The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
Finally, after what concerns the unity of the divine essence, we must study beatitude
1. Does beatitude suit God?
2. Is God said to be blessed because of intellection?
3. Is God essentially the beatitude of every blessed person?
4. Does the blessedness of God include all blessedness?
Article 1 - Is beatitude suitable to God?
Objections:
1. It seems not. Because, according to Boethius, beatitude is “a state resulting from the assembly of all goods.” Now there is no assembly of goods in God, nor any composition. Therefore bliss does not suit God.
2. Beatitude, or felicity, according to the Philosopher is the reward of virtue. But no reward is appropriate for God, nor any merit.
In the contrary sense , the Apostle (1 Tim 5:15) speaks of: “He who will bring forth at the appointed time the blessed and only Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords. ”
Answer:
Bliss is supremely fitting for God. For under the name of beatitude we mean nothing other than the perfect goodness of intellectual nature, to which it belongs to know itself fulfilled by the goodness which is its own, to which therefore it belongs that what happens to it is good or bad for her, and who is in control of her actions. Now both, being perfect and being intelligent, belong excellently to God. So bliss suits him to the highest degree.
Solutions:
1. The sum of all goods is not in God by mode of composition but by mode of simplicity; for the perfections which are multiplied in creatures pre-exist in God in simplicity and unity, as previously explained.
2. Being the reward of virtue is accidental to beatitude or felicity and is only found in him who must acquire it; in the same way, being the term of generation is accidental to the being, and comes from the fact that the being passes from potentiality to act. Therefore, just as God has existence, although he is not begotten, so he has bliss although he does not deserve.
Article 2 - Is God said to be blessed because of intellection?
Objections:
1. It seems not, because beatitude is the highest good. But God is said to be good according to his essence; and it is according to essence that goodness concerns being, according to Boethius. Therefore beatitude is attributed to God according to his essence, and not according to his intelligence.
2. Beatitude has the right to end; but the end is the object of the will, like the good itself. Therefore blessedness is attributed to God according to the will, and not according to the understanding.
In the opposite sense , S. Gregory writes: “He is glorious who, enjoying himself, has no need of foreign praise. ” Now to be glorious here means to be blessed. Therefore, since we enjoy God through intelligence, for “vision is all our reward,” says St. Augustine, it seems that beatitude is attributed to God according to his intelligence.
Answer:
We have just defined beatitude as the perfect good of the intellectual creature. From this comes, everything seeking its perfection, that the intellectual nature, too, naturally desires to be blessed. Now, what is most perfect in any intellectual nature is the intellectual operation, which allows it to grasp in some way all things. Thus, the bliss of every created intellectual nature consists in intellection. In God, intellection is nothing other than being itself in reality, they are only distinguished according to formal reasons. We must therefore attribute to God beatitude according to the intelligence, as also to all the blessed, who are called blessed by assimilation to his own beatitude.
Solutions:
1. This argument proves that God is happy by his essence; but not that beatitude should be attributed to him according to the formal reason of essence, but rather according to the formal reason of intelligence.
2 . Bliss, being a good, is the object of the will. But the object of a power is presupposed to its act. And consequently, according to our way of understanding, the beatitude of God precedes the act of the divine will which rests there. And this can only be an act of intelligence. This is why it is in the act of intelligence that we find beatitude.
Article 3 - Is God essentially the beatitude of all blessed?
Objections:
1 . It seems so, because God is the sovereign good, as has been shown. Now it is impossible for there to be several sovereign goods, as has also been shown. Therefore, since it belongs to the reason of beatitude that it is the sovereign good, it seems that beatitude is nothing other than God.
2. Beatitude is the final end of the rational creature. Now being the final end of the rational creature belongs only to God. Therefore God alone is the beatitude of all blessed.
In the opposite direction, the beatitude of one is greater than the beatitude of another, according to these words of the Apostle (I Cor 15:41): “One star differs in brightness from another star. ” But nothing is greater than God. So bliss is something other than God.
Answer:
The bliss of the intellectual nature consists in an act of intelligence. But we can consider two things: the object of the act, which is the intelligible, and the act itself which is intellection.
If we consider beatitude from the side of its object, in this sense, it is God alone who is beatitude; for a being is blessed only because he knows God through his intellect, in accordance with these words of St. Augustine: “Blessed is he who knows you, even if he knows nothing else. ” But considered as to the very act of intelligence, beatitude is something created in blessed creatures. Whereas in God it is something uncreated.
Solutions:
1 . Beatitude, as to its object, consists in the sovereign good purely and simply, that is to say in God. Beatitude as to the act, in blessed creatures, is the sovereign good not purely and simply but in relation to all the goods in which nature can participate.
2 . As the Philosopher remarks, under the name of end we designate two things: what we enjoy, and the act by which we enjoy it; or, if you like, the thing itself, and the use we make of it. For example, for the miser, the end is money and the acquisition of money. Therefore the final end of the rational creature is God as object; but it is the beatitude created as being the use, or better said the enjoyment of this object.
Article 4 - Does the beatitude of God include all beatitude?
Objections:
1. It seems that divine beatitude does not embrace all the beatitudes. Indeed, there are false beatitudes. But in God nothing can be false.
2 . For some, beatitude consists of corporeal things, such as pleasures, riches, etc., all things foreign to God, who is incorporeal. Therefore the beatitude of God does not include all beatitude.
In the opposite sense , beatitude is perfection. Now the perfection of God includes all perfection, as has been shown. Therefore the blessedness of God includes all blessedness.
Answer :
Everything that is desirable in whatever beatitude it may be, true or false, all this pre-exists eminently in divine beatitude. From contemplative bliss, he retains the perpetual and infallible contemplation of himself, as well as of everything else. From active felicity, he holds the government of the entire universe. Of earthly happiness, which, according to Boethius, includes pleasures, riches, power, dignity and glory, he has: for pleasures, the joy of himself and everything else; for riches, that perfect sufficiency which they promise to men; for power, omnipotence; for dignity, universal government; for glory, the admiration of every creature.
Solutions:
1. A beatitude is false according to whether it moves away from true beatitude, which is not the case with God. However, whatever remains there, however little it may be, that resembles beatitude, pre-exists entirely in divine beatitude.
2. The goods which exist corporeally in corporeal creatures exist in God spiritually, according to his mode. Let this be enough, with regard to the divine essence taken in its unity.