Chapter XX. Question 46

THE DURATION OF CREATED BEINGS

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FTER our consideration of the first cause of being and their production from nothing, we turn to the principle of the duration of things, which is treated in three articles: 1. whether creatures were always; 2. whether it is an article of faith, or a demonstrable conclusion that they began to be; 3. how God is said to have created heaven and earth in the beginning.

First ARTICLE

WHETHER THE WORLD OF CREATURES WAS ALWAYS

State of the question. In the Contra Gentes and the Opus de aeternitate mundi, St. Thomas wrote at length on this question. To show the difficulties connected with this question, he presents the arguments of Aristotle and Averroes for the eternity of the world.”

The principal objection is: Everything that is made is made from prime matter, which cannot exist without a form. Therefore the world was from eternity. This difficulty is proposed in different ways in the first and third objections: in the first, real potency and the real possibility presupposed by creation are identified; in the third objection it is stated that matter as the first subject of generation is ungenerated and ungenerable and is therefore eternal.

In the second objection it is stated that there are in the world incorruptible beings, at least the intellectual substances if not the heavenly bodies. But an incorruptible being has the power to be always, it will always be in the future. Then, why not always in the¹ past? It appears to be its nature to be above time. The other difficulties pertain more to the imagination.

The fourth objection points out that the vacuum was always, and vacuum appears to be something real, as Spinoza said, space is something real, existing from all eternity.

Fifthly it is objected that motion was always because anything that begins to move is moved by another who began to move and this mover began to move when it was moved, and so on. Hence the absolutely immovable cause cannot of itself alone produce the initial movement but only permanence, or the sempiternal duration of movement. Thus Aristotle thought that every man was generated and presupposes a generator and so into the past. He was not able to understand that there could be a new effect without a new action in any mover. In Aristotle’s mind the first mover moves from eternity always in the same way, drawing all! things to Himself, just as the sun always illuminates and heats; any variety in movement was explained by subordinate movers, especially by the successive generations of plants and animals.

Sixthly: if the first eternal mover moves by a necessity of nature, he moves from eternity; if he moves through his will, why does he begin to move at this particular moment rather than earlier or later? Such a choice seems to have no reason, no motive, and therefore the movement is from eternity.

Seventhly: time cannot have a beginning because its entire reality is the instant, the present fluent instant which is the terminus of the past and the beginning of the future.

Eighthly: if God is prior to the world according to duration, then time was before the world because time is that duration in which earlier and later are distinguished.

Ninthly: if you posit a fully sufficient cause, the effect will follow accordingly; but God, the cause of the world, is eternal and therefore His creative action is eternal. So also His effect is eternal because there is no new effect without a new action.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the negative and it is of faith. It is of faith that the universe was not created from eternity. The Fourth Council of the Lateran declared: “By His omnipotent power in the beginning of time and at the same time God made from nothing both the spiritual and corporeal creature, namely, the angelic and mundane creature, and then He made the human creature, as it were, a composite creature composed of spirit and body.” ? The same expressions are used by the Vatican Council.? Many of Eckhard’s propositions have been condemned in this matter, such as the following: “As soon as God was He created the world”; “It can be conceded that the world was from eternity”; “At one time and only once, when God was and when He generated His Son, coeternal and coequal in all things to God, He also created the world.” *

The foundation for this doctrine is found in Sacred Scripture: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” * These words are generally understood as referring to the beginning of time.” “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out: .. . before the hills I was brought forth. He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the earth.” ë “And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee. . . . Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world.” * “As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” §

With regard to the declaration of the Fourth Lateran Council, some discussion exists whether the words “at the same time” signify simultaneity of time, which is commonly accepted, or only a simultaneity of ordering, as some Fathers thought who held that the angels were created before matter.” St. Thomas replies that it is more probable that the angels were created at the same time as bodies.’

In the body of the article St. Thomas does not prove from reason that the world began to be or that it ought of necessity to begin; he merely proves this negative proposition: it is not necessary that the world be always and therefore it is not impossible that the world began, as we are taught by revelation. The argument is apodictical.

°? St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, St. Ambrose,

The possibility of mysteries that are essentially supernatural cannot be proved apodictically, it is true, but we are here concerned with the non-repugnance of a contingent fact which does not pertain to the order of grace.

The proof may be reduced to the following. Since the will of God is the cause of things, it is not necessary that anything be unless it be necessary that God wills them. But it is not necessary that God will anything except Himself. Therefore it is not necessary that the world be always, but only at that moment which God determined from eternity.

The major and the minor were proved in the question on the free will of God.”* There it was shown that God wills other things besides Himself freely since His goodness can be without other things and since nothing of perfection accrues to Him from other things. It was also shown that God is the cause of things by His will and that He differs from man, who generates freely indeed but not by his will but by his generative faculty inasmuch as he possesses a certain nature, and therefore man can generate only a man because his generative power is determined to one result.

Hence if God acts with the greatest freedom ad extra and through His will by saying, “Let the world be,” it follows that the world began at that moment which God had determined from eternity, or as revelation teaches, in the beginning of time.

Among the modern philosophers, Leibnitz admitted this teaching, but he sought for some morally necessary motive on account of which God willed the world to begin at this time rather than earlier. In this he was limiting the liberty of God.

For St. Thomas particularly the beginning of the world depends simply on the will of God. St. Thomas says: “Why this part of matter is under this form and that matter under another form depends on the simple will of God just as the fact that this stone is in this part of the wall and that stone in another part depends on the will of the workman, although it is of the nature of the art that some stones be here and others there.” 1° Hence the Vatican Council declared: “By His omnipotent will in the beginning of time and at the same time God made from nothing both the spiritual and corporeal creature,” ** and

“God created by a will free from all necessity,” ** that is, without any metaphysical, physical, or moral necessity.

In the second part of the article St. Thomas tries to show that Aristotle did not intend to give demonstrative reasons for the eternity of the world, because in another place Aristotle says expressly, “There are certain dialectic problems for which we have no reasons, as whether the world is eternal,” or rather sempiternal.’® In yet another place, however, it seems that Aristotle tried positively to prove the sempiternity of movement and of time and from this the infinite power of the first mover.’®

The conclusion of the article is confirmed by the solution of the difficulties, of which these are the more important.

Reply to first difficulty. Before the world was it was possible, but this real possibility is not real passive potency, like prime matter. It is only a non-repugnance to being.

Reply to second difficulty. When incorruptible = exist they are always, but they receive their existence from God’s free will.

Reply to third difficulty. It is true that prime matter is ungenerated and cannot be generated, like an incorruptible being, and thus it begins not by generation but by creation and can be annihilated.

Reply to fourth difficulty. Before creation there was no vacuum because the vacuum is a place for a body; even a vacant place supposes certain corporeal beings between which there are unoccupied places. Hence before creation there was only a real possibility of corporeal beings as there was a real possibility of spirits; but this real possibility is not some being outside of God, it is merely a non-repugnance to being. This non-repugnance to being, however, is distinguished from simple conceivability, for the being of the mind is conceived but it cannot be produced outside the mind; it is conceivable but not realizable.

Reply to fifth difficulty. Is it true that every movement presupposes another movement, that every man presupposes a man who generates, and that the first immovable cause cannot of itself produce incipient movement so that a new effect follows without a new action in God?

St. Thomas replies that the first mover is always the same (that is,

he has no new actions), but the first thing moved begins to move not by movement but by creation. Thus the first man was created, not generated. St. Thomas explains: “If the first mover were an agent acting only through his nature and not by intellect and will, the effect would follow necessarily; but because the first mover acts through his will, he can by his eternal will produce a noneternal effect just as with his eternal intellect he can understand a noneternal being.” *? “From the eternal free action of God there does not follow an eternal effect, but whatever effect God wills.” '

This eternal divine action, formally immanent and virtually transient and transitive, is at once most free and of itself and immediately efficacious; therefore it produces its effect when it wills, that is, at the time determined from eternity. This is somewhat similar to the physician who in the morning prescribes a dose of medicine to be taken in the evening; if the doctor were able to administer the medicine without any intermediate action, the will he had in the morning would be like God’s will. The will of God created the world without any intermediary through His omnipotence, which is not really distinct from God, and thus the eternal and free action of God produces its effect in time so that there is a new effect in time without any new action in eternity. Eternity is to time as the stationary apex of a cone is to the circular base of the cone, which is described successively, and as the apex goes around and is above the base so eternity is above time.

Reply to sixth difficulty. “A particular agent presupposes time as it presupposes matter . . . , but the universal agent produces both the thing and the time. . .. And the world more clearly leads to the knowledge of the divine creating power if it is not always,” for in this way it is manifest that a world that has a beginning needs a cause.

Reply to seventh difficulty. When the world began, the beginning of movement and the first present moment were not the terminus of time past, for the time began with the movement itself of which it is the measure, then, for example, the first circular movement of the sun began.

Reply to eighth difficulty. Before this first instant there was nothing but imaginary time just as above the sky there is nothing but imaginary place, that is, something that can be imagined, the mere

11 Ibid. 18 Cf, replies to ninth and tenth difficulties.

nonrepugnance to the localization of corporeal beings. The conclusion, therefore, stands that it is not necessary that the world be always.

Doubt. Is it congruous that the world began, in the sense that it would be incongruous that the world was created from eternity ?

Reply. It is congruous that it might appear more clearly that God alone is eternal and that God most freely created the world. Nevertheless, as we shall see in the following article, creation from eternity does not seem to be positively incongruous; God is most free to have created eternally, and in those things which God does freely the thing which God actually did is, of course, congruous but the opposite would not be incongruous.

WHETHER IT IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH THAT THE WORLD BEGAN

State of the question. As we see from the first difficulty, the title asks whether it is an article of faith or a preamble of faith that the world had a beginning. A preamble of faith is a demonstrable conclusion, as for instance that God is the efficient cause of all being and thus the Creator; such a preamble of faith can be demonstrated. An article of faith differs from a preamble of faith, for, as St. Thomas says, “Where something is found not seen by a special reason, there we have a special article (of faith).” 1° “Thus there are twelve articles of faith (or according to another listing, fourteen) and among these is the article on creation: ‘I believe in one God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.’ ” ?°

The question is, then, whether it is repugnant that God created the world from all eternity, in the sense that God would precede the existence of the world by a priority only of nature and causality and not by a priority of duration, just as if a foot were on the sand from all eternity it would precede the footprint not by duration but by causality.

This question should be proposed with a restriction: whether some creature, at least one that is permanent and immobile like an angel, could be created from eternity even though movement and time must have a beginning.

St. Albert, St. Bonaventure, and Petavius and many more recent

writers hold that eternal creation is repugnant; St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Capreolus, Francis Sylvester (Ferrariensis), Cajetan, Suarez, and almost all Thomists and Scholastics hold that it is not repugnant.

The question is not of great importance, although it is important to show that the proofs for the existence of God, in particular St. Thomas’ five proofs, are still valid even though the world was from all eternity.

Of the difficulties proposed at the beginning of the article the sixth and seventh are the most important: “If the world was always, an infinite number of days would have preceded this day. But the infinite cannot be crossed. Therefore this day would never have arrived.” “If the world were eternal, man would be generated by another and so to infinity, and thus there would be an infinite succession of subordinate efficient causes, and therefore it would be impossible to demonstrate the existence of the first cause.” Moreover, according to the eighth difficulty, there would now be an infinite multitude of the souls of the deceased.

Reply. The reply is that it is an article of faith and not a demonstrable conclusion that the world began.

1. Proof from authority. That God is the Creator, in the sense that “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” is an article of faith in the proper sense. But articles of faith are distinguished from the preambles of faith by the fact that they cannot be demonstrated. With regard to creation natural reason can prove that all things outside of God are from God, and from this it follows that God produced these things from nothing.”* It can also be proved that God created most freely and not from a necessity of nature.

But, according to St. Thomas, we know only by faith that God did not create the world from eternity. The idea of creation contains three truths: 1. God created the universe from nothing, 2. most freely, 3. and not from eternity. The third truth is not demonstrable.

Objection. But this is not a supernatural mystery and therefore it can be known by reason alone.

Reply. This is not a mystery because the matter is essentially supernatural, I concede; but it is a mystery because of the contingency of the matter, like a future contingent of the natural order. This is, however, a past contingent.

2. Proof from reason. The conclusion which we wish to prove is that it is impossible to demonstrate that the world began.

The beginning of the world cannot be proved except on the part of the world or on the part of God. But in neither way can it be demonstrated. Therefore it is entirely indemonstrable.

Proof of the first part of the minor: the beginning of the world cannot be proved on the part of the world.

The principle of demonstration is the definition of the thing. But the definition of any created thing abstracts from here and now. Therefore the beginning of the world is indemonstrable on the part of the world.

Objection. The definition of the thing is the principle of the a priori demonstration from the properties of the thing. But besides this there is a demonstration a posteriori. Hence perhaps the beginning of the world can be demonstrated a posteriori.

Reply. If the world could not be from eternity, its beginning would be a property and could therefore be demonstrated from the definition of the world or of the things in the world. In other words, the beginning of the world, like the end of the world, is a contingent fact not included in the definition of the world, and it cannot be known except by experience, that is, a posteriori and not as the existence of the cause is demonstrated by the effect.

I insist. If the universals are always and everywhere, it is necessary that individuals be not always and everywhere. But the world is composed of particulars and individuals. Therefore the world could not be always.

Reply. The universals are always and everywhere negatively inasmuch as they abstract from here and now. Thus individuals cannot be always negatively because they do not abstract from here and now but are positively here and now. But it does not follow that they cannot be always positively. If the movement of the heavens was from eternity it would always be true to say that the heavens are in motion.

I insist. The beginning of the world can at least be proved a posteriori by the law of the diminution of energy, according to which the energy of the world is qualitatively diminished, as, for instance, the heat produced by local motion cannot in turn produce an equal amount of local motion. Hence the world is tending to a state of immobility and frigidity.

Reply. God could renew the physical energy of the world as He daily renews the spiritual energy of the world by creating souls. Moreover, even if this demonstration were valid it would prove at most the beginning of motion and not the beginning of a permanent and immobile creature such as the substance of the angel.

Proof of the second part of the minor, namely, the beginning of the world cannot be proved on the part of God, the cause.

The most free will of God when it is not manifested in act cannot be investigated by our reason. But God most freely created the world and at a time when He most freely willed. Therefore the beginning of the world, depending in this way on God’s free will, cannot be demonstrated and can be known only by faith.

The major is clear. The free will of God can be manifested by a fact, for example, when the end of the world comes. This fact will make known God’s free will about the end of the world. But in the first part of the article it was said that the beginning of the world is not made manifest either in the definition of the world or by any fact. Hence by reason of the contingency and not of the supernatural character of the matter the free will cannot be investigated. Hence it is that we cannot know with any certainty contingent futures, which depend on God’s free will.

The minor is certain from what we have said earlier: °? God operates most freely ad extra, not by a necessity of nature, or a necessity of wisdom, whatever Leibnitz says, because the infinite goodness of God exists without creatures, and God’s perfection is not increased by creatures.

From what he says at the end of the article, we see that at the time of St. Thomas many believed there could be a demonstration of this matter, and some thought that the demonstrations of the existence of God depended on a noneternal world. St. Thomas, however, understood that the position of the Averroists on the eternity of the world was against faith and not against reason, at least if it is admitted that the being of things depends efficiently on God.

Reply to first difficulty. If creation were from eternity, God would have a priority only of nature and causality but not of time with reference to the world, just as in the case of the foot which is impressed on the sand always, as St. Augustine says.”*

Reply to second difficulty. It would still be true to say that God

created the world from nothing, that is, from no presupposed subject, although creation would not be after nothing.**

Reply to fourth difficulty. Those who admit the eternity of the world must perpetually look for new sciences and new civilizations, that is, the civilization which appears to be primitive is perhaps not the first of all, and if the world is from eternity we cannot determine the first race, or the first movement of the sun, or the first day.

Reply to fifth difficulty. If the world were always it would not be equal to God in eternity because in the life of the world there would be a succession and the existence of the world would not be entirely at the same moment.

Reply to sixth difficulty. There would not be a first day or a first movement of the sun. In the Contra Gentes St. Thomas says that this argument is not cogent: “if the world were always there would not be a first movement of the sun and thus not transition (from the first day to today because such transition always requires the two extremes).” *°

I insist. It would then follow that a new day would be added to infinity.

Reply. To the prior part of the infinite an addition can be made from the posterior part of infinity, and thus time would be longer under the finite aspect, that is, in the posterior part although it is infinite in the prior part.

I insist. But this multitude of days would be an infinite number, which is repugnant.

Reply. It would be an innumerable multitude but not a number, for number adds to the multitude a determined relation to unity inasmuch as numbers begin with the first one. Hence an infinite number is repugnant but not an innumerable multitude, as would be the multitude of acts of the intellect and will of a separated soul in the future without end.

I insist. If there were no first day, or second, or third, there would be no actual day.

Reply. I concede the antecedent: if there were no first day, there would be no second or third. I deny the consequence: because it is not necessary that the multitude of days past be numerable or numerated. In Aristotle’s hypothesis there would be an innumerable multi-

tude. As St. Thomas says: “Number adds to multitude the idea of mensuration, for a number is a multitude measured by one.” 7° Hence it is conceded in Aristotle’s hypothesis that there would not be a first day, or a second, etc., namely, because there could not be a progressive numeration of days but only a regressive numeration, going back to the most ancient times and never arriving at the most ancient day. Such was St. Thomas’ reply to the sixth difficulty.

Eternity, whose now is always stable and not fluent, would be to infinite time in its prior part as the apex of the cone is to the circular base of the cone, which is continually described as without beginning or end; in the apex there is but one point whereas in the circle of the base there is a perpetual succession.

I insist. But if time were from eternity, the infinite and innumerable multitude of hours would be much greater than the infinite multitude of days. But one infinite multitude cannot be greater than another equally infinite.

Reply. I distinguish the minor: the infinite multitude cannot be greater considered as infinite, I concede; considered as finite, I deny. Thus to the infinite multitude in its anterior part there can be an addition from the posterior part and thus it is greater considered as finite.

Reply to seventh difficulty. There cannot be an infinite process of efficient causes that are subordinate per se, but there seems to be no repugnance in an infinite process of causes subordinate per accidens in which the causality of the posterior does not depend on the causality of the antecedent, for example, “it happens that this man who generates is generated by another, but he generates inasmuch as he is a man and not inasmuch as he is the son of another man.”

Reply to eighth difficulty. It is objected the souls of the dead would constitute an infinite multitude in act.

Algazel replies that this would be infinite only per accidens and only with regard to the posterior part. St. Thomas refuted this objection earlier,?* remarking that “every multitude must be in some species of multitude,” but it is disputed whether his refutation is apodictical since St. Thomas himself says that this argument is only probable because an innumerable multitude does not seem to be repugnant.”® On another occasion St. Thomas wrote, “It has not yet

26 Physica, Bk. IIl, chap. 8. 27 Summa theol., la, q.7, a-4. 28 Physica, loc. cit.

been demonstrated that God cannot make infinite things in act,” ?° and “To make something infinite or infinite things in act is not repugnant to the absolute divine omnipotence.” °° At the end of the reply to the eighth difficulty St. Thomas notes that, even though human generations cannot be from eternity, it does not follow that the physical world cannot be from eternity and that the series of brute generations had a beginning.

Last objection. If a thing is created, we must be able to say that at some time it is created. But that which does not have a principle of duration cannot be said to be created at some particular time.

Reply. In this case it would be true to say that the world is created always, just as if the foot were on the sand from eternity, it would be true to say that the footprint was always imprinted.

I insist. But then there would be no difference between creation and conservation, for creation is the first production of a thing and conservation is the continuation of that production. That is to say, creation must take place in some instant.

Reply. The concept of creation from eternity is difficult because we conceive a divine action analogously to created action, which has a beginning. Nevertheless I deny the inference and distinguish in this way: creation in time is the first production of a thing, I concede; creation from eternity, I deny. Actually creation and conservation are one single act which is called creation inasmuch as it confers being, and is called conservation inasmuch as it continues that being either in finite or infinite duration. This distinction remains even if creation were from eternity. Although this cannot be represented to the imagination, it does not seem to involve any repugnance, just as in the example of the foot on the sand from eternity. It is therefore at least probable that the world could be from eternity.

Doubt. Is this theory more probable with regard to permanent beings, like the angel, the rational soul, a stone, the sky, than with regard to successive things which consist in a certain flux, like movement and time?

Many Thomists, among them John of St. Thomas and Billuart, say that this theory is more probable with regard to permanent beings, and that it is probable that the world could not be from eternity with

2° De aeternitate mundi (written 1264).

30 Cf. Ouodl., 12, q.2. We have explained this at length in Dieu, son existence et sa nature (7th edition), no. 78 ff.

regard to successive beings, like movement and time, although Aristotle thought that movement and time were from eternity.

According to these Thomists the second part of the argument is not apodictical, and to many others it does not seem to be more probable. They say that if the movement of heavenly bodies were from eternity it would perdure in an infinite duration without the flux of the earlier part that ceases and the later part that begins, and therefore this movement would at the same time be something permanent and something successive, which is impossible. Other Thomists, like Cajetan, Capreolus, Ferrariensis, and the Salmanticenses, concede the possibility of movement from eternity.

Reply. If the movement of the heavenly bodies were from eternity, there would be no first circular movement of the sun, as St. Thomas says earlier, and the movement would always have been something successive, that is, always in the flux of the earlier part that ceases and the later part that begins. The movement, therefore, would not be successive and permanent under the same aspect; it would be successive with regard to the parts that ceased and permanent with regard to the whole. It is sufficient to note that if movement had no beginning, there would be in movement no part that was the first of all, for example, there would be no first movement of the sun. Moreover, St. Thomas holds that it is not repugnant for the world to be from eternity in the same way as Aristotle, and Aristotle held that the world was from eternity even with regard to successive beings.

Finally if the angel were created from eternity, he would have no first cogitation. At least this cannot be demonstrated to be impossible. If it is probable that time should have a beginning, this is because it seems that creation, as distinct from conservation, ought to take place in some instant which is the beginning of time. But our explicit distinction between creation and conservation can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to creation from eternity.

This problem appears again in Kant’s writings. Kant presents the first antinomy, whose thesis is: the world began in time and is limited in space, and the antithesis is: the world is infinite in time and space.

In the thesis it is proved that the world began because, as Kant says, it is repugnant that an infinite series of days should be terminated now by the present day. We reply that if this series were infinite in its anterior and posterior part it would be repugnant, but if the series is infinite only in the anterior part, it would not be repugnant.

Kant demonstrates the antithesis as follows: If the world began, it was preceded by vacant time and there is no reason why the world should begin now rather than earlier or later. St. Thomas would have replied: the world began at that moment determined by God’s free will. From his antinomies Kant concluded that metaphysics was impossible and that time and space are a priori forms of sensible knowledge and that causality is an a priori form of our intellects.

Hence St. Thomas would have said there is no antinomy because an antinomy is a contradiction whose two parts are proved apodictically, and thus metaphysics is impossible. But actually neither part is proved because this matter depends on God’s free will, and God could, if He wished, create the world from eternity just as He created it in time.

The second antinomy concerns the substance composed of simple parts or parts divided in infinity; but a continuum cannot be constituted by indivisible points. The reply is that the continuum is divisible in infinity but not divided in infinity.

The third antinomy concerns free will in the sense that free choice is against the principle that the same cause in the same circumstances produces the same effect. Reply: the same cause determined to one effect, I concede; not determined to one effect, I deny.

The fourth antinomy concerns the existence of the first cause. Kant says that if God began to act He would be measured by time. Reply: an eternal action produces its effect in time whenever it wills.

WHETHER THE CREATION OF THINGS WAS IN THE BEGINNING OF TIME

This article seeks to determine the meaning of the words, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” St. Thomas points out that these words are explained in three ways:

1. In the beginning of time, according to St. Basil and St. Ambrose in opposition to the older philosophers. .

2. In the principle, that is, in the Son, who is the exemplary principle, according to St. Augustine and St. Jerome against the Manichaeans.

3. Before all things, that is, in the beginning of time all things, including the angels, were created at one time.

The first and third explanations are literal; the second is mystical or spiritual. St. Augustine tried to see a twofold literal sense in the words, “in the beginning,” and also in the word “heaven,” that is, a corporeal heaven and a spiritual heaven.** This is not repugnant because these words are analogical, and God and the sacred writer, who was illuminated by divine inspiration, could have had in mind both the lower and the higher analogy, as when Christ taught us to say, “give us this day our daily bread,” He understood ordinary bread, and the “supersubstantial bread” mentioned by St. Matthew.*?

Footnotes

1. CË. Revue Thomrste (1897), the series of articles by P. Sertillanges: “La prevue de Pexistence de Dieu et l'éternité du monde.” 398 ↩