However, non-being is not present in a being contrary to it, as in a subject. But we showed in Book One [43] that God is of infinite power. [9] Besides, we are said to understand something in three ways. As an indication of this, they assert that the more that is added to the quantity of a body, the heavier it becomes and the more its motion is slowed down. Nevertheless, since man does participate somewhat in intellectual light, brute animals are subject to him by the order of divine providence, for they participate in no way in understanding. 9 n. 4 Sunt tamen ad huiusmodi veritatem manifestandam rationes aliquae verisimiles inducendae, ad fidelium quidem exercitium et solatium, non autem ad adversarios convincendos: quia ipsa rationum insufficientia eos magis in suo errore confirmaret, dum aestimarent nos propter tam debiles rationes veritati fidei consentire. [11] Now, the fourth is answered by the fact that the vision of the divine substance exceeds every natural power, as we have shown. But, since the created intellect cannot know the divine substance in such a way that it comprehends it, the intellect does not have to see all things that can be known through this substance, when it sees it. Now, the proper object of the intellect is that which is, that is, the substance of a thing, as is stated in Book III of On the Soul [4: 429b 10]. Now, good and evil are contraries. Therefore, the forms and movements of lower bodies are caused by intellectual substance which intends them as a principal agent, while the celestial body is like an instrument. Therefore, it must be from a rational end that things in the moral area are termed good or evil. Therefore, the quiddity of the aforementioned separate substances, which in no way exist in matter, is utterly different. So, that whereby a thing chiefly becomes like God is its ultimate end. [9] However, someone may say that, since felicity is a good of intellectual nature, perfect and true felicity belongs to those beings in whom a perfect intellectual nature is found, that is, to separate substances, but that in man there is found an imperfect happiness, in the manner of some sort of participation. Now, we reach a proper knowledge of a thing not only through affirmations but also through negations; for instance, it is proper to a man to be a rational animal, and so it is proper to him not to be inanimate or irrational. Therefore, a celestial body is moved by something else. But more perfect beings tend to the good of the genus, while God, Who is most perfect in goodness, tends toward the good of being as a whole. Now, that which is practically nothing cannot make a noticeable difference; thus, the distance between the center of the earth and our level of vision is like nothing in comparison with the distance that lies between our eye level and the eighth sphere, in regard to which sphere the whole earth takes the place of a point; this is why no noticeable variation results from the fact that astronomers in their demonstrations use our eye level of sight as the center of the earth. 1 cap. [3] Again, we showed above, that ultimate felicity does not consist primarily in an act of the will. 1 cap. [1] Now, it is clear from what we have said that it is impossible for human felicity to consist in bodily pleasures, the chief of which are those of food and sex. [23515] Contra Gentiles, lib. So, whatever a thing is, and whatever its mode of existing, it falls under His providence. [23518] Contra Gentiles, lib. [3] Moreover, perfect goodness would not be found in created things unless. Chapter 83 [2] In fact, there must always continue to be a subject for evil, if evil is to endure. [10] Now, by this conclusion the position of the exponents of the Law of the Moors is refuted, for, in order to be able to maintain that the world needs God’s preservation, they took the view that all forms are accidents, and that no accident endures through two instants. 1:8). So, if God were present to but one of His effects—for instance, to the first moved sphere which would be moved immediately by Him—it would follow that His action could not be transferred to another thing except through the mediation of this sphere. For we say that something is more unequal when it is more removed from equality and, likewise, that something is more dissimilar when it is farther away from similitude. Taken away, also, would be justice which rewards and punishes, if man could not freely do good or evil. But the higher intellectual natures have more universal forms, as was shown above. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in moral operations. 1 cap. But it seems incompatible with the view of the faith, in regard to this: it says that not all particulars are immediately subject to divine providence. This is not appropriate to felicity, which is a common end. But bodies, as composed of matter and form, approach the divine likeness because they possess form, which Aristotle calls a divine thing [Physics I, 9: 192a 16]. [10] The answer to the third difficulty is similarly evident. Now, every evil is present in something good. In fact, the superior ones among them have a more universal power of knowing; hence, they obtain knowledge of the order of providence through principles and causes that are more universal, whereas the lower ones acquire it in more particular causes. Now, the cause of the divine vision is God, as we proved above. Therefore, all that the intellect sees in the divine substance must be seen at once. [6] Besides, the form which in actual being cannot be separated from a subject is not of the same rational character as the form which is separated in its being from such a subject, even though both of them can be taken, in an act of consideration, without such a subject. Now, the intellectual power by itself is capable of ordering and ruling; hence, we see that the operative power follows the direction of the intellective power, when they are combined in the same subject. For, even among bodies, one is higher than another, and more formal, and more active: as fire is in regard to lower bodies. If it cannot attain perfect goodness, it will keep imperfect goodness in a few items. [4] Going along, then, with the civic life are certain goods which man needs for civic activities. But evil is a specific difference in some genera; for instance, among habits and acts in the moral order. For, if felicity is an object of the will because it has the rational character of a highest good, that does not make it substantially an act of the will, as the first argument implied. So, felicity is not to be located in these pleasures. [5] Moreover, it was shown above that the ultimate end of all things is to become like unto God. 21:3-7). For, if this vision exceeds the capacity of a created nature, as we have proved, then any created intellect may be understood to enjoy complete existence in the species proper to its nature, without seeing the substance of God. This is the reason for infinite series in numbers and in mathematical lines. Now, in God the highest perfection in regard to both functions is found; in fact, there is in Him the most perfect wisdom for ordering and the most perfect power for operating. Now, this is impossible, because evil has no essence, as we proved above. Therefore, it is not possible for the divine substance to be understood through a created likeness. Hence it is said: “Behold I give you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat, and to all the beasts of the earth” (Gen. 1:29-30). Therefore, God provides governance and regulation for things by the providence of His wisdom. Therefore, it is not the function of divine providence totally to exclude evils from things. [1] Now that we have shown that the created intellect, seeing the divine substance, understands all the species of things in God’s very substance, and that whatever things are seen by one species must be seen at once and by one vision, since a vision corresponds to the principle of the vision, it necessarily follows that the intellect which sees the divine substance contemplates all things at once and not in succession. Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat—1 Corinthians 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. Because of this, the knowledge of the most universal principles is common. [13] Again, it is contrary to the rational character of wisdom for there to be anything useless in the activities of the possessor of wisdom. 8 n. 2 Utile tamen est ut in huiusmodi rationibus, quantumcumque debilibus, se mens humana exerceat, dummodo desit comprehendendi vel demonstrandi praesumptio: quia de rebus altissimis etiam parva et debili consideratione aliquid posse inspicere iucundissimum est, ut ex dictis apparet. But of all creatures the highest are the intellectual ones, as is evident from what we said earlier. Potency, too, is a good thing, for potency tends toward act, as appears in every instance of change. 6 n. 4 Hoc autem non subito neque a casu, sed ex divina dispositione factum esse, manifestum est ex hoc quod hoc se facturum Deus multis ante prophetarum praedixit oraculis, quorum libri penes nos in veneratione habentur, utpote nostrae fidei testimonium adhibentes. gut the power of a lower agent depends on the power of the superior agent, according as the superior agent gives this power to the lower agent whereby it may act; or preserves it; or even applies it to the action, as the artisan applies an instrument to its proper effect, though he neither gives the form whereby the instrument works, nor preserves it, but simply gives it motion. So, that operation of man is substantially his happiness, or his felicity, whereby be primarily attains to God. [11] Of course, it might be answered that the agent intellect does not become a form for us, in a perfect way, by virtue of certain objects of speculative understanding, so that we might understand separate substances through it and the only reason for this is that these objects of speculative understanding are not sufficient for the perfecting of the agent intellect in the act of understanding separate substances. THAT THROUGH THE VISION OF GOD ONE BECOMES A PARTAKER OF ETERNAL LIFE But not even all the objects of speculative understanding taken together are sufficient for that perfection of the agent intellect by which it understands separate substances. 7 n. 6. 3-25: plurima supra sensum hominis ostensa sunt tibi. 1 cap. This is especially necessary if what is above it is its cause, since the likeness of the cause must be found in the effects. Therefore, secondary causes are the executors of divine providence. 5 n. 5 Apparet etiam alia utilitas ex dictis philosophi in X Ethicor. [1] Now, there are certain points which seem to run counter to this view. This will be made clear from the foregoing. Now, the will is such a power, for the object of appetition moves the appetite. [5] Furthermore, no object of comprehension exceeds the limitations of the one who comprehends. Therefore, on a like basis, the lower bodies are ordered through the higher ones. Therefore, all things desire as their ultimate end to be made like unto God. So, God takes care of the things of which He is the cause. So, if all generation and corruption were removed as a result of taking away the contingency of things, as we showed, the consequence would be that even motion would be taken away from things, and so would all movable things. But when the will breaks forth into action, at the apprehension of sense cognition, or of reason itself presenting some other good at variance with its proper good, the result in the action of the will is a moral fault. 3 tit. THAT GOD IS EVERYWHERE [8] Since happiness is the proper good of an intellectual nature, happiness must pertain to an intellectual nature by reason of what is proper to that nature. [11] Yet, we must not think that He is present in things, in the sense of being combined with them as one of their parts. [4] Besides, suppose that two things are not united at first, and then later they are united; this must be done by changing both of them, or at least one. Indeed, unless pleasure were associated with them, animals would refrain from these necessary activities that we have mentioned. 2 n. 3 Contra singulorum autem errores difficile est procedere, propter duo. 7 n. 1, [23537] Contra Gentiles, lib. Therefore, no created intellect may comprehend it. Still less will it consist in the aforementioned pleasures which are located in the sense appetite. For a thing whose likeness exists in the intellect is known through the intellect by way of vision, just as the likeness of a thing which is seen corporeally is present in the sense of the viewer. [7] But neither did Aristotle intend this. I, 5: 986a 24-27].Thus, here and in several places in the treatises on logic, he uses examples in accord with the views of other philosophers, as if they were more acceptable in his time. [1] As a consequence, it is evident that there cannot be any highest evil which would be the first source of all evils. Now, this is not appropriate. For, although simple forms are not movers, they are nonetheless the principles of motions, since natural motions are resultant from them, as are all other natural properties. So, the things that are nearest to immutability should be movers of the rest. [7] For this point Aristotle made use of an appropriate example, for the eye of an owl can never see the light of the sun; though Averroes tries to ruin this example by saying that the similarity between our intellect in relation to separate substances and the eye of the owl in relation to the light of the sun does not extend to impossibility, but only to difficulty. [12] Now, in moral actions we find four principles arranged in a definite order. So, it is in this way that an agent produces an effect like itself. And a thing composed of matter and form cannot be the form of another being, because the form in it is already limited to this matter in such a way that it could not be the form of another thing. So, other intelligible subsistents do not exist as pure forms in the order of intelligible beings, but as possessors of a form in some subject. Now, every necessary thing, as such, always exists in the same wav. 7 n. 5, [23541] Contra Gentiles, lib. Therefore, felicity is not found in such knowledge of God. In fact, every being is placed in a genus or species through a form. Hence, throughout this life God can be known in no higher way than that whereby a cause is known through its effect. Quo non habito, omnis consideratio de rebus divinis tollitur. First of all because, whenever the process of generation is perfected in any member of a genus its operation must be perfected, but, of course, according to the manner of its own genus and not according to the mode of a higher genus. Thus it is that this intellectual knowledge is called vision. [27] Nor is it even true that bodies are at the greatest distance from God. Documenta etiam veritatis non attulit nisi quae de facili a quolibet mediocriter sapiente naturali ingenio cognosci possint: quin potius vera quae docuit multis fabulis et falsissimis doctrinis immiscuit. 1 cap. Ea quae sunt naturalia mutari non possunt, natura manente. But man is better than riches, for they are but things subordinated to man’s use. [1] From these considerations it becomes evident that no essence is evil in itself. Chapter 12 Nor can we attribute the defect to chance or accident, for then there would be no moral fault in us, since chance events are not premeditated and are beyond the control of reason. Thus, an animal receives from the generating agent, at the time of its generation, the nutritive power and also the generative power. Nor, indeed, does it lie in the area of the sciences which deal with lower things, because felicity should lie in the working of the intellect in relation to the noblest objects of understanding. 1 cap. For instance, the art of navigation, to which the end, that is the use, of a ship pertains, is architectonic and preceptive in relation to the art of shipbuilding. Chapter 11 Now, the being of any thing is participated being, since no thing is its own act of being, except God, as we proved above. Similarly, then, celestial bodies, although they are of greater value than lower bodies, tend toward the generation of these latter, and through their motions to the actual eduction of the forms of the products of generation, not as an ultimate end but as thereby intending the divine likeness as an ultimate end, inasmuch as they exist as the causes of other things. A passive potency is only a potency in regard to those things that are within the power of its proper active principle; for, to every passive potency in nature there corresponds an active potency; otherwise, the passive potency would be useless, for it could not be reduced to act except through an active potency. 1 cap. 1 cap. Now, the nature of a cause is not known through the effect unless its power is known through this effect, for the power results from the nature. Chapter 6 Therefore, the fact that heavy bodies have slower unnatural motion when they have larger quantity does not show that quantity impedes action, but that it helps to increase it. 13:l2). Hence, this must be the end of the intellectual creature, namely, to understand God. [6] Furthermore, foolish is the providence of a person who does not take care of the things needed by the things for which he does care. 1 cap. And just as the lowest agent is found immediately active, so also is the power of the primary agent found immediate in the production of the effect. And this diversity arises from the fact that things are differently related to knowledge. Also, some of them say that a thing could not even cease to be unless God caused in it the accident of “cessation.”—Now, all these views are clearly absurd. But one place is no more appropriate than another for a celestial body, according to its form. THAT IN THIS LIFE WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND SEPARATE SUBSTANCES For example, heat is natural to fire, though it may not be natural to water. For we can find no one who is not disturbed at times by unruly passions, who does not at times overstep the mean in which virtue lies, either by excess or defect, who also is not mistaken in certain matters, or who at least is ignorant of things which he desires to know, or who also conceives with uncertain opinion things about which he would like to be certain. Therefore, the felicity of man does not consist in the possession of riches. ANSWERS TO THESE ARGUMENTS Quod quidem nobis circa Deum non accidit. And this is also true of every natural end in any species, that the members of this species do attain it, in most cases. [8] Moreover, the form of the intellect, as intellect, is the intelligible object, just as the form of the sense is the sensible object; indeed, the intellect receives nothing, strictly speaking, except in an intellectual way, just as the sense power only receives sensitively. Therefore, being is the proper product of the primary agent, that is, of God; and all things that give being do so because they act by God’s power. In fact, the very arrangement in general, according to providence, is assigned first to many executors. The agent tends to make the patient like the agent, not only in regard to its act of being, but also in regard to causality. [2] If, in fact, nothing tends toward a thing as an end, unless this thing is a good, it is therefore necessary that the good, as good, be the end. In fact, water is more formal than earth, air than water, fire than air. If, then, the perfection of action also follows upon the completion of generation, it must also be the case that perfect operation accompanies the generated things, either always, or in the majority of cases. [15] Hence it is said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing: and not one of them shall fall on the ground without My Father” (Matt. But the speculative sciences are lovable for their own sake, since their end is knowledge itself. [2] Especially so, since the object of the will is the good, and the good has the rational character of an end, while the true which is the object of the intellect does not have the rational character of an end, except inasmuch as it is also a good. For, since the intellect is in some way all things, whatever things belong to the perfection of nature belong also in their entirety to the perfection of intelligible being. Therefore, the act of being is what secondary agents produce through the power of the primary agent. 1 cap. For instance, the perfection of a house which already has its species is that to which the species of the house is ordered, namely, habitation. Indeed, contrariety arises from the various things that determine and contract a genus; hence, in the realm of understanding, because it is universal the species of contraries are not contraries, for they may co-exist. As a matter of fact, our act of understanding, whereby we attain to the knowledge of what our soul is, is very remote from the intelligence of a separate substance. However, if its being could not be participated by another, it could not be the form of any other thing, for then it would be determined within itself by its own being, just as material things are by their own matter. So, also, is He the cause of every end that is an end, since whatever is an end is such because it is a good. Now, this is the order that Gregory retained. But then it seems to follow that, since we understand from the start by means of the possible intellect, we therefore understand separate substances from the start: which is clearly false. [6] It is also evident that, though a natural thing produces its proper effect, it is not superfluous for God to produce it, since the natural thing does not produce it except by divine power. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity comes after this life. For which reason, Gregory says, “those spirits are called Virtues through which miracles are frequently wrought” [In Evangelium, homil. Chapter 9 Now, the natural appetite of the intellect is to know the genera and species and powers of all things, and the whole order of the universe; human investigation of each of the aforementioned items indicates this. Yet he asserted that, in our present state of life, we are able to understand separate substances. But, since the divine power is infinite, no created intellect can comprehend it, just as its essence cannot be comprehended, as we have proved. A given action does not stem from merely any power but heating comes from heat, cooling from cold. So this is what is said in the Psalm (103:4): “You make your angels spirits, and your ministers a burning fire.” 18-37: ego in hoc natus sum, et ad hoc veni in mundum, ut testimonium perhibeam veritati. Therefore, all the species of things would also cease as soon as the divine operation ceased. Thus, for those to whom money is an end, we say that to possess the money is their end, but not the loving of it, not the craving of it. Now, every power in any agent is from God, as from a first principle of all perfection. Therefore, evil is a definite essence and nature. 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