s operation, namely, to His knowledge, His will, and His power in its relation to external effects, we must treat of the divine beatitude, for beatitude is the perfect good of an intellectual creature. By so doing, we complete what pertains to the unity of the divine essence. There are four articles to this question.

1. Whether beatitude belongs to God; (2) whether God is called blessed in regard to His intellect; (3) whether God is essentially the beatitude of each of the blessed; (4) whether all other beatitude is included in the beatitude of God.

FIRST ARTICLE WHETHER BEATITUDE BELONGS TO GOD

The answer is in the affirmative and it is of faith. St. Paul says of God: “Who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords.” 2 The Vatican Council says that God is “of supreme beatitude in and from Himself.” *

Theological proof. “Beatitude is the perfect good of an intellectual nature.” The irrational animal finds its pleasure indeed in the possession of its good, but it has not beatitude, “because it does not know that it has a sufficiency of the good which it possesses.” Only an intellectual nature knows what is meant by good and evil, and so it alone is formally capable of beatitude, and it alone can “control its own actions” for the attainment of this beatitude. In other words, it is only an intellectual agent that knows the end as such, not merely the thing which is the end. In this it differs from the irrational animal, and thus it alone is capable of possessing the end as such. Thus this article gives us a complete idea of beatitude, making it clear to us that beatitude as thus defined belongs in a most excellent way to¹

God, inasmuch as God is the most perfect Being, possessing intelligence in the highest degree. For God possesses the supreme Good with fullness of intelligence.

Reply to second objection. As God has being, though not begotten; so He has beatitude, although it is not acquired by merit.

WHETHER GOD IS CALLED BLESSED IN RESPECT OF HIS INTELLECT

St. Thomas follows St. Augustine and Aristotle on this point. The former said: “Vision is the whole of the reward.” +

The answer of St. Thomas is: “Beatitude must be assigned to God in respect of His intellect, as also to the blessed.”

The reason is that “beatitude is the perfect good of an intellectual nature. . . . Now that which is most perfect in an intellectual nature is the intellectual operation, by which in some sense it grasps everything.” Thus God adequately comprehends Himself and understands all things in Himself as the cause.

Reply to second objection. “Since beatitude is a good, it is the object of the will; now the object is understood as prior to the act of a power. Hence, in our manner of understanding, divine beatitude precedes the act of the will at rest in it. This cannot be other than the act of the intellect,” by which God perfectly possesses His infinite goodness. Delight or fruition in the divine will follows from this perfect knowledge. This fruition is therefore the complement of beatitude, and is not its essence, which consists in the perfection of perfect good.

Scotus attacked this conclusion. He considers that formal beatitude consists principally in love, giving three reasons for this view: (1) that beatitude is a good, which is the object of love; (2) that we must know God in order to love Him, but not love Him in order to know Him; (3) that what we love more is beatitude, and the will loves its act of love more than the act of the intellect.

Cajetan replies to this by making three observations: (1) Objective beatitude is indeed a good, which is the object of love; but the will in loving is not an apprchensive faculty, and the possession of God is accomplished by seeing, from which follows fruition in the will. (2) In this life, of course, we must know God to love Him, and not vice versa, because in this life it is better to love God than to know Him, for love tends toward God as He is in Himself, whereas our

4 De civitate Dei, Bk. XXII, chap. 26. See also Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Bk. XII, chap. 7; Ethics, Bk. X, chap. 7.

OF THE DIVINE BEATITUDE 727 knowledge of God in this life draws Him to us, according to the limitation of our concepts. But in heaven the vision of God is immediate, and so it is superior to love, which necessarily follows from it as a property from its essence. (3) The will, by an elicited appetitive act, prefers what is better not for itself, but for the individual who wills. Therefore, if the act of the intellect is a greater perfection of the individual than volition, then the correct attitude in the will is for it to prefer intellection to volition.

THIRD ARTICLE WHETHER GOD IS THE BEATITUDE OF EACH OF THE BLESSED

The answer is that God is objectively the beatitude of all the blessed, but He is not formally their beatitude, for this consists in the beatific vision, which admits of different degrees.

WHETHER ALL OTHER BEATITUDE IS INCLUDED IN THE BEATITUDE OF GOD

The answer is: “Whatever is desirable in whatever beatitude, whether true or false, pre-exists wholly and in a more eminent degree in the divine beatitude. As to contemplative happiness, God possesses a continual and most certain contemplation of Himself and of all things else; and as to that which is active, He has the governance of the whole universe.”

Thus we finish the treatise on The One God, or the divine essence, in which three things have been considered: (1) Whether God exists (q. 2); (2) How God exists, or rather how He does not exist (q. 3-13); (3) His operations, namely, His knowledge, will, and power (q. 14- 25). Thus the question on the divine beatitude (q. 26) completes what pertains to the unity of the divine essence, and prepares for the treatise on the Trinity of the divine Persons and on God the Creator.

Praise be to God, who, as the Vatican Council says, “is of supreme beatitude in and from Himself, and ineffably exalted above all things besides Himself which exist or are conceivable.” 5 For He is the self-subsisting Being, self-subsisting Intellection, essential love. Thus “He is absolutely simple and unchangeable, and thus He is really and essentially distinct from the world,” which is essentially composite and changeable.®

Thus in the whole of this treatise on The One God, we find verified the words spoken by God to Moses, which may be considered as the definition of God: “I am who am,” * which is tantamount to saying that, compared to Him, creatures are non-existent. Of themselves, indeed, creatures are non-existent, but for God they are something, because they are loved by Him. In fact, “God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son.” 8

Footnotes

1. Contra Gentes, Bk. 1, chap. 100. 21 ‘Tim. 6: 15. 3 Denz., no. 1782. 725 ↩