The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
After science and the divine will, after what is connected with it, it remains to study divine power.
1. Is there power in God?
2. Is its power infinite?
3. Is he all-powerful?
4. Can he make things past not to have been?
5. Can he do the things he does not do, or omit the things he does?
6. What he does, could he do it better?
Article 1 - Is there power in God?
Objections:
1. It seems not. In fact, there is the same relationship between primary matter and power as between God, primary agent, and the act. But the raw material, considered in itself, is without any act. Therefore the primary agent, which is God, has no power.
2 . According to the Philosopher, every act is better than its power; for form is better than matter, and action is better than active power, because it is the end of it. But nothing is better than what is in God; for whatever is in God is God, as has been shown. Therefore there is no power in God.
3 . Power is a principle of operation. But the divine operation is identical to its essence, since in God there is no accident. But the divine essence is without any principle. So there is no power in God.
4 . We have previously shown that God's knowledge and his will are the cause of things. But cause and principle are identical. We must therefore not attribute power to God, but only knowledge and will.
On the contrary , we say in Psalm (89:9): “You are powerful, Lord, you whom truth surrounds. ”
Answer:
There are two kinds of power: passive power, which is not in any way in God; and the active power, which must be sovereignly attributed to it. It is indeed manifest that every being, to the extent that it is in act and perfect, is the active principle of something; but it is passive to the extent that it is deficient and imperfect. Now we have shown above that God is pure act, that he is absolutely and universally perfect, that there is no room in him for any imperfection. Therefore, it is supremely appropriate for it to be an active principle, and in no way to be passive. Now the reason for the active principle is that of the active power. Because active power is a principle of action on others; Passive power is a principle of passivity towards others, as the Philosopher explains in the Metaphysics. It therefore remains that in God the active power, and not the passive power, is found in the highest degree.
Solutions:
1. The active power is not opposed to the act, but is based on it, because every being acts according to which it is in act. It is the passive power which opposes the act; for every being is passive according as it is potentially. It is therefore this last power which is excluded from God, not the active power.
2 . Each time the act is other than power, it is necessarily nobler than it. But God's action is nothing other than his power: both are identical with the divine essence, because even being in God does not differ from his essence. Therefore it is not necessary that there be anything nobler than the power of God.
3. In created things, power is the cause not only of the action, but also of its effect. In God therefore, the reason of power is safeguarded in that it is the principle of effect; but not in that it is the principle of its action, which is identical to its essence. Unless it is a question of our ways of conceiving, according to which the divine essence, which contains in advance in itself, in a simple way, all the perfections of creatures, can be conceived both as action and as power, just as it is conceived as a subject possessing a nature, and furthermore as nature.
4 . Power is not attributed to God as something really different from his knowledge and will; it only differs according to formal reason, insofar as power implies reason of principle of execution with regard to what the will commands and the end towards which knowledge directs: these are three aspects in God of a single reality. Or we can answer that science itself, or the divine will, depending on whether each is an efficient principle, have reason for power. So that the consideration of knowledge and will precedes in God the consideration of power, as the cause precedes the operation and the effect.
Article 2 - Is the power of God infinite?
Objections:
1. It seems not, because, according to the Philosopher, everything that is infinite is imperfect. But God's power is not imperfect. So it is not infinite.
2 . All power is manifested by the effect: without which it is vain. So if God's power were infinite, it would produce an infinite effect, which is impossible.
3 . The Philosopher proves that infinite bodily power would produce instantaneous movement. But God does not move with an instantaneous movement; according to S. Augustine, it moves the spiritual creature in time, and the corporeal creature in place and time. So its power is not infinite.
In the opposite direction, S. Hilaire writes: “God is alive, powerful, of limitless virtue. “But whatever is limitless is infinite. Therefore divine virtue is infinite.
Answer:
As was said in the previous article, there is an active power in God because he himself is in action. Now his being is an infinite being, not being limited by a subject in which he would be received, as we see from what we said previously when dealing with the infinity of the divine essence. It is therefore necessary that the active power of God be infinite. For, among all agents we discover that, the more perfectly an agent possesses the form by which it acts, the greater also is its active power. For example, the hotter a body is, the more power it has to heat, and its power to heat would be infinite if its heat were infinite. Also, as the divine essence by which God acts is infinite as has been shown, it follows that his power is infinite.
Solutions:
1. The Philosopher speaks of the infinite which stands on the side of matter not determined by form, and such is the infinite which suits quantity. But it is not thus, as we have seen, that the divine essence is infinite, and consequently it is not thus that its power is infinite. It does not therefore follow that this power is imperfect.
2. The power of the univocal agent is manifested entirely in its effect: thus the generative power in man can do nothing more than to generate a man. But the power of a non-univocal agent is not entirely manifested in the production of its effect; for example, the power of the sun is not fully manifested in the production of an animal generated by putrefaction. Now it is obvious that God is not a univocal agent; for nothing else can have genus or species in common with it, as was shown above. As a result, its effect is always less than its power. It is therefore not necessary that he manifest this power by producing an infinite effect. And yet, even if God produced nothing, his power would not become in vain; for we call vain that which tends to an end and does not attain it. Now the power of God is not ordered to the effect as to its end; it is she, rather, who is the end of its effect.
3. The Philosopher proves, as has been said, that if a body had infinite power, it could move in zero time. And yet it shows that the power of the celestial engine is infinite because it can move for an infinite time. Therefore, in Aristotle's thought, an infinite corporeal power, if it existed, would have to move in zero time, but the same is not true of the power of an incorporeal motor. The reason is that a body moving a body is a univocal agent towards it. Therefore, all the power of the agent must be manifested in the movement. Therefore, since a superior motive power, in a body, moves faster than another, it is necessary that, if this power is infinite, it moves at a speed out of proportion to any other, that is to say -say in zero time. But an intangible mover is a non-univocal agent; it is therefore not necessary that all his virtue manifests itself in movement, such that he too moves in zero time. And above all because such an agent moves according to what his will decides.
Article 3 – Is God omnipotent?
Objection:
1. It seems not, because being moved and undergoing an action belongs to all things. But God cannot do this, because he is immobile, as we saw above.
2 . Sin is action. But God cannot sin, any more than “deny himself,” says St. Paul (2 Tim 2:13). So God is not omnipotent.
3 . God is said to “show his power especially by forgiving and showing mercy.” It is therefore that the extreme limit of this power is forgiveness and mercy. Now there are much more important things than forgiving and having pity, for example creating another world, or something similar.
4 . On these words of St. Paul (1 Cor 1:20): “God has made foolish the wisdom of this world”, the Gloss says: “God did it by showing possible what this wisdom judged impossible. ” It therefore seems that we must not judge the possible or the impossible according to lower causes, as the wisdom of this world does, but according to divine power. So, if God is all-powerful, everything will be possible. So nothing will be impossible. But to suppress the impossible is also to suppress the necessary; for what is necessary, it is impossible that it should not exist. There will therefore be nothing necessary in things, if God is omnipotent. But this is impossible. So God is not omnipotent.
In the opposite sense , we read in S. Luke (1, 37): “Nothing is impossible with God. "
Answer :
Everyone confesses that God is all-powerful. But it seems difficult to determine the reason for this omnipotence. Because we can doubt what is meant when we say: God can do all things. But if we look closely, since power is only relative to the possible, when we say: God can do everything, we cannot understand him better than by conceiving that he can do everything that is possible, and that we says the Almighty because of this.
However, according to the Philosopher, the possible has two meanings. We can consider it in relation to some particular power, as if we say possible to man what is subject to the power of man. But God cannot be said to be called omnipotent because he can do all that is possible for created nature; for the power of God extends far beyond. On the other hand, if we say that God is omnipotent because he can do everything possible in his own power: we are going in circles; for then nothing more is said than this: God is omnipotent because he can do all that he can. It remains that God is said to be omnipotent because he can do everything possible absolutely speaking, and this is the other way of conceiving the possible. Now we say something possible or impossible absolutely according to the relationship of the terms: possible, because the predicate does not contradict the subject, for example that Socrates sits down; absolutely impossible, because the predicate is incompatible with the subject, for example that the man is a donkey.
But since every agent produces an effect similar to itself, we must consider that every active power corresponds to a possibility, which is its own object, and which conforms to the formal reason of the act on which the active power is based. Thus the power to heat relates as to its own object to that which is capable of heating. Now the divine being, on which the formal reason of divine power is based, is an infinite being and not limited to any kind of being, because it possesses in itself in advance the perfection of all being. Consequently, everything that can respond to the notion of being is contained in the absolute possible, with respect to which God is said to be omnipotent.
Now, nothing is opposed to the reason for existing, except non-existent. Therefore what is excluded from the notion of absolute possibility subject to divine power is that which implies in itself simultaneously being and non-being. Indeed, this is not subject to omnipotence, not because of a defect in this divine power, but because it cannot be justified by what is feasible and possible. Thus, all objects which do not imply contradiction are included among those possibilities with respect to which God is said to be omnipotent. As for objects which imply contradiction, they are not included in divine omnipotence, because they cannot have reason to be possible. For this reason it is proper to say of them that they cannot be made, rather than to say: God cannot make them. And this doctrine does not contradict the word of the angel: “Nothing is impossible with God. “For what implies contradiction cannot be a concept, no intelligence being able to conceive it.
Solutions:
1 . God is said to be omnipotent according to active power, not according to passive power, as we have just said. Also the fact that he can neither be moved nor undergo does not exclude omnipotence.
2 . Sin is a failure of moral action; also to be able to sin is to be able to be at fault in acting, which contradicts omnipotence. And this is why, if God cannot sin, it is because he is omnipotent. However the Philosopher writes: “God and the wise can do evil things. ” But this must be understood either as a conditional proposition whose antecedent is impossible, as if we say: God can do evil if he wants; because nothing prevents a conditional proposition from being true when its antecedent and its consequent are impossible; for example: If the man is a donkey, he has four feet. Or the Philosopher hears that God can do things that are apparently bad but would be good if he did them. Or finally he speaks according to the common opinion of the pagans, who believed that certain men could be deified, transformed into Jupiter or Mercury.
3.The omnipotence of God is shown above all by forgiving and showing mercy because this shows that God has supreme power, since he freely forgives sins; for he who is bound by the law of a superior being cannot freely forgive sins. Or again because by forgiving and showing mercy to men, God leads them to participate in infinite good, which is the sovereign effect of divine power. Or because, as was said previously, the effect of divine mercy is the foundation of all divine works; in fact, nothing is owed to anyone except because of what was first given to him freely by God. Now, divine omnipotence is manifested above all in that the first institution of all goods belongs to him.
4. What is said to be absolutely possible is called such neither with respect to higher causes nor with respect to lower causes, but in itself. Whereas what is possible with respect to a certain power is called possible with respect to the proximate cause. It follows that things of such a nature that they can only have God as their author, such as creation, justification, etc., these things are said to be possible in relation to the supreme cause. On the contrary, those which can be realized by the lower causes are said to be possible in relation to these. For it is according to the mode of being of its proximate cause that the effect is affected by contingency or necessity, as was said above. If the Apostle declared the wisdom of this world crazy, it is because it considered impossible for God himself what is impossible for nature. We see from this that the omnipotence of God excludes neither impossibility nor necessity from things.
Article 4 - Can God make things past not to have been?
Objections:
1 . It seems God can do it. For what is impossible in itself is more impossible than what is impossible by accident. Now, God can do what is impossible on his own, such as giving sight to a blind man or resurrecting the dead. Much more can he do what is impossible except by accident. Now, that past things did not exist is only possible by accident; for it is a purely accidental fact that the impossibility of not running attributed to Socrates, because it is past.
2 . Whatever God has been able to do, he can still do, because his power is not diminished. Now God was able to cause, before Socrates ran, that he did not run: therefore, after he ran, God can cause that he did not run.
3 . Charity is a greater virtue than virginity; but God can restore lost charity. So also virginity, and it can therefore cause a virgin who has been deflowered not to have been deflowered.
On the contrary , S. Jerome writes “God, who can do everything, cannot make a deflowered woman a woman who has not been deflowered. ” For the same reason, he cannot therefore make any other past event into an event that did not happen.
Answer:
As we just said in the previous article, what implies contradiction does not fall under the omnipotence of God. Now, that the past did not exist is something which implies a contradiction. And in fact, as there is a contradiction in saying that Socrates sits and does not sit, so it is contradictory to say that he sat and that he did not sit. Now to say that he sat down is to declare something past; to say that he did not sit down is to say that this past thing was not. Therefore, that things past were not, is not subject to divine power. This is what St. Augustine affirms: “He who says: 'If God be omnipotent, let him cause that which has been done not to have been done,' he does not see that he says: “If God is omnipotent, let him make what is true, in that it is true, false.” ” And the Philosopher writes: “God lacks only one power: to make what has been done not have been done.”
Solutions:
1 . It is very true that the impossibility, for the past, of not having been, is accidental, if we look at what is past, for example the race of Socrates. But if we consider the past as such, then that it did not exist is impossible not only in itself, but absolutely, because that implies contradiction. It is therefore more impossible than the resurrection of a dead person, which does not imply contradiction; it is declared impossible with regard to a certain power, that of nature. Impossibilities of this kind are indeed subject to the power of God.
2 . Just as if God can do everything because of the perfection of his power, there are nevertheless things which are not subject to his power, because they lack being possible. Thus, considering the immutability of divine power, God can do all that he could; but certain things were possible in the past, when they were feasible, which today are no longer possible, because they have been done. Thus, we say that God cannot make them, to express that they themselves cannot be made.
3 . God can make every defect of the soul or body disappear from the deflowered woman, but he cannot make it so that she has not been deflowered. Likewise God can indeed return charity to the sinner; but he cannot ensure that he has not sinned and that he has not lost charity.
Article 5 - Can God do things that he does not do, or omit those that he does?
Objections:
1.It seems that God can only do the things that He does. For God cannot do what he has not foreseen and foreordained that he would do; but God has only planned and foreordained the things he does. So he can only do what he does.
2 . God can only do what he must, and what is right to do. But the things that God does not do, he must not do, and it is not right for him to do them. So God can only do what he does.
3 . God can only do what is good for and convenient to the things he has made. Now it is not good and it does not become things made by God to be otherwise than they are. So God cannot do anything other than what he does.
On the contrary , Jesus said (Mt 26:53): “Can I not pray to my Father, who would immediately provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? ”And neither he himself prayed, nor his Father sent him angels to resist the Jews. So God can do what he doesn't do.
Answer:
On this subject some people were wrong in two ways. Some have claimed that God acts as if by necessity of nature, so that, like natural things from which no other effects can come than those which occur: a man from the seed of man, an olive tree from an olive seed, thus from the divine operation could result neither other things, nor another order of the universe than that which now exists. But we have shown above that God does not act by necessity of nature; that it is his will which is the cause of all things, and that this will itself is not determined naturally and necessarily to these things. Consequently this course of things in no way comes from God with such necessity that it cannot produce others.
Some have said that divine power is determined in the present course of things because of the order designed by his wisdom and justice, outside of which God does nothing. But since the power of God, which is his essence, is nothing other than his wisdom itself, we can well say that nothing is in the power of God if it does not belong to the order of divine wisdom. ; for divine wisdom comprehends all the power contained in power. However, the order imposed on things by divine wisdom, an order which has the reason of justice, as was said previously, does not equal in magnitude divine wisdom in such a way that divine wisdom would be limited to this order- there. It is obvious that the entire conception of the order imposed by the wise man on his work depends on the end pursued. Therefore, when the end is in exact proportion to the things done with a view to this end, the wisdom of the agent is limited to a determinate order. But divine goodness is an end which exceeds created things out of all proportion. Consequently, divine wisdom is not restricted to a fixed order of things, so much so that a different order cannot arise from it. We must therefore say purely and simply that God can do something other than what he does.
Solutions:
1.In us, in whom the power and the essence are other than the will and the intelligence; and in whom one is intelligence, and another is wisdom; another the will, and another the justice, something can be in our power, which cannot be in the just will or in the wise intelligence. But in God power and essence, will and understanding, wisdom and righteousness are one and the same. So that nothing can be in his power that cannot be in his right will and in his wise understanding. So, since his will is not necessarily determined to this or that, except conditionally, as we have explained, and since, we have just said, the wisdom of God and his justice are not determined to such an order of things, nothing prevents there being something in the power of God which he does not will and which is not included in the order which he has imposed on things. And because the power of God is conceived by us as executor, his will as imperious, his intelligence and his wisdom as directors: for this, what is attributed to the power considered alone will be said to the power of God according to his absolute power and we have recognized in such everything in which the reason for being can be found. But for what is attributed to the divine power as executor of the will of the just will, it is said that God can do it with ordered power. Therefore, according to this distinction, we must say that God can, by absolute power, do anything other than what he has foreseen and foreordained that he would do; and yet it is impossible for him to actually do things which he would not have foreseen and preordained to do. For doing is subject to foreknowledge and preordination, but not power, which belongs to nature. So, God does something because he wants it; but if he can do it, it is not because he wants to, it is because such is his nature.
2 . God owes nothing to anyone except himself. Thus, when we say: God can only do what he must, it means nothing other than this: God can only do what is just and convenient for him. But what I call just and proper can be understood in two ways. I can first join, in my sentence, what I say is right and suitable to the verb to be in such a way that it is restricted to designating present things, and thus refers to power. In this case, the proposition is false; for its meaning is this: God can only do what is currently just and proper. If, on the contrary, what is just and proper is joined first to the verb can, which has more magnitude, and only then to the verb to be, something present and indeterminate will result, and the proposition will be true in this meaning: God cannot do anything that would not be suitable and just if he did it.
3. Although this course of things is determined by those things which presently exist, divine wisdom and power are not thereby limited to this course of things. So, although for these things which are now being done no other arrangement could be good and convenient, yet God could do other things and give them another order.
Article 6 — The things that God does, could he make them better?
Objection:
1. It seems that God cannot make the things he does better. For whatever God does, he does with the utmost power and wisdom. But a thing is all the better the more it is done with more power and wisdom. So God cannot do anything better than what he does.
2 . Against Maximin, S. Augustine argues thus: “If God was able, and did not want, to generate a son who was his equal, he was envious. ” For the same reason, if God could make the things he did better and did not want it, he was
envious. But envy is totally foreign to God. So God made everything as perfectly as possible. So he can't do anything better than he did.
3 . What is supremely and fully good cannot be made better; because nothing exceeds the maximum. Now, says S. Augustine, “the things that God does are good, each taken separately; but taken together, they are excellent, because from their whole results the admirable beauty of the universe.” Therefore the good of the universe cannot be created by God better than it is.
4 . Christ, as man, is “full of grace and truth”; he possesses the Spirit without measure; and so it cannot be better. Created bliss is called supreme good, and therefore it too cannot be better. Finally, blessed Mary has been raised above all the choirs of angels and thus she cannot be better. Therefore, whatever God has done, he cannot make it better.
On the contrary , we read in the epistle to the Ephesians (3, 20), that God “can do infinitely beyond what we can ask or conceive”.
Answer :
Everything has a double goodness. The one belongs to his essence, just as being a rational creature is to the essence of man; and as for this good, God cannot make anything better than it is, although he can make another better than it. It is like the number 4, which God cannot make greater, because it would then not be the number 4, but another number. We know that the addition of a substantial difference, in definitions, is like the addition of unity in numbers, as explained in Aristotle's Metaphysics. The other goodness of things is that which is adds to their essence, as it is good for man to be virtuous and learned. And according to this goodness God can make better the things he has done. But absolutely speaking, whatever God has made, He can always make something better.
Solutions:
1 . When we say: God can do something better than what he does, if the word “better” is a noun, the proposition is true; for whatever a given thing is, God can always make it better, and if it is the same thing, he can make it better in a certain way, and not in another way, just as we just saw it. If the word “better” is taken as an adverb, and if it relates to God's way of acting, in this sense God cannot do better than he does; for he cannot do anything with more wisdom and goodness. But if it relates to the mode of being of the effect, then God can always do better; for he can give to the things he has created a more perfect mode of being as regards their accidental attributes, if not as regards their essential attributes.
2 . It is in the nature of things that the son equals his father once he reaches manhood; but it is not in the nature of any created thing to be better than God made it. So the comparison is not valid.
3 . The universe cannot be better than it is, if we take it as constituted by actual things; because of the very appropriate order assigned to things by God and in which the good of the universe consists. If only one of these things were made better, the proportion of order would be destroyed, just as in the song of the zither the melody would be altered if a string were stretched more than it should be. But God could do other things; he could add to those he has made; and thus we would have another better universe.
4. The humanity of Christ, because it is united with God; created beatitude, because it is the enjoyment of God; and the blessed Virgin, because she is Mother of God, have in some way an infinite dignity, derived from the infinite good that is God. In this respect nothing can be made better than them, just as nothing can be better than God.