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Aquinas, The Divine

So far we have shown THAT exists, but we don’t yet know WHAT God is like. Here, Aquinas demonstrates attributes of God, who is:

(1) Simple (i.e., God has no parts) (2) Perfect (i.e., God has all of the perfections; e.g., goodness, wisdom, power) (3) Infinite (i.e., God is not limited in any way) (4) Ubiquitous (i.e., God exists in all places) (5) Immutable (i.e., God does not change) (6) Eternal (i.e., God is timeless) (7) One (i.e., there is only one God, one entity with all of these attributes)

1. Simplicity: Everything that you and I have ever seen is composed; that is, has parts. But, God is not like that. He is “simple”. His summary of the best arguments for this come in Article 7, but he makes a couple of points worth noting along the way:

God is Immaterial: First, God cannot be a “body”. Aquinas has already shown (in the 1st Way) that God is the First Mover, Unmoved. But, any body that is the source of the motion in another body must itself move.

God’s Essence is : Second, Aquinas has already shown (in the 3rd) way, that God is a necessary . But—if you recall from our study of —that is the sort of being whose existence is GUARANTEED by its own essence. I said this in my notes:

A triangle’s essence does not guarantee its existence. Just by considering the essence of a triangle, we see that it needs a cause in order to exist. It needs existence to be ADDED TO its essence in order to exist in actuality. On the hand, recall that positing the non-existence of a necessary being results in a contradiction. So, a necessary being would be one whose essence is such that it DOES guarantee its own existence. It doesn’t need existence ADDED to its essence in order to exist because its essence IS existence. Any being with THAT sort of essence simply MUST exist. For, what it is is pure existence.

In short, God is not composed of essence PLUS existence, since His essence IS existence.

The Proof of God’s Simplicity: Aquinas’s most straightforward reasons are these:

(1) Wholes (i.e., composite things) are dependent upon their parts; and parts are (at least logically, if not also causally) prior to the whole. But, God depends on nothing, and nothing is prior to God.

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(2) Composites are potentially dissoluble (i.e., capable of not existing); since the parts can be separated from one another so that the whole ceases to exist. So, any composite is capable of not existing (i.e., is a contingent being). But, God is not capable of not existing (He is a Necessary Existent).

(3) Every composite requires a composer—that is, an efficient cause which brings the parts together into one whole. But, God has no cause (He is the First Cause).

2. Perfection: Aquinas argues that God is absolutely perfect. To understand his main reason for thinking this, it is important to note that Aquinas endorses the Augustinian view that existence, or being—insofar as it is being—is good. Furthermore, imperfection (e.g., evil) is a PRIVATION of being. In short, the more existence a thing has, the more perfect it is. But, God’s essence IS existence. As such, God is pure being. His being lacks nothing. It is without privation. So, He is absolutely perfect.

He says that “God is self-subsisting existence. It follows from this that God contains the complete perfection of existing in himself.” (I.4.2)

The second argument given is this: Clearly, there are perfections that created things can have (e.g., goodness, wisdom, being, life, and so on). But, Aquinas believes that a cause cannot impart these attributes to its effect unless it itself has them, and in a more perfect way. (For example, the sand on a beach gets hot. The cause of this effect is the Sun, which possesses heat to a much greater degree.)

He writes,

“it is obvious that an effect preexists in the power of the acting cause. But to preexist in the power of the acting cause is not to preexist in an imperfect mode but rather in a more perfect mode. … Thus since God is the first efficient cause of things, it follows that the perfections of all things preexist in God in a more eminent way.” (I.4.2)

Conclusion: Aquinas infers from God’s absolute perfection that He therefore possesses ALL of the perfections—e.g., goodness, wisdom, and life. He writes,

“insofar as something is perfect it is also said to be good.” (I.4) And later, “the very includes in itself life and wisdom, since no perfection of existing can be lacking to what is subsisting existence itself.” (I.4.2)

3. Infinity: By ‘infinite’ Aquinas means ‘not limited’. To understand why Aquinas thinks that God is not limited in any way, it will be helpful to discuss the Aristotelian view (which Aquinas endorses) regarding and form.

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When we discussed the , we saw that the efficient cause is responsible for bringing together the matter (the material cause) and the form (the formal cause). Thus, each material being is composed of matter + form. For instance, a statue is composed of the slab of marble (matter) and that particular statue-shape (form).

Matter: In their own way, both matter and form suffer some limitations. It may seem like matter is NOT limited because it can become ANYTHING! With a pile of protons, neutrons, and electrons, you could make a table, or a dog, or a star! Ultimately, however, Aquinas says matter is limited because it cannot exist independent of form. There is no such thing as formless matter.* So, wherever matter exists, it is limited by form to be THIS SORT of thing, rather than some other. For instance, the matter in Fido is limited by the form of ‘dog’ to be a dog, rather than, say, a cat or a table.

( * Though Aristotelians often spoke of matter without form—they called it “Prime Matter”—they did not think that Prime Matter actually existed somewhere in the universe. Matter can only exist if it has a form.)

Forms: Forms are weird. They can exist simultaneously in many places at once. For instance, a particular statue-shape can exist in many slabs of marble at once. Similarly, YOUR form (the form of human being) exists in many places at once—namely, in each and every human being. So, in a sense, forms are NOT limited (to any particular matter).

Interestingly, the implication is that matter is what individuates things. If I say that two statues are “identical”, you might reply: “Well, they’re not REALLY identical. They just LOOK the same. But, they’re composed of different matter.” What’s been said here is that the 2 statues share one and the same FORM, but not one and the same MATTER— and for this reason, they are not the same statue. Similarly, Fido and Sparky share one and the same form (the form of ‘dog’), but not the same matter. That is why they are two numerically distinct dogs rather than one dog.

But, now we see that, in some sense, form is limited too. Though a single form can be in many places at once, wherever it exists, it exists in some matter than makes it be THIS individual rather than THAT individual. For instance, in Fido, the form of ‘dog’ is limited by the matter which makes it be Fido (and not Sparky). In Sparky, the same form is limited by the matter which makes it be Sparky (and not Fido). Aquinas writes,

“Now in one way matter is limited by form, and in another way form by matter. Matter is limited by form insofar as matter, prior to receiving form, is in potentiality to many forms; once it receives a form, however, it becomes limited by that one form. Form is limited by matter insofar as form, considered in itself, is common to many; once it is received in matter, however, it becomes the determinate form of this thing.” (I.7.1)

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Thus, while forms may be “” in the sense that they can exist in many things, they are always restricted by (or limited by, or contracted into) matter to become “particular” things.

God: But, God is not composed of matter and form, as we have seen. Rather, God is the CAUSE or SOURCE of all matter and form. Thus, He does not suffer from either of their limitations.

Furthermore, unlike contingent (whose existence is limites), God is a necessary being. As such, His existence is not limited (e.g., He doesn’t begin or cease to be).

Furthermore, as a necessary being, God’s essence IS existence. For all other things that exist, they exist in some particular (restricted) way that is specified by their essence, or nature. For instance, any dog that exists, exists in only some restricted way (namely, as a DOG, and NOT, say, a CAT). But, since God’s essence just IS existence, His existence is not restricted or limited in any particular way. God is PURE EXISTENCE. Thomas writes,

“Now, as was made clear above [I.4.1.R3], what is most formal of all is existence itself. Therefore, since the divine existence is not received in anything, but is itself its own subsisting existence, as proven above [I.3.4], it is clear that God is infinite and perfect.” (I.7.1)

In other words, existence is typically RECEIVED by (or added to) some matter and form. Whenever this happens the form is CONTRACTED, and the existence is LIMITED by that particular form and matter. But, if you had PURE existence, NOT received into matter and form, it would NOT be limited in that same way.

4. Ubiquity (Omnipresence): Since God is infinite, a closely related conclusion follows. God is not limited to any particular place, but exists in ALL places.

But wait. That makes God sound like He has parts—like His left half is in the left side of the universe, and His right half is in the right half of the universe. Alternatively, it makes it sound like God is material, composed of the various parts of the universe, or else a very “thin” material , like a ghost. Aquinas would reject all of these claims.

When Aquinas says that “God is in all things”, he means primarily that God is the CAUSE or SOURCE of all things. He writes,

“God is in all things … as an agent is present in that on which it acts.” (I.8.1) Later he adds, “Now God fills every place, but not as a body does, since a body is said to fill a place inasmuch as no other body can be with it in that place. What it

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instead means for God to be in some place is not that other things are excluded from that place, but rather that God fills every place insofar as God gives existence to all the things located in place, thus filling every place.” (I.8.2)

So, God is not literally IN all places. Rather, He is everywhere in the sense that everything is to His power (as a king is “present” in his entire kingdom because he has power over all of it), -or in the sense that He sees or knows all things (as someone in a room is “present” in the entire room because they can see all of it), or in the sense that He is the cause of all things.

5. Immutability: That God is unchanging follows from what has been said:

(1) First, as Aquinas has argued, every movement, or change, requires an external mover. But, God is the First Mover, UNMOVED. There is no prior mover or changer, external to God. Therefore, God does not change.

(2) Second, everything that changes must have parts. But, God is simple; i.e., He has no parts.

[Consider: If you change (say, from sitting to standing), you lose one attribute (sitting) and gain another (standing). But, lots of other things remain the same through the change (your matter, and so on). Now imagine that ALL of your attributes changed. That doesn’t seem like change. Rather, that seems more like annihilation followed by creation of a brand new individual.

Or imagine that you replace one part of a car. The rest of the parts stay the same. It still seems to be the same car. But now imagine that, in a single instant, we replace ALL of the parts of a car. It seems to just be a totally new car, not the same car as the original. In short, for a simple (i.e., partless) being to “change” would mean COMPLETE replacement. That’s annihilation/creation, not change.]

(3) Third, everything that changes gains something new that it previously lacked, or loses something it previously had. But, as we have seen, God lacks nothing. He is infinite and absolutely perfect, possessing all of the perfections and is in no way lacking anything. So, He cannot gain anything new, since He already has all of the perfections. Nor can He lose anything, for then He would cease to be perfect.

[You might think, perhaps God could gain something that is NOT a perfection. But, keep in that, for Aquinas, to gain an imperfection would just be to “gain” deprivations (which is really just to LOSE a perfection). But, God can’t cease to be God (i.e., the greatest conceivable being, which possesses all of the perfections).]

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6. Eternity: By ‘eternal’ here, Aquinas has in mind ’ of eternity. That is, God does not exist AT all , but rather is not in at all. (Recall that Boethius called the sort of thing that exists IN time, AT all times “perpetual” rather than eternal.)

On the Boethian view, for God there is no earlier/later, no before/after, no past/future. There is only an eternal present or NOW. He all times “at once” so to speak. Aquinas says, “Eternity is altogether at once. But in time there is before and after. Thus time and eternity are not identical.” (I.10.4)

Proof of God’s Eternity: First, since Aquinas thinks that time is dependent upon change, or motion, God’s timelessness follows from His changelessness. He says,

“Time is the measure of motion” (1.10.4) So, “The nature of eternity follows from immutability, just as the nature of time follows from motion … Thus, since God is supremely immutable, it belongs most particularly to God to be eternal.” (I.10.2)

Second, being in time in some sense involves limitation. Events in time have a beginning and an end. Furthermore, they are composed—not only because time requires change and change requires composition, but also because changes have earlier parts and later parts. But, God is infinite (i.e., unlimited) and simple. He says,

“in everything that is moved, there is to be found some beginning and some end. Yet what is completely immutable cannot have a beginning or an end, just as it cannot have any succession.” (I.10.1)

7. Unity: Finally, Thomas asks, Can there be TWO such beings, or is there only ONE?

Aquinas offers two arguments for the conclusion that there is only ONE being fitting the description that we have laid out here:

(1) First, it follows from God’s simplicity. In order for the same divine nature to be in two things, there would have to be some of individuation to distinguish them. For instance, can be in two things—but they are TWO distinct things only because there is some EXTRA thing that individuates the two humans. Namely, their matter. So, for instance, though and Socrates both share the same nature (namely, humanity), they are TWO distinct individuals rather than one because they do not share the same matter. Likewise, if the divine nature were to be in two distinct beings, there would have to be some extra thing that distinguished them (something that plays the same role that matter plays for Plato and Socrates).

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Long story short, at least one of these two beings would have to be COMPOSED; that is, they would have to be the divine nature + the principle of individuation. But, as we have seen, God is simple, not composed. Furthermore, Aquinas believes that any composite being (a) DEPENDS upon its parts for its existence, and (b) requires a CAUSE to bring those parts together. But, God depends on nothing, and requires no cause.

(2) Second, it follows from God’s perfection. Imagine two “perfect” beings, A and B. In order for there to be TWO, they would have to differ in some way. That is, one would have to have some attribute that the other didn’t

Now imagine that A has a that B lacks. If it is a positive property, then it is being. (And keep in mind here that being = good!) So, in this case, A would have something good that B lacks, in which case A is BETTER than B. (But, then, we’d just say that A is God and B is not.)

Alternatively, if the property that A has is a negative property (i.e., a privation), then A LACKS a good that B has, in which case B is better than A. (But, then, we’d just say that B is God and A is not.)

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