Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
God and Creation Aquinas was a Christian before he became a metaphysician. And he did not come to believe in God simply as a result of his own metaphysical arguments. He already believed in an ultimate reality conceived as possessing the attributes ascribed by Christians to God. Why then, it may be asked, did he offer any proofs of God's existence at all ?
Various reasons can be suggested. For example, in a systematic treatise on theology like the Summa theologica, devoted as it is to expounding the content of the Christian faith, it was only natural to start with what Aquinas called the 'preambles' of faith. But much more important than any purely methodological consideration is his conviction that the existence of God is not self-evident. What we know of his life suggests a serene and profound faith, flowering in mystical experience; but this does not mean that he was unaware of the possibility of agnosticism and of atheism.
And they are possible because God's existence is not selfevident. 'No one can think the opposite of that which is self-evident.
. But the opposite of the proposition "God exists" can be thought.
. Therefore the proposition that God exists is not self-evident'
(S.T., la, 2, i, sed contra).
Aquinas mentions an argument which was not infrequently adduced (by St Bonaventure, for example) to show that knowledge of God's existence is naturally implanted in all men. The argument runs more or less as follows. All men have a natural innate desire for happiness. Now, it is the possession of God which constitutes happiness. Therefore all men have a natural desire for God. But in this case they must have an innate knowledge of God, since desire for something presupposes knowledge of that thing. Aquinas does not deny all force to this line of argument. For he admits that man's natural desire for happiness implies a in
AQUINAS kind of implicit knowledge of God, in the sense that when we once know that God exists and that the possession of Him constitutes human happiness we can interpret the desire for happiness as the desire for God. But this does not show that anyone has a natural innate knowledge of the truth of the proposition that God exists. To know that someone is coming is not to know that Peter is coming, although the person coming is in fact Peter. And many have thought that man's perfect good, which is happiness, consists in riches; others that it consists in pleasure; others that it consists in some other thing' (ST., la, 2, i, ad i). Nor is one entitled to argue that it is self-evident that there is truth, on the ground that anyone who denies that there is truth affirms it implicitly, and then to conclude that God's existence is self-evident because He is truth. For the fact that there is truth 'in general' does not make God's existence self-evident.
Aquinas also denied that once the meaning of the word 'God' is understood it is immediately evident that God exists.
When he treats of this theory in the two Summas he does not mention St Anselm by name, but it is the latter's socalled 'ontological argument' which he has in mind.
St Anselm assumed that the idea of God is the idea of the being 'than which no greater can be thought', that is, of the supremely perfect being. He then argued that if the being than which no greater can be thought existed only mentally or in our idea, it would not be that than which no greater can be thought. For a greater (that is, more perfect) being could be thought, namely one which existed apart from our idea of it. And he concluded that no one can have the idea of God and understand it and yet at the same time deny that God exists. Aquinas commented, however, that it is not everyone who understands by God 'that than which no greater can be thought', since 'many of the ancients said that the world is God' (C.G., i, n). In any case, even if we grant that the meaning of 'God' is 'supremely perfect being', it does not follow without more ado that God exists. To think that it does is to be guilty of an illicit transition from
GOD AND CREATION
the conceptual to the existential order. It is not infrequently said that Aquinas did not do justice to Anselm's argument and, in particular, that he did not consider the argument in the context and light in which its author regarded it. This contention may be true. But it is unnecessary to discuss this exegetic question here : the point is that Aquinas refused to allow that we can start with an idea of God or with a definition of the term 'God', and conclude immediately that God exists. If we enjoyed an intuition of the divine essence we could not deny God's existence; for there is, Aquinas maintained, no real distinction between them. And in this sense the proposition 'God exists' is self-evident 'in itself.
But we do not enjoy any such intuition, and the proposition 'God exists' is not self-evident or analytic for the human mind.
This refusal to allow that God's existence is a self-evident truth for the human mind is closely bound up with what I have called the 'empiricist' side of Aquinas' philosophy. Our knowledge begins with sense-experience, and on account of man's psychophysical constitution material things constitute the primary natural object of the human mind. Any natural knowledge which we have of a being or beings transcending the visible world is attained by reflection on the data of experience. And it is this process of reflection, when carried through systematically, that constitutes the proofs of the proposition that God exists.
It is doubtless -understandable that some writers have accused Aquinas of 'wishful thinking' on the ground that he produced proofs of the truth of a proposition which he already accepted on other grounds. But one should bear in mind his general philosophical position. The mind must start with the data of sense-experience; but reflection on these data, he was convinced, discloses the existential relation of dependence of empirical realities on a being which transcends them.
Aquinas was not an empiricist in the modern sense, but it was the 'empiricist' elements of his philosophy which in large measure dictated his approach to the problem of ultimate reality, the approach, that is to say, by reflection on
AQUINAS the data of experience. He believed that the mind of the agnostic, if it gives unprejudiced attention to rational argument setting out the implications of these data, can be led to see how the existence of realities which nobody really doubts involves the existence of God. As for Christians, a full understanding of their faith demands a realization of the ways in which the world of finite things discloses to the reflective mind the God in whom they already believe with a faith sustained by prayer.
Aquinas did not, of course, deny that people can come to know that God exists by other ways than by philosophic reflection. Nor did he ever assert that the belief of most people who accept the proposition that God exists is the result of their having elaborated metaphysical arguments for themselves or of their having thought through the metaphysical arguments developed by others. Nor did he confuse a purely intellectual assent to the conclusion of such a metaphysical argument with a living Christian faith in and love of God. But he did think that reflection on quite familiar features of the world affords ample evidence of God's existence. The reflection itself, sustained and developed at the metaphysical level, is difficult, and he explicitly recognized and acknowledged its difficulty : he certainly did not consider that everyone is capable of sustained metaphysical reflection. At the same time the empirical facts on which this reflection is based were for him quite familiar facts. In order to see the relation of finite things to the being on which they depend we are not required to pursue scientific research, discovering hitherto unknown empirical facts. Nor does the metaphysician discover God in a manner analogous to the explorer who suddenly comes upon a hitherto unknown island or flower.
It is attention and reflection which are required rather than research or exploration.
What, then, are the familiar facts which for Aquinas imply the existence of God ? Mention of them can be found in the famous 'five ways' of proving God's existence, which
GOD AND CREATION
are outlined in the Summa theologica (la, 2, 3). In the first way Aquinas begins by saying that 'it is certain, and it is clear from sense-experience, that some things in this world are moved'.
It must be remembered that he, like Aristotle, understands the term 'motion' in the broad sense of change, reduction from a state of potentiality to one of act; he does not refer exclusively to local motion. In the second way he starts with the remark that 'we find in material things an order of efficient causes'. In other words, in our experience of things and of their relations to one another we are aware of efficient causality. Thus while in the first way he begins with the fact that some things are in motion or in a state of change, the second way is based upon the fact that some things act upon other things, as efficient causes. In the third way he starts by stating that 'we find among things some which are capable of existing or not existing, since we find that some things come into being and pass away'. In other words, we perceive that some things are corruptible or perishable. In the fourth proof he observes that 'we find in things that some are more or less good and true and noble and so on (than others)'. Finally in the fifth way he says
: 'we see that some things which lack knowledge, namely natural bodies, act for an end, which is clear from the fact that they always or in most cases act in the same way, in order to attain what is best.'
There is, I think, little difficulty in accepting as empirical facts the starting-points of the first three ways. For nobody really doubts that some things are acted upon and changed or 'moved', that some things act on others, and that some things are perishable. Each of us is aware, for example, that he is acted upon and changed, that he sometimes acts as an efficient cause, and that he is perishable. Even if anyone were to cavil at the assertion that he is aware that he himself was born and will die, he knows very well that some other people were born and have died. But the starting-points of the two final arguments may cause some difficulty. The proposition that there are different grades of perfections in things stands in need of a much more thorough analysis
AQUINAS than Aquinas accords it in his brief outline of the fourth way. For the schematic outlining of the five proofs was designed, not to satisfy the critical minds of mature philosophers, but as introductory material for 'novices' in the study of theology. And in any case Aquinas could naturally take for granted in the thirteenth century ideas which were familiar to his contemporaries and which had not yet been subjected to the radical criticism to which they were later subjected. At the same time there is not very much difficulty in understanding the sort of thing which was meant.
We are all accustomed to think and speak as though, for example, there were different degrees of intelligence and intellectual capacity. In order to estimate the different degrees we need, it is true, standards or fixed points of reference; but, given these points of reference, we are all accustomed to make statements which imply different grades of perfections. And though these statements stand in need of close analysis, they refer to something which falls within ordinary experience and finds expression in ordinary language. As for the fifth way, the modern reader may find great difficulty in seeing what is meant if he confines his attention to the relevant passage in the Summa theologica. But if he looks at the Summa contra Gentiles (i, 13) he will find Aquinas saying that we see things of different natures cooperating in the production and maintenance of a relatively stable order or system. When Aquinas says that we see purely material things acting for an end, he does not mean to say that they act in a manner analogous to that in which human beings consciously act for definite purposes. Indeed, the point of the argument is that they do not do so. He means that different kinds of things, like fire and water, the behaviour of which is determined by their several 'forms', cooperate, not consciously but as a matter of fact, in such a way that there is a relatively stable order or system. And here again, though much more would need to be said in a full discussion of the matter, the basic idea is nothing particularly extraordinary nor is it contrary to our ordinary experience and expectations.
GOD AND CREATION
It is to be noted also that Aquinas speaks with considerable restraint : he avoids sweeping generalizations. Thus in the first argument he does not say that all material things are 'moved' but that we see that some things in this world are moved or changed. In the third argument he does not state that all finite things are contingent but that we are aware that some things come into being and pass away. And in the fifth argument he does not say that there is invariable worldorder or system but that we see natural bodies acting always or in most cases in the same ways. The difficulty, therefore, which may be experienced in regard to Aquinas' proofs of God's existence concerns not so much the empirical facts or alleged empirical facts with which he starts as in seeing that these facts imply God's existence.
Perhaps a word should be said at once about this idea of 'implication'. As a matter of fact Aquinas does not use the word when talking about the five ways : he speaks of 'proof and of 'demonstration'. And by 'demonstration' he means in this context what he calls demonstratio quia (ST., la, 2,
2), namely a causal proof of God's existence, proceeding from the affirmation of some empirical fact, for example that there are things which change, to the affirmation of a transcendent cause. It is, indeed, his second proof which is strictly the causal argument, in the sense that it deals explicitly with the order of efficient causality; but in every proof the idea of ontological dependence on a transcendent cause appears in some form or other. Aquinas' conviction was that a full understanding of the empirical facts which are selected for consideration in the five ways involves seeing the dependence of these facts on a transcendent cause. The existence of things which change, for instance, is, in his opinion, not self-explanatory : it can be rendered intelligible only if seen as dependent on a transcendent cause, a cause, that is to say, which does not itself belong to the order of changing things.
This may suggest to the modern reader that Aquinas was concerned with causal explanation in the sense that he was concerned with framing an empirical hypothesis to explain certain facts. But he did not regard the proposition affirming
AQUINAS God's existence as a causal hypothesis in the sense of being in principle revisable, as a hypothesis, that is to say, which might conceivably have to be revised in the light of fresh empirical data or which might be supplanted by a more economical hypothesis. This point can perhaps be seen most clearly in the case of his third argument, which is based on the fact that there are things which come into being and pass away.
In Aquinas' opinion no fresh scientific knowledge about the physical constitution of such things could affect the validity of the argument. He did not look on a 'demonstration' of God's existence as an empirical hypothesis in the sense in which the electronic theory, for example, is said to be an empirical hypothesis.
It is, of course, open to anyone to say that in his own opinion cosmological arguments in favour of God's existence are in fact analogous to the empirical hypotheses of the sciences and that they have a predictive function; but it does not follow that this interpretation can legitimately be ascribed to Aquinas. We should not be misled by the illustrations which he sometimes offers from contemporary scientific theory. For these are mere illustrations to elucidate a point in terms easily understandable by his readers
: they are not meant to indicate that the proofs of God's existence were for him empirical hypotheses in the modern sense of the term.
Does this mean, therefore, that Aquinas regarded the existence of God as being logically entailed by facts such as change or coming into being and passing away ? He did not, of course, regard the proposition 'there are things which come into being and pass away' as logically entailing the proposition 'there is an absolutely necessary or independent being' in the sense that affirmation of the one proposition and denial of the other involves one in a verbal or formal linguistic contradiction. But he thought that metaphysical analysis of what it objectively means to be a thing which comes into being and passes away shows that such a thing must depend existentially on an absolutely necessary being.
And he thought that metaphysical analysis of what it ob-
GOD AND CREATION
jectively means to be a changing thing shows that such a thing depends on a supreme unmoved mover.
It follows that for Aquinas one is involved in a contradiction if one affirms the propositions 'there are things which come into being and pass away' and 'there are things which change' and at the same time denies the propositions
'there is an absolutely necessary being' and 'there is a supreme unmoved mover'. But the contradiction can be made apparent only by means of metaphysical analysis. And the entailment in question is fundamentally an ontological or causal entailment.
Not a few philosophers (certainly all 'empiricists') would presumably comment that if this represents Aquinas' real mind it is clear that he confused the causal relation with logical entailment. But it should be remembered that though
Aquinas was convinced that the proposition stating that everything which begins to exist has a cause is absolutely certain he did not think that the existence of any finite thing entails the existence of any other finite thing in the sense that the existence of any finite thing can be said to entail the existence of God. In theological language, if we once admit that there is an omnipotent Creator, we can say that He could create and maintain in existence any finite thing without the existence of any other finite thing. But it does not follow that there can be any finite thing without God.
In other words, Aquinas is not bound to produce other instances of the ontological entailment which he asserts between the existence of finite things and God. Though the relation of creatures to God is analogous in some way to the relation of causal dependence of one finite thing on another, the former relation is, if we consider it as such, unique. Aquinas was not confusing causal relations in general with logical entailments: he was asserting a unique relation between finite things and the transfinite transcendent cause on which they depend.
It is worth emphasizing perhaps that it does not necessarily follow from Aquinas' view that a metaphysical approach to God's existence is an easy matter. It is true that
AQUINAS he was confident of the power of the human reason to attain knowledge of God's existence; and he did not regard his arguments as standing in need of support from rhetoric or emotional appeal. And in the Summa theologica, where he is writing for 'novices' in theology, he states the argument in a bald and perhaps disconcertingly impersonal manner.
But we cannot legitimately conclude that he thought it easy for a man to come to the knowledge of God's existence by philosophic reflection alone. Indeed, he makes an explicit statement to the opposite effect. He was well aware that in human life other factors besides metaphysical reflection exercise a great influence. Moreover, he would obviously agree that it is always possible to stop the process of reflection at a particular point. For Aquinas every being, in so far as it is or has being, is intelligible. But we can consider things from different points of view or under different aspects. For example, I might consider coming-into-being and passing-away simply in regard to definite instances and from a subjective point of view. It grieves me to think that someone I love will probably die before me and leave, as we say, a gap in my life. Or it grieves me to think that I shall die and be unable to complete the work which I have undertaken. Or I might consider coming-into-being and passingaway from some scientific point of view. What are the finite phenomenal causes of organic decay or of the generation of an organism? But I can also consider coming-intobeing and passing-away purely as such and objectively, adopting a metaphysical point of view and directing my attention to the sort of being, considered as such, which is capable of coming into being and passing away. Nobody can compel me to adopt this point of view. If I am determined to remain on the level of, say, some particular science,
I remain there; and that is that. Metaphysical reflections will have no meaning for me. But the metaphysical point of view is a possible point of view, and metaphysical reflection belongs to a full understanding of things so far as this is possible for a finite mind. And if I do adopt this point of view and maintain it in sustained reflection, an existential
GOD AND CREATION
relation of dependence, Aquinas was convinced, should become clear to me which will not become clear to me if I remain on a different level of reflection. But just as extraneous factors (such as the influence of the general outlook promoted by a technical civilization) may help to produce my decision to remain on a non-metaphysical level of reflection, so also can extraneous factors influence my reflections on the metaphysical level.
It seems to me quite wrong to suggest that Aquinas did not regard metaphysical reflection as a possible way of becoming aware of God's existence and that he looked on it, as some writers have suggested, as being simply a rational justification of an assurance which is necessarily attained in some other way. For if it constitutes a rational justification at all, it must, I think, be a possible way of becoming aware of God's existence. But it does not necessarily follow, of course, that it is an easy way or a common way.
After these general remarks I turn to Aquinas' five proofs of the existence of God.
In the first proof he argues that 'motion' or change means the reduction of a thing from a state of potentiality to one of act, and that a thing cannot be reduced from potentiality to act except under the influence of an agent already in act.
In this sense 'everything which is moved must be moved by another'. He argues finally that in order to avoid an infinite regress in the chain of movers, the existence of a first unmoved mover must be admitted. 'And all understand that this is God.'
A statement like 'all understand that this is God' or 'all call this (being) God' occurs at the end of each proof, and I postpone consideration of it for the moment. As for the ruling out of an infinite regress, I shall explain what Aquinas means to reject after outlining the second proof, which is similar in structure to the first.
Whereas in the first proof Aquinas considers things as being acted upon, as being changed or 'moved', in the second he considers them as active agents, as efficient causes. He argues that there is a hierarchy of efficient causes, a subordinate cause being dependent on the cause above it in the
AQUINAS hierarchy. He then proceeds, after excluding the hypothesis of an infinite regress, to draw the conclusion that there must be a first efficient cause, 'which all call God'.
Now, it is obviously impossible to discuss these arguments profitably unless they are first understood. And misunderstanding of them is only too easy, since the terms and phrases used are either unfamiliar or liable to be taken in a sense other than the sense intended.
In the first place it is essential to understand that in the first argument Aquinas supposes that movement or change is dependent on a 'mover' acting here and now, and that in the second argument he supposes that there are efficient causes in the world which even in their causal activity are here and now dependent on the causal activity of other causes. That is why I have spoken of a 'hierarchy' rather than of a 'series'. What he is thinking of can be illustrated in this way. A son is dependent on his father, in the sense that he would not have existed except for the causal activity of his father. But when the son acts for himself, he is not dependent here and now on his father. But he is dependent here and now on other factors. Without the activity of the air, for instance, he could not himself act, and the life-preserving activity of the air is itself dependent here and now on other factors, and they in turn on other factors.
I do not say that this illustration is in all respects adequate for the purpose; but it at least illustrates the fact that when Aquinas talks about an 'order' of efficient causes he is not thinking of a series stretching back into the past, but of a hierarchy of causes, in which a subordinate member is here and now dependent on the causal activity of a higher member. If I wind up my watch at night, it then proceeds to work without further interference on my part. But the activity of the pen tracing these words on the page is here and now dependent on the activity of my hand, which in turn is here and now dependent on other factors.
The meaning of the rejection of an infinite regress should now be clear. Aquinas is not rejecting the possibility of an infinite series as such. We have already seen that he did not
GOD AND CREATION
think that anyone had ever succeeded in showing the impossibility of an infinite series of events stretching back into the past. Therefore he does not mean to rule out the possibility of an infinite series of causes and effects, in which a given member depended on the preceding member, say X on Y, but does not, once it exists, depend here and now on the present causal activity of the preceding member. We have to imagine, not a lineal or horizontal series, so to speak, but a vertical hierarchy, in which a lower member depends here and now on the present causal activity of the member above it.
It is the latter type of series, if prolonged to infinity, which Aquinas rejects. And he rejects it on the ground that unless there is a 'first' member, a mover which is not itself moved or a cause which does not itself depend on the causal activity of a higher cause, it is not possible to explain the 'motion' or the causal activity of the lowest member. His point of view is this. Suppress the first unmoved mover and there is no motion or change here and now. Suppress the first efficient cause and there is no causal activity here and now. If therefore we find that some things in the world are changed, there must be a first unmoved mover. And if there are efficient causes in the world, there must be a first efficient, and completely non-dependent cause. The word
'first' does not mean first in the temporal order, but supreme or first in the ontological order.
A remark on the word 'cause' is here in place. What precisely Aquinas would have said to the David Humes either of the fourteenth century or of the modern era it is obviously impossible to say. But it is clear that he believed in real causal efficacy and real causal relations. He was aware, of course, that causal efficacy is not the object of vision in the sense in which patches of colours are objects of vision; but the human being, he considered, is aware of real causal relations and if we understand 'perception' as involving the cooperation of sense and intellect, we can be said to 'perceive' causality. And presumably he would have said that the sufficiency of a phenomenalistic interpretation of causality for purposes of physical science proves nothing
AQUINAS against the validity of a metaphysical notion of causality. It is obviously possible to dispute whether his analyses of change or 'motion' and of efficient causality are valid or invalid and whether there is such a thing as a hierarchy of causes. And our opinion about the validity or invalidity of his arguments for the existence of God will depend very largely on our answers to these questions. But mention of the mathematical infinite series is irrelevant to a discussion of his arguments. And it is this point which I have been trying to make clear.
In the third proof Aquinas starts from the fact that some things come into being and perish, and he concludes from this that it is possible for them to exist or not to exist
: they do not exist 'necessarily'. He then argues that it is impossible for things which are of this kind to exist always; for 'that which is capable of not existing, at some time does not exist'.
If all things were of this kind, at some time there would be nothing. Aquinas is clearly supposing for the sake of argument the hypothesis of infinite time, and his proof is designed to cover this hypothesis. He does not say that infinite time is impossible : what he says is that if time is infinite and if all things are capable of not existing, this potentiality would inevitably be fulfilled in infinite time.
There would then be nothing. And if there had ever been nothing, nothing would now exist. For no thing can bring itself into existence. But it is clear as a matter of fact that there are things. Therefore it can never have been true to say that there was literally no thing. Therefore it is impossible that all things should be capable of existing or not existing.
There must, then, be some necessary being. But perhaps it is necessary in the sense that it must exist if something else exists; that is to say, its necessity may be hypothetical. We cannot, however, proceed to infinity in the series or hierarchy of necessary beings. If we do so, we do not explain the presence here and now of beings capable of existing or not existing. Therefore we must affirm the existence of a being which is absolutely necessary (per se necessarium) and completely independent. 'And all call this being God.'
GOD AND CREATION
This argument may appear to be quite unnecessarily complicated and obscure. But it has to be seen in its historical context. As already mentioned, Aquinas designed his argument in such a way as to be independent of the question whether or not the world existed from eternity. He wanted to show that on either hypothesis there must be a necessary being. As for the introduction of hypothetical necessary beings, he wanted to show that even if there are such beings, perhaps within the universe, which are not corruptible in the sense in which a flower is corruptible, there must still be an absolutely independent being. Finally, in regard to terminology, Aquinas uses the common medieval expression 'necessary being'. He does not actually use the term
'contingent being' in the argument and talks instead about 'possible' beings; but it comes to the same thing. And though the words 'contingent' and 'necessary' are now applied to propositions rather than to beings, I have retained Aquinas' mode of speaking. Whether one accepts the argument or not, I do not think that there is any insuperable difficulty in understanding the line of thought.
The fourth argument is admittedly difficult to grasp.
Aquinas argues that there are degrees of perfections in things. Different kinds of finite things possess different perfections in diverse limited degrees. He then argues not only that if there are different degrees of a perfection like goodness there is a supreme good to which other good things approximate but also that all limited degrees of goodness are caused by the supreme good. And since goodness is a convertible term with being, a thing being good in so far as it has being, the supreme good is the supreme being and the cause of being in all other things. 'Therefore there is something which is the cause of the being and goodness and of every perfection in all other things; and this we call God.
Aquinas refers to some remarks of Aristotle in the Metaphysics; but this argument puts one in mind at once of Plato's Symposium and Republic. And the Platonic doctrine of participation seems to be involved. Aquinas was not immediately acquainted with either work, but the Platonic line
AQUINAS of thought was familiar to him from other writers. And it has not disappeared from philosophy. Indeed, some of those theists who reject or doubt the validity of the 'cosmological' arguments seem to feel a marked attraction for some variety of the fourth way, arguing that in the recognition of objective values we implicitly recognize God as the supreme value. But if the line of thought represented by the fourth way is to mean anything to the average modern reader, it has to be presented in a rather different manner from that in which it is expressed by Aquinas, who was able to assume in his readers ideas and points of view which can no longer be presupposed.
Finally, the fifth proof, if we take its statement in the Summa theologica together with that in the Summa contra
Gentiles, can be expressed more or less as follows. The activity and behaviour of each thing is determined by its form. But we observe material things of very different types cooperating in such a way as to produce and maintain a relatively stable world-order or system. They achieve an 'end', the production and maintenance of a cosmic order.
But non-intelligent material things certainly do not cooperate consciously in view of a purpose.
If it is said that they cooperate in the realization of an end or purpose, this does not mean that they intend the realization of this order in a manner analogous to that in which a man can act consciously with a view to the achievement of a purpose. Nor, when Aquinas talks about operating 'for an end' in this connexion, is he thinking of the utility of certain things to the human race. He is not saying, for example, that grass grows to feed the sheep and that sheep exist in order that human beings should have food and clothing.
It is of the unconscious cooperation of different kinds of material things in the production and maintenance of a relatively stable cosmic system that he is thinking, not of the benefits accruing to us from our use of certain objects. And his argument is that this cooperation on the part of heterogeneous material things clearly points to the existence of an extrinsic intelligent author of this cooperation, who
GOD AND CREATION
operates with an end in view.
If Aquinas had lived in the days of the evolutionary hypothesis, he would doubtless have argued that this hypothesis supports rather than invalidates the conclusion of the argument.
No one of these arguments was entirely new, as Aquinas himself was very well aware. But he developed them and arranged them to form a coherent whole.
I do not mean that he regarded the validity of one particular argument as necessarily depending on the validity of the other four. He doubtless thought that each argument was valid in its own right.
But, as I have already remarked, they conform to a certain pattern, and they are mutually complementary in the sense that in each argument things are considered from a different point of view or under a different aspect. There are so many different approaches to God.
Does any particular argument possess a special or preeminent importance? Modern Thomists often assert that the third proof, bearing explicitly on the existence of things, is fundamental. But if we look at the two Summas, we do not find Aquinas saying this. So far as he gives explicit preference to any particular proof it is to the first, which he declares, somewhat surprisingly, to be the clearest.
Presumably he means that 'motion' or change is so obvious and familiar that it forms a natural starting-point, though he may also have been influenced by the use which Aristotle made of the argument from motion. In any case it is this argument which he selects for a more elaborate discussion in the Summa contra Gentiles, while he does not treat at all of the third way in this work. So it cannot be said that Aquinas gives any special prominence to the third argument.
At the same time I must confess that my sympathies are with those Thomists who regard this argument as fundamental and who restate it in other forms. And if it is true to say that Aquinas brought into prominence the existential aspect of metaphysics, it can hardly be said that this procedure is alien to his spirit. All the arguments, indeed, treat of dependence in some form or other. And 1 think that this idea will be found to be involved in all arguments for the exist-
AQUINAS ence of God which are in any real sense a posteriori. It seems to me to be involved even in those forms of the moral argument which some theists, who accept the Kantian criticism of the cosmological proofs, substitute for the traditional arguments. But it is the idea of existential dependence which most clearly introduces us to the metaphysical level. And it is the problem arising from the existence of finite and contingent things at all which most clearly points to the existence of a transfinite being. What
I mean is this. Some people argue that mystical experience, for example, gives rise to a problem, in the sense that it calls for explanation, and that it is best explained on the hypothesis that this experience involves contact with an existent being, God. But there are others who admit the reality of the problem, namely that mystical experience calls for explanation, but who think that it can be satisfactorily explained without postulating
God's existence. Thus whatever one may think of the right solution to the problem it is clear, as a matter of empirical fact, that it is possible to admit the reality of the problem and yet not admit that the solution involves affirming the existence of a transcendent being. But one can hardly admit that the existence of finite being at all constitutes a serious problem and at the same time maintain that the solution can be found anywhere else than in affirming the existence of the transfinite.
If one does not wish to embark on the path which leads to the affirmation of transcendent being, however the latter may be described (if it is described at all), one has to deny the reality of the problem, assert that things
'just are' and that the existential problem in question is a pseudo-problem. And if one refuses even to sit down at the chess-board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated.
Since the time of Kant, Aquinas' arguments have been 1 and many people tend widely regarded as patently invalid, to dismiss them out of hand. Others regard the validity of all or at least of some of them as evident to anyone who coni. As a matter of fact they were criticized in the fourteenth century, by Ockham, for example.
GOD AND CREATION
siders them dispassionately and without prejudice. But a thorough discussion of the various points of view would take us too far afield. There are several important relevant points which Aquinas seems to me to have left obscure.
Sometimes, for instance, he gives the impression of thinking that to prove the existence of God is simply a matter of applying certain general principles. And some Thomists appear to have interpreted him in this sense. Other Thomists have pointed out the difficulties involved in this proceeding.
If the causal proof, for example, is simply a case of applying a general causal principle, how do we know in advance that the principle can be used in this particular way?
If we do know it, do we not already know God's existence ? And a like remark may be made about the following argument.
'If there are things which come into being and pass away, there is an absolutely necessary being. But there are things which come into being and pass away.
Therefore there is an absolutely necessary being.' No doubt, if we admit the major premiss, the conclusion can scarcely be avoided. The argument follows the type
: if p, then q; but p; therefore q. But can we in fact admit the major premiss in question without admitting the existence of God?
Surely the whole difficulty lies in proving the major premiss.
And in this case we can hardly say that to prove the existence of God is simply to apply to a particular case a general principle, the validity of which is known independently of any reference to God. And it is noticeable that Aquinas does not start from general principles but from existential propositions, such as 'we find among things some which are capable of existing or not existing, since we find that some things come into being and pass away'.
It is doubtless possible to take Aquinas' arguments exactly as they stand and examine each successive proposition in turn, to determine the validity or invalidity of the whole argument. But for a fruitful discussion it would be desirable, I think, to come first to some conclusion concerning his real mind about points such as these which I have just raised. And as this is a controversial matter, it can hardly be embarked upon here
AQUINAS without devoting a disproportionate amount of space to one particular subject.
It is, however, worth raising the question with what justification Aquinas ends each proof with a remark such as,
'And all call this being God. For it might be argued that even if it is granted that there is a first or supreme unmoved mover, a first efficient cause and an absolutely necessary being, it does not immediately follow that this being can with propriety be called 'God'.
It can be pointed out, of course, that the fifth argument concludes with affirming the existence of an intelligent supra-mundane being and that the fourth argument implies that the supremely perfect being possesses, for example, the perfection of intelligence.
If, therefore, the five ways are taken together, it is the existence of a personal supreme being which is affirmed. It can also be pointed out that, once given Aquinas' analysis of motion or change and of efficient causality, the first unmoved mover and first efficient cause must transcend the level of empirical causes precisely because it is unmoved, uncaused and independent. And it is true to say that 'all men' call this being 'God', in the sense that all who acknowledge the existence of a transcendent, supreme and uncaused cause do in fact recognize this being as divine. At the same time Aquinas is well aware that the notion of a first cause or of a first unmoved mover or of an absolutely necessary being is not, taken by itself, all that is generally meant by the word 'God'. And he proceeds in the following sections of the Summa theologica to argue that this being must possess certain attributes. If therefore we are looking for Aquinas' establishment of theism, we have to take his five ways in conjunction with the succeeding sections on the divine attributes.
In the five ways Aquinas argued a posteriori, that is, from the things which fall within the sphere of our natural experience to the being on which they depend. But when he comes to discuss the attributes of this being, he has to pro-
GOD AND CREATION
ceed in a largely a priori manner, asking what attributes the first unmoved mover, first efficient cause, absolutely necessary and supremely perfect being must possess.
For we obviously cannot describe God in the same way in which we can describe a visible object like a tree or an animal
: we have no direct vision or intuition of God. And the fact that we have no direct vision or intuition of God means that our approach to the divine nature must be largely negative in character. The existence of a thing having been ascertained, the way in which it exists remains to be examined if we would know its nature. Because we cannot know what God is, but rather what God is not, our method has to be mainly negative What kind of being God is not can be known by eliminating characteristics which cannot apply to Him, like composition, change, and so forth' (S.T., la, 3, prologue).
Aquinas argues, for example, that God cannot be a corporeal or material being. Every material thing is capable of change, of reduction from potentiality to act: it is capable of 'motion'. But God, as the unmoved mover, cannot undergo any such transition from potentiality to act
: He is necessarily all that He can be. Therefore God cannot be material.
Here we have the application of the so-called 'negative way', the approach to the nature of God by successively denying of Him certain characteristics either of all or of some finite things : God is neither this nor that. This negative way was by no means Aquinas' invention : it had a long history behind it. It was present in the Platonic tradition. If we look, for example, at the celebrated description of absolute Beauty in Plato's Symposium we find it described as 'unproduced, indestructible, subject neither to increase nor decay, ... not at one time beautiful and at another time not beautiful', and so on. And this way of speaking about God was present in Christian philosophy from a very early date, being explicitly insisted on by the Pseudo-Dionysius, who wrote at the end of the fifth century a.d. and whose writings exercised a profound influence on medieval thinkers.
It is summed up in the famous saying of Aquinas that we know of God rather what He is not than what He is. By succes-
AQUINAS sively denying of God certain characteristics we increase in a sense our knowledge of the divine nature
: we know, for example, that God is neither material nor composite. But we cannot, of course, obtain any adequate positive insight into the divine nature through the application of this method.
A point to be noticed is that the application of this method can result in predicating of God attributes which are expressed by apparently positive words. In the case of a word like Immutable' it is obvious that it is equivalent to not-mutable. Similarly, 'infinite' is equivalent to 'not-finite'.
But this negation-aspect is not immediately obvious in the case of words like 'simple' and 'eternal', though analysis shows that they signify 'not-composite' and 'not subject to temporal succession'. Aquinas was careful about his analysis of terms. He points out, for instance, that the word 'infinite' can be used in two senses.
It can be used 'first in a privative sense; and a thing is called infinite in this sense when it should naturally have limits but lacks them; and this applies only to quantities. In another sense a thing is called infinite negatively, that is, when it has (absolutely) no limit.
If infinitude is understood in the first sense, it cannot belong to God .
. but infinitude in the second and negative sense .'
(De potentia, i, 2).
But when Aquinas insists on the negative aspects of some of the words does belong to God .
. predicated of God, he does not mean to imply that nothing positive corresponds to the word or is connoted by it. The divine simplicity, for example, or the divine infinitude is not a negation. But we can approach the positive reality, so to speak, only by way of negation. The things of which we have experience are composite and finite and temporal, and our concepts of absolute simplicity, infinity and eternity are arrived at by a process of negation. 'Just as we have come to knowledge of simple things through composite things, so we have to approach the knowledge of eternity through time' (S.T., \a, 10, 1). That there is a positive reality denoted by the word 'simplicity' is known to us by reflection on the attributes which must be possessed by the divine being, the existence of which has been proved. But a positive and
GOD AND CREATION
adequate knowledge of that reality remains an unattainable ideal, so far as our natural knowledge is concerned. For psychological reasons, that is, because of the empirical basis of our concepts, we can know it only to the extent permitted by the use of the way of negation.
Aquinas points out (ST., la, 13, 2) that when we predicate of God negative terms like 'immutable' or 'incorporeal' we remove, as it were, something from God, mutability or corporeity; that is, we deny the applicability to God of terms like 'mutable' or 'corporeal'. We are concerned primarily with denying something of God rather than with affirming something positively of the divine substance. But there are other terms, like 'wise' and 'good', which are predicated of God positively and affirmatively; and it is in regard to the meaning of these terms that a special difficulty arises. Exclusive adherence to the negative way would lead to agnosticism about the divine nature; for a mere addition of negations would not result in positive knowledge. On the other hand, the use of the affirmative way, that is, affirming of God positive predicates, gives rise to a difficult problem.
Some terms are predicated of God only metaphorically, as when God is called a 'rock'. But we are not concerned now with metaphor. When it is said that God is 'wise' or 'good', the terms are not used merely metaphorically: it is said that God is 'really', and not merely metaphorically, wise and good. But at once we seem to be faced with a dilemma.
If we mean that God is wise in precisely the same sense that a human being is or can be wise, we make God a kind of superman, and we are involved in anthropomorphism. If on 1.
If we are going to say that 'infinite' and 'simple' are negative terms, this statement must be understood in the light of the particular context.
For example, every object of natural experience is, according to Aquinas, composite, at least metaphysically. Composition is then denied of God, who is said to be 'simple'. But as God is not an object of natural experience we conceive the divine simplicity as absence of composition. And in this sense the term 'simple' is, in the context, a 'negative' term. At the same time it connotes a positive reality, and looked at from this point of view it is a positive term.
AQUINAS the other hand the term is used purely equivocally, if, that is, its meaning when predicated of God is entirely different from its meaning when predicated of a human being, it would have no significance for us in the first context. The reason of this is clear. 'Terms signify God to the extent that our intellect knows Him. And since our intellect knows God from creatures it knows Him to the extent that creatures represent Him' (S.T., la, 13, 2).
If, then, we take a term, the primary meaning of which is determined by the content of our experience, and apply it in an entirely different sense to a being which transcends our experience, its meaning is evacuated, without any other meaning being substituted.
And Aquinas points out that the difficulty cannot be evaded by saying that a statement like 'God is wise' means simply that God is the cause of wisdom. For if this were the meaning of affirmative statements about the divine nature
'it would be impossible to explain why certain terms, and not others, are predicated of God. For He is the cause of bodies, just as He is the cause of goods'
(S.T., la, 13, 2).
If God is called 'good' because He is the cause of goodness, He might with equal reason be called a body, since He is the ultimate cause of bodies.
Aquinas' answer to the problem is that when terms like 'wise' or 'good' are predicated of God they are predicated neither univocally nor equivocally but in an analogical sense. Some terms denote characteristics or modes of being or 'perfections' which can be found only in finite things.
Nothing, for example, which is not finite and material can be a stone. And terms of this sort can be predicated of God only metaphorically. But 'pure perfections', like goodness, which are not inextricably bound up, as it were, with a particular level of being, can be predicated of God; and it is these terms which are predicated in an analogical sense.
This is possible because creatures have a real relation to God; they depend on God and derive their perfections from Him.
In the case of 'pure perfections', like goodness or wisdom, these pre-exist in God in a super-eminent and infinite degree.
It is not merely that God causes these perfections in crea-
GOD AND CREATION
tures: the perfections really exist in God and can be properly predicated of Him, though in an analogical sense.
To say that certain terms are predicated analogically of God does not mean, of course, that we have an adequate positive idea of what is objectively signified by the term when it is predicated of God. Our knowledge of perfections is derived from creatures, and this origin necessarily colours our concepts of those perfections. We necessarily think and speak of God in terms which, from the linguistic point of view, refer primarily to creatures, and we can only approximate towards, while never reaching, an adequate understanding of what is meant by saying that God is 'wise' or 'good' or Intelligent' or 'living'. Aquinas therefore distinguishes between what he calls the perfection signified by a term and the mode of signification. 'In the terms which we predicate of God there are two things to consider, namely, the actual perfections signified, like goodness, life and so forth, and the mode of signification. As regards the former, these belong properly to God, indeed more properly than to creatures; and the terms are predicated primarily of God.
But as regards the mode of signification, they are not properly predicated of God. For they have a mode of signification which belongs to creatures' (ST., la, 13, 3). From the psychological and linguistic point of view a word like 'intelligence' denotes primarily human intelligence, the intelligence of which we have experience. When it is predicated of God, itis affirmed that there is in God a perfection to which human intelligence is at the same time like and unlike; and inasmuch as this perfection in God is the supreme origin and standard of all created intelligence the word is predicated primarily of God, from a metaphysical point of view. But it does not follow that we can give any adequate positive account of what this perfection actually is in God.
We can only attempt to purify our creaturely concept of intelligence, and this means combining the negative with the affirmative way. The manner of super-eminence (or superexcellence) in which the aforesaid perfections are found in God cannot be signified by the names which we impose un-
AQUINAS less (they are qualified) by a negation, as when we say that God is eternal or infinite, or by a relation, as when we say that God is first cause or supreme good. For we cannot understand of God what He is : but (we understand of Him) what He is not and how other things are related to Him'
(S.G., I, 30).
In Aquinas' account of our natural knowledge of the divine nature there is, then, a certain agnosticism. When we say that God is wise we affirm of God a positive attribute; but we are not able to give any adequate description of what is objectively signified by the term when it is predicated of God. If we are asked what we mean when we say that God is wise, we may answer that we mean that God possesses wisdom in an infinitely higher degree than human beings.
But we cannot provide any adequate description of the content, so to speak, of this infinitely higher degree; we can only approximate towards it by employing the way of negation. What is affirmed is positive, but the positive content of the concept in our minds is determined by our experience of creaturely wisdom, and we can only attempt to purify it or correct its inadequacies by means of negations. Obviously enough, this process will never lead to an adequate positive understanding of the objective meaning of (that is, of what is objectively signified by) the terms predicated of God. But Aquinas never claimed that it would. On the contrary, he did not hesitate to draw the logical conclusion. The first cause surpasses human understanding and speech. He knows
God best who acknowledges that whatever he thinks and says falls short of what God really is' (In Hbrum De Causis, lectio 6). Aquinas would have been quite unmoved by the accusation that he could not give the exact significance of the terms predicated of God; for he never pretended to be able to give it.
Now, it is clear that predicating intelligence of God is not exactly like predicating intelligence of a dog. If I call a dog 'intelligent', I use the word analogically; but if I am asked what I mean by it I can point to some of the dog's activities.
Human beings and their intelligent activities, dogs and their
GOD AND CREATION
activities, all the terms of the analogy fall within the range of experience. But we cannot observe God or point to God.
The question therefore arises whether there is any objective justification for predicating certain terms of God rather than other terms. Or the question can be put in this way. Although no sensible man would demand an adequate account of the positive meaning of the word 'intelligent' as used of God, how do we know that the word denotes a reality when it is predicated of God ? Aquinas would answer that the possession of certain attributes and not of others can be deduced by means of reflection on the nature of the first unmoved mover, first cause and necessary being. In other words, descriptive statements about the divine nature are not made arbitrarily; they are made for certain reasons.
If, for example, God has created intellectual beings, we cannot suppose that He is Himself less than intelligent. Moreover, the ultimate cause and necessary being cannot be corporeal, and an incorporeal being is an intelligent being. We can know therefore that that which is signified by a term predicated analogically of God exists in Him, even though we cannot understand adequately what it is. The objective foundation of analogical predication in natural theology is the dependence of creatures on God as their efficient and exemplary cause. And unless we had some positive knowledge of God we should not be able even to deny of Him any characteristic. 'Unless the human intellect knew something positively about God, it could not deny anything of Him'
(De potentia, 7, 5). Talk about analogy in natural theology would be pointless unless there were good reasons for affirming the existence of God.
It may be said, of course, that there is in fact some resemblance between the case of calling a dog
'intelligent' and that of calling God 'intelligent*. For though I cannot point to God acting in the same way that I point to the dog acting,
I can draw attention to effects of God's activity which fall within the field of our experience. Does not Aquinas himself do this in his fifth proof of God's existence? And does he not make it clear that in his opinion the objective ontolo-
AQUINAS gical foundation for predicating terms analogically of God is the creature's participation in or reflection of the divine perfections? 'And thus whatever is predicated of God and creatures is predicated in virtue of the latter's relation to God as principle and cause in which all the perfections of things pre-exist in a more excellent manner' (ST., la, 13, 5).
Can I not therefore by pointing to the perfections of creatures indicate the meaning of the terms which I predicate of God?
This is true. But the meaning which I indicate in this way is, as Aquinas was well aware, the meaning which the term has for me in my own mind, and it by no means follows that this is adequate to the objective reality connoted by the term when predicated of God. This can be shown by an example. Suppose that my one and only reason for calling
God 'intelligent' is that I consider that there is an intelligible world-system and that this is the creation of a transcendent being whom I name 'God'. In this case when I think of God as intelligent I think of Him as the sort of being capable of creating this world-system. And if I am asked to explain what I mean by calling God 'intelligent', I mention the world-system. But it does not follow that I can give an adequate positive explanation of what the divine intelligence is in itself. The divine intelligence is identical with the divine being, and God transcends all His effects. There must, of course, be some control of analogical predication in the context. That is to say, if analogical predication about God is not to be wild talk, there must be some assignable reason for using one term rather than another. And these reasons will colour the meaning of the terms in my mind.
But the explanation of the meaning of the terms which I can give is not adequate, and cannot be adequate, to the objective reality connoted by the terms. As Aquinas saw clearly, a certain measure of 'agnosticism' is inevitable.
It could be avoided only by relapsing into anthropomorphism on the one hand or on the other by holdingthat all statements about God are so many myths which may have some useful function, perhaps as a stimulus to moral conduct and certain
GOD AND CREATION
affective attitudes, but which are not put forward as being true. And Aquinas was not prepared to accept either an anthropomorphic view of God or an interpretation of theological propositions as so many myths.
Aquinas'
'agnosticism', then, is not agnosticism in the modern sense. He has no doubt about the existence of God, and he is far from saying that we can know nothing about the divine nature or that we can make only negative statements about it. At the same time he is acutely conscious of the empirical foundation of all human knowledge and of the consequences of this in natural theology. We cannot help thinking and speaking of God in terms which, linguistically speaking, refer primarily to the finite objects of our experience, and we move always within the sphere of analogy.
This means that our knowledge of God is necessarily imperfect and inadequate. We can indeed try to correct the anthropomorphic conceptions which come naturally to us.
For example, though we cannot help speaking as though God 'foresees' future events, we can correct the erroneous conception implied by such language by reflecting that God transcends time and that the future is not future to Him.
But this does not mean that we can attain any adequate positive understanding of the divine intellect and knowledge.
The idea may occur to the reader that in all this talk about the divine attributes Aquinas is the victim of the structure of our language. For it may appear at first sight as though
Aquinas argues from our way of talking about God to the presence in Him of distinct attributes. But as a matter of fact Aquinas is careful to distinguish between linguistic forms and the reality referred to by those forms or modes of speech. We say, for example, that God is merciful and that God is just, and if we went simply by these propositions considered in themselves we might be led to think that i.
If God literally foresees events which are future to us, He is involved in temporal succession. And Aquinas was convinced that involvement in temporal succession is incompatible with the divine nature, which is infinite and immutable.
AQUINAS there is something in the divine nature which is called 'mercy' and something else which is called 'justice', the two attributes being objectively distinct. But in the infinite being there cannot be really distinct attributes. The divine justice and the divine mercy are ontologically identical. 'All divine perfections are in reality identical' (Compendium theologiae, 22); they are identical with one another and with the divine nature. The divine nature, however, can be known by us only piecemeal, as it were. Our ideas are derived from creatures, and we conceive God under different aspects according to His different representations in finite things.
We naturally introduce distinctions where there are no real distinctions. The infinity of the divine perfection, which cannot be comprehended by our minds, forces us to do this.
For the infinite richness of the divine nature cannot be apprehended by us in one concept. As our concepts are based on experience of creatures and connote the different attributes of creatures, the terms predicated of God are not for us synonymous; they do not ali^mean the same thing if we are talking about the meaning which they have for our minds and which we can state. Ontologically, however, they all refer to the same being, in which there is no real distinction of attributes.
If in predicating different attributes of God we really thought that these attributes were distinct modifications of the divine substance, we should think what is false. But if we enunciate different descriptive propositions about God while at the same time we realize the lack of proportion between our (inevitable) way of speaking and the reality spoken of, we do not affirm what is false.
'Although the names attributed to God signify one thing, they signify it under many different aspects, and they are not synonymous' (S.T., \a, 13, 4). 'But although our intellect conceives God under different concepts, it knows that to all its concepts there corresponds one and the same simple being'
(ST., \a, 13, 12).
According to Aquinas the most appropriate name for God is the name disclosed to Moses (Exodus, 3,
19), Qui est, He Who is. 'First, it does not signify any form, but being itself
GOD AND CREATION
. secondly, on account of its universality.
. For it names the infinite ocean of substance Thirdly, because of its connotation. For it signifies being entirely present. And this is most properly affirmed of God, whose being knows neither past nor future' (S.T., la, 13, 1 1). God does not receive
His existence; there is in Him no distinction between essence and existence. He is infinite existence or being itself. We cannot form any clear concept of what this is; for we inevitably distinguish between essence and existence, between what a thing is and the fact that it exists. But the total absence of this distinction in God means that the most appropriate name for Him is a name taken from being considered as existence. The very uttering of the name which is not and cannot be clear to us reminds us of the divine mystery and of the divine transcendence beyond all finite things, each of which is shot through, as it were, by existential dependence.
If one. speaks of the existential dependence of finite things on God, one means, of course, that they depend for their existence on God. They stand to God in the relation of creature to creator. But the meaning of terms like 'create' and 'creation' is not self-evident. That God created the world was the orthodox Judaeo-Christian belief; but as theologian and philosopher combined Aquinas was concerned to analyse what this means, so far as the human mind is capable of analysing its meaning.
In the first place, to say that the world was created by God means that it was made 'out of nothing'. But the meaning of this phrase is itself ambiguous, as Aquinas points out
(S.T., la, 45, 1, ad 3; De potentia, 3, 1, ad 7).
If we say of something that it was created out of nothing, we might mean that it was not created at all, the negation implied in the word 'nothing' covering, as it were, the verb in the proposition. 'And in this sense we can say of God that He is made from nothing, because He is not made at all; though this way of speaking is not customary' (De potentia, he. cit.). But this is obviously not what is meant when it is said
AQUINAS that the world was created out of nothing; for we intend to affirm creation or making, and not to deny it. However, an ambiguity still remains. For we can speak of a statue being made from or out of marble; and someone might suppose that to speak of the world being created out of nothing is to say that the world was made out of nothing as out of a kind of pre-existent material. But this is not the meaning of the phrase. The true meaning of 'out of nothing' is 'not out of anything'. Creation in the sense here intended is not any kind of transmutation, implying a pre-existent material. We can, indeed, speak of a 'creative' artist; but creation in this context implies a pre-existing material and has not got the same meaning as it bears in the proposition affirming the creation of the world by God.
In the second place, it is important to realize that Aquinas' conception of creation is not deistic.
If he speaks of God having created the world, he does not mean that God brought the world into existence and that it thereafter exists independently. Every finite thing depends existentially on God at every moment of its existence, and if the divine conserving or sustaining activity were withdrawn, it would at once cease to exist. Making his own some statements of St Augustine he remarks (S.G., 3, 65) that it is not as though God were like someone who builds a house and can then go away and attend to something else, leaving the house standing. Finite things have a constant relation of existential dependence on the creator.
Thirdly, that things depend on God can be shown by philosophic reasoning, according to Aquinas. The metaphysician can show that the relation of finite things to God is that of creature to creator. And we are accustomed to say that the world 'was created' by God, using a manner of speaking which implies that there is an ideally first assignable moment of time. Now, Aquinas believed that this is in fact the case, namely that the world had a beginning; but he did not think that the fact that it had a beginning is known with certainty from any other source than revelation. On his view, as we have already seen elsewhere, no philosopher
GOD AND CREATION
had ever succeeded in proving that the world must have had a beginning, in the sense that there was an ideally first assignable moment of time. That the world did not always exist is known only by faith, and it cannot be proved demonstratively.
It can be demonstrated neither from the side of the world (i.e. by analysis of the concept of 'world')
. nor from the side of an active cause acting voluntarily (i.e. by analysis of the idea of creation)'
(S.T., la, 46, 2). As God exists eternally, He could, so far as we can see, have created the world from eternity, and no argument based on the supposed impossibility of an infinite series of successive events has shown that God could not have acted in this way. Whereas some of his contemporaries, notably St Bonaventure, thought that the notion of creation from eternity was self-contradictory, Aquinas considered that the idea of creation is independent of the idea of a temporal beginning.
'It belongs to the idea of eternity to have no beginning of duration; but it does not belong to the idea of creation to have a beginning of duration, but only a principle of origin - unless we understand "creation" as it is understood by faith' (De potentra, 3, 14, 8, ad 8). Again, 'there is no contradiction in affirming that a thing was created and also that it was never non-existent' (De aeternitate mundi contra murmurantes).
In the first quotation cited in the last paragraph mention is made of an 'active cause acting voluntarily'. Plotinus and the Neo-platonists had depicted the world as proceeding by stages from the One as the result of a necessary overflowing or self-diffusion of the divine goodness. But though Aquinas held that God's purpose in creating was 'solely to communicate His perfection, which is His goodness' (ST., la, 44, 4), he maintained that the world did not proceed or emanate from God of necessity. God created for a purpose, and that the world exists at all and that this particular world exists is the result of divine choice.
This insistence that the world was not the result of a necessity in God to create leads Aquinas into very deep waters. Given the conception ofGod as simple andunchangeH3
AQUINAS able, the creative act, as existing in God, must be identical with the divine nature or substance. And this could not be otherwise than it is. Aquinas explicitly recognizes that the creative act, as it is in God, is identical with the necessary and immutable divine nature (cf. De potentia, 3, ic, ad 8, 18 and ad 20). But he argues that it does not follow that the world proceeded necessarily from God. And this holds good even on the hypothesis that the world existed from eternity.
If the world had been created from eternity, it would have been freely created from eternity. In actual fact, however, it was not created from eternity. We have to say, therefore, that though the creative act, as it exists in God, is eternal and identical with the divine nature, the external effect of that act, namely the world, is not eternal but that it came into existence in such a way that there is an ideally first moment of time. God eternally willed that out of all possible worlds this particular world should begin to exist in such a way that the temporal order is what it is.
Obviously, we are here in the region of mystery; in the region of contradiction, some would say. On the one hand
Aquinas was convinced that as a personal and perfectly selfluminous being God must have chosen intelligently out of the infinite realm of possibility the finite things which He has created. He was not compelled by His nature either to create or to create this or that possible world. On the other hand Aquinas was also convinced that the creative act, as it exists in God, is identical with the divine nature which is essentially immutable. Again, he was also convinced on the one hand that the creative act, as it is in God, is necessarily eternal and on the other hand that the external effect of this act is not eternal. The truth of this last point has not been proved by philosophers, but they have not proved the contrary; and we know the truth from theology. He therefore considered that we must assert all these propositions, and he believed that they are not incompatible. At the same time we reach a point in our analysis of creation where we are forced to admit that a full understanding of God's creative activity exceeds the competence of the human reason. And
GOD AND CREATION
if we are left with mystery, this is nothing to be surprised at in such a connexion. After all, experience provides us only with analogies of creative activity in the proper sense.
It is not the business of the Christian thinker to eliminate all mystery but rather to point out where the mystery lies.
It is, however, easy to understand the possible comment that the root of the whole trouble lies in Aquinas' attempt to reconcile the demands of theological orthodoxy with the demands of the philosophic reason. He was determined, it may be said, to preserve the Judaeo-Christian belief that God is distinct from the created world. And this itself involves him in an antinomy. For if God is infinite, He cannot be distinct from creatures, there can be nothing
'outside* Him; and if creatures are distinct from Him, God cannot be infinite. Moreover, if God and finite things are distinct, the relation between them must be one of creator to creatures, and if creation is free Aquinas is at once involved in another antinomy : the creative act is eternal and identical with the divine nature which is necessary, whereas the world is not eternal and, whether eternal or not, does not proceed from God by a necessity of nature. Would not Aquinas have solved his problems more satisfactorily if he had adopted some form of pantheism ?
If he had made creatures internal to God, as modifications of the divine substance, he would not have had to say that there can be something ontologically distinct from the infinite and he would have avoided the difficulties involved in the notion of free creation.
One cannot, of course, expect from Aquinas a discussion of Spinoza's philosophy. At the same time he says enough to indicate the line of answer he would give to the sort of I. Obviously, if the word 'contradiction' is substituted for the word 'mystery', this statement is not true. For the Christian thinker is committed to showing that the propositions which he asserts do. not contradict one another. But though Aquinas considered, very reasonably, that we cannot fully understand a creative activity which transcends our experience, he did not think that one is involved in a contradiction by asserting that God freely chose from eternity to create a world such that there would be a beginning of time.
AQUINAS criticism just mentioned. For example, when talking about the monism of Parmenides (In Metaph., I, c.
5, lectio 9), he says that the latter's mistake lay in treating the term 'being' as though it had one meaning and drawing the conclusion that apart from one single reality nothing can exist. For Aquinas there are different levels of being or different kinds of beings, which do not belong to one genus and cannot be added together. To speak as though the infinite being, God, and finite beings can be added together to make more than infinite being, with the result that one ends in self-contradiction, is to speak as though God and creatures were members
1 As for the of a genus. In reality they are incommensurable. idea of finite things being internal modifications of the divine nature, this idea would obviously be entirely incompatible with Aquinas' conviction concerning the divine simplicity. Further, we can apply in this connexion what he says about Averroes' hypothesis of one intellect in all men.
Were there, he says, only one intellect in all men, it would be quite impossible to explain the diversity of our intellectual lives and activities (ST., la, 76,
2). Similarly, he would doubtless argue, on the hypothesis that all human minds are internal modifications of the divine mind it is impossible to explain the difference between the ideas and convictions of different men. If these differences are not explained away as illusion, there can even be contradictions in God.
If they are described as illusion, how does illusion arise in God?
Pantheism does nothing to diminish the difficulties which may be thought to accompany theism.
It involves one in denying or in explaining away or in falsifying the foundation from which all our metaphysical reflections must start, namely the real multiplicity of distinct finite things with which we are acquainted in experience.
I mention this point because it has sometimes been asserted against theism and in favour of pantheism that if God is infinite, there can be no things really distinct from Him.
If there were, it would be possible to 'add to' the absolutely infinite being. And to say that this is possible involves one in a contradiction.
GOD AND CREATION
In treating of the divine creative activity Aquinas speaks of God as creating in accordance with the divine ideas and of things as reflecting or expressing the divine ideas. And in doing so he retains a traditional mode of speaking with a long history behind it. The Middle Platonists and NeoPlatonists had placed the Platonic 'ideas' in the divine mind, and St Augustine took over this way of speaking, though he did not, like the Neo-platonists, make the divine mind a being subordinate to the supreme deity. Aquinas adopted the same mode of expression, though he realized very well that talk about divine ideas is apt to be misleading and set himself, therefore, to analyse what is meant by the proposition that there are ideas in God. On the one hand, the term
'idea' can be taken to mean a modification of the mind. And if the term is taken in this sense, the proposition that there are ideas in God is false. On the other hand, God eternally knows the divine perfection as imitable externally by a plurality of creatures. And we are therefore justified in talking about ideas in God if we mean that He knows His own perfections, His own essence, as the exemplar of many possible things. The term idea does not signify the divine essence as such but in so far as it is the likeness or principle of this or that thing It is not contrary to the simplicity of the divine intellect to understand many things; but it would be contrary to its simplicity to be informed by a plurality of subjective determinations'
(S.T., la, 15, 2, ad
and in corpore).
This is an illustration of a not infrequent procedure on Aquinas' part. He takes over a traditional mode of speaking, which had been used somewhat loosely by his predecessors, and attempts to analyse the meaning which it must have in order to be compatible with what he regards as true and established philosophical principles. This is one reason, of course, why a considerable amount of his philosophy appears to concern terminology and questions of language. So indeed it does. For the matter of that, all philosophy is largely concerned in some sense with questions of language.
But the questions in which Aquinas was interested are not
AQUINAS always those which interest philosophers today. If one does not believe in God at all, one is unlikely to take much interest in the analysis of the proposition that there are ideas in God or that God creates in accordance with the divine ideas. And this is partly the reason why a considerable number of people may feel inclined to say that medieval philosophers were concerned with 'talk about words', this phrase being here intended in a pejorative sense. These critics may forget, however, that concern with language is not peculiar to medieval thinkers.
There is, however, one problem which inevitably arises for a theistic philosopher and which has always excited interest. And it can hardly be called a purely linguistic problem, though, like any other philosophical problem, it necessarily involves concern with language. For no problem can be profitably discussed without this concern.
I refer to the problem of evil. This problem does not, it is true, arise in an atheistic philosophy in the form in which it presents itself to the theist. But the problem, even considered as a purely theoretical one, is not without interest even for atheists. For atheism has not infrequently been defended on the ground that the existence of evil prevents any clearsighted and honest thinker from believing in a personal, good and infinite God, possessing the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence.
If we are going to discuss the problem of evil, Aquinas would insist, we must first decide what is meant by evil. And his own view was this; evil is not a positive thing, but a privation.
In holding this view he followed the PseudoDionysius, who had developed the Neo-platonic analysis of evil. But we need not concern ourselves here with the history of this theory: the important question is, what is meant by calling evil a privation. And it should be made clear from the start that by 'privation' Aquinas does not mean precisely the same as 'absence'. An illustration will show what this distinction signifies. Inability to see is not
GOD AND CREATION
a privation in a stone. If a stone could see, it would simply not be what is meant by a stone. The perfection of being able to see is absent from the stone, in the sense that the latter does not possess it; but the stone cannot properly be said to be 'deprived' of the power of vision. In a human being, however, blindness is a privation : the blind man is deprived of a faculty which pertains to human nature. On the other hand, blindness is not a positive entity like a piece of cake or a drop of water. 'Evil denotes the absence of Good.
But it is not every absence of good that is called evil. For absence of good can be understood either in a privative sense or in a purely negative sense. And absence of good in the latter sense is not evil Otherwise it would follow that a thing is evil if it lacks the good which belongs to something else. For instance, man would be evil because he lacks the swiftness of a wild goat or the strength of a lion. It is absence of good in the privative sense which is called evil. Thus privation of sight is called blindness' (ST., la, $, 48, 3). And the same can be said of moral evil.
It is a privation in the human free act of the relation which it ought to have to the moral law promulgated by reason or to the divine law.
It must at once be added, however, that when Aquinas calls evil a 'privation', he does not mean to assert that evil, either physical or moral, is an illusion or that it is not real.
Blindness in a human being is a privation and not a positive entity; but it does not follow that it is unreal or an illusion.
For it is a real privation. The analysis of evil as privation is not, therefore, an attempt to make out that there is no real evil in the world at all. The description of evil as privation does not diminish the evil in the world, and still less does it do away with it. For the matter of that, if we point out that darkness is not a positive entity like a rock, we do not thereby turn night into day.
But something further must be said about this analysis of evil. For the natural reaction of many people would be to say : 'What nonsense ! A tumour on the brain is a physical evil. But it is certainly something positive.
Cruelty is a moral evil. But it is certainly not a privation.' This reaction
AQUINAS is perfectly understandable. But it must be remembered that Aquinas is looking for the formal essence or nature of evil.
He does not wish to forbid us saying in ordinary speech that a tumour is a bad thing. But he asks in what this badness precisely consists. Does it consist in the tumour considered as a positive entity?
In his opinion it does not. An excised tumour is no more an evil thing than the man's brain from which it was excised. The evil involved in a tumour on the brain consists essentially in the disorder which its presence introduces. And disorder is the privation of right order. To say this is not to say that the effects of having a tumour on the brain are not positive effects. If the presence of the tumour causes blindness, for example, the effect is positive; but blindness is a privation of the power of seeing which 'ought' to be there.
If the tumour causes stumbling movements, the movements are positive effects; but the evil consists essentially, Aquinas might say, not in the movements as such but in the privation of the power to co-ordinate one's movements in the normal manner. As for cruelty, this is certainly something positive in the sense that it involves desires, feelings, and actions or words, or both.
Aquinas does not mean to say that the action of shutting up Jews in the gas-chamber at Auschwitz concentration camp was a privation. To shut up Jews in a gas-chamber because they were Jews was certainly a positive action, and it was equally certainly a morally evil action. But to say this does not settle the question, in what precisely does the evil of this positive action consist? We may be inclined to reply that it consists precisely in putting Jews in a gas-chamber because they are Jews, and in nothing else. But Aquinas would comment that though it is undoubtedly true that to shut up Jews in a gas-chamber because they are Jews is morally wrong, to say that it is morally wrong is to say that the human act involved is contrary to the moral law; and lack of conformity in human actions, which should be conformed to the moral law, is a privation. And to say this in no way alters the fact that the action in question was something positive.
GOD AND CREATION
But, it may be said, even if Aquinas' analysis of evil as a privation is not quite so silly as it sounds at first hearing, how does it affect the problem of evil ? For if, as has been admitted, the technical analysis of evil as privation does not deny or even diminish the reality of evil and the extent to which it is found in the world, it is difficult to see how it can be in any way relevant to the problem of evil. It seems to leave things precisely where they were.
The relevance of the analysis in Aquinas' eyes to the problem of evil can be shown in this way.
If God created all things, and if evil is a thing, we should have to say that God created evil directly. And rather than say this we might be inclined to follow the Manichaeans in ascribing the creation of evil to an evil deity, thus asserting a metaphysical dualism. But if evil is a privation, it is not necessary to speak of it as having been created by God on the ground that God created all things. As a privation, evil can exist only in a being: it is 'incidental' or a 'by-product' (De potentia, 3, 6, ad 3). Aquinas does not mean that it is unimportant, but simply that there is no sense in talking about a privation which is not the privation of a perfection in a positive entity. The latter comes first, so to speak; before there can be any corruption or disorder there must be something to be corrupted or disordered. And according to Aquinas every being, considered as such, is good. If we consider a flea in relation to its unpleasant effects on us we can call it evil. But in itself, considered simply as a being, it is good. For every being is actual so far as it is being, and actuality involves perfection. And a perfection is 'desirable' either by the thing which possesses it or by something else. The flea has a tendency to its own self-preservation; and to this extent we can say that it 'desires' its own being. Being and good (when the word is used in this ontological sense) have the same denotation, though 'good' here signifies being considered in relation to will, desire, or natural inclination or tendency.
If, therefore, every being is 'good', there is no need to postulate an evil deity as creator of evil; for evil is not and cannot be the direct term of creative activity. Nor, indeed, could there be
AQUINAS an evil deity, if by this we mean a sheerly evil being. For sheer evil is an impossibility. Aquinas does not mean to deny the existence of Satan. But for him Satan is not an ultimate being at all, but a creature. Created good, he remains good, if considered simply as a being. He does not constitute an exception to the validity of a metaphysical analysis which allows of no exception. And if we once accept Aquinas' use of terms, it is obvious that no being can be completely evil. For this follows from the use of the terms.
But if metaphysical dualism of the type mentioned is excluded, it may appear that the problem of evil is rendered all the more acute. For is not the responsibility thrown back entirely on God ? Even if God cannot be said to have directly created evil, He 'foresaw' it and, if He is omnipotent, He could prevent it. Must we not say, therefore, that God is ultimately responsible for evil?
Let us take physical evil first. Aquinas certainly maintains that God did not will physical evils for their own sake; but he points out that God undoubtedly willed the creation of a universe in which physical evil was in some way involved,
1 For example, to create sensitive beings means creating beings as far as the natural order of events is concerned. capable of feeling pain. Capacity for experiencing pleasure cannot naturally be separated from the capacity for experiencing pain. At the very least, therefore, God permitted the occurrence of physical evils. But Aquinas talks as though
God willed certain evils for the sake of the perfection of the whole universe. For instance, he speaks as though the perfection of the whole universe requires the existence of mortal beings, subject to death, as well as of beings which cannot undergo bodily death, namely the angels.
This i.
It is necessary to add this qualification, since Aquinas believed that under certain conditions (if there had been no Fall) the physical evils consequent on the Fall of man would not have occurred.
But this theme belongs to dogmatic theology, not to philosophy. And in any case it is clear that God 'foresaw' what the world would in fact be like.
GOD AND CREATION
applies, however, only to those physical evils which, given the natural order, are inevitable, and not to those which owe their origin to human stupidity or to human wickedness. This picture of God as a kind of artist and of the universe as a work of art, requiring shadows as well as lights, is apt, in spite of its traditional character, to appear disconcerting and unhelpful to many minds.
It certainly is not an anthropocentric view of the matter.
As for moral evil, this was in no sense positively willed by God.
It was, however, permitted by Him for the sake of a good, namely that man might be free, participating in his own limited degree in the divine freedom and capacity for creative activity.
It may appear at first sight that if God can be said to will certain physical evils, like death, not for their own sake but for the sake of the perfection of the universe,
He should also be said to will moral evil that moral good might shine more brightly in contrast.
But there is an obvious difference. There is nothing morally disreputable about bodily death.
It is a natural phenomenon, which in the natural order of events is inevitably associated with animal and human existence. And when Aquinas says that God willed death for the sake of the perfection of the universe, though not for its own sake, he means that God willed the creation of animals and men for the sake of the perfection of the universe, animals and men being naturally mortal creatures. But moral evil is not an inevitable accompaniment of the development of human nature; nor is it necessary that the exercise of freedom should involve actual morally evil choices. Nor could God positively will that human beings should act immorally. But without supernatural intervention on God's part man's power to act morally involves in this life the power to choose immorally. And so God, in creating man, must be said to have permitted moral evil, though He did not will that man should choose to act immorally and though in fact He gives man the means of choosing rightly.
The comment may be made that these considerations do not solve the problem of evil. The question is not whether
AQUINAS God permitted evil, since it is obvious that He must have done so if He created the world, but rather how, if He is good, He could create a world which would involve the presence of so much evil. Quite apart from those physical evils which are inevitable in the natural course of events, moral evil and all those physical evils which are due to human stupidity and wickedness were foreseen and permitted by God. And the question is how He could permit this if He is both good and omnipotent.
It may be said that nobody can suggest a detailed picture of affairs in which evil would be absent. And this may be so. But it does not alter the fact that, according to Aquinas, God freely chose to create a world in which He foresaw as present all those evils which are in fact present.
To this question, why God chose this world, foreseeing all the evils which would in fact occur, no answer,
I think, can be given. That is to say, no answer can be given which would be accepted by an objicient as a 'solution' to the problem of evil. St Bonaventure remarked that if anyone asks why God did not make a better world or make this world better, no answer can be given except that He so willed and that He Himself knows the reason. And I do not see that Aquinas could say much more than this. Christian theological dogmas are doubtless relevant in some way to the problem of evil, but they do not constitute a theoretical solution of it. The doctrine of the redemption, for example, throws light on the way in which suffering can be made of value by the sufferer, but it does not solve the metaphysical
'problem of evil'.
It is important, however, to bear in mind the following points. First, it is not the case that Aquinas was blind to the problem of evil. Though he certainly adopts a less anthropocentric attitude towards suffering and death than many would be inclined to adopt, he remarks, for example, in the prologue to his commentary on the Book of Job that nothing is more difficult to reconcile with divine providence than the sufferings of the innocent. At the same time he was convinced that the metaphysician can prove the existence
GOD AND CREATION
of God independently of the problem of evil, and that we therefore know that there is a solution to the problem even though we cannot provide it. And this, of course, is one of the ways in which he differs from the modern agnostic who is inclined to start with the problem in mind rather than to regard evil as something which has to be reconciled, so far as this is possible, with an already established truth. In conclusion it may be worth while pointing out that to say that God permitted evil for the sake of a greater good, which is to a great extent veiled from us, is not to say that human beings should do nothing towards diminishing the amount of evil in the world. We have to distinguish between the practical problem of alleviating suffering and diminishing its extent and the theoretical problem of evil which arises in a metaphysical or theological context. There is no reason for depicting Aquinas as suggesting that human beings should adopt a purely passive attitude towards evil.
It is obvious that he held nothing of the kind with regard to moral evil. Nor did he make any such suggestion with regard to physical evil. He would say, of course, that though God foresaw and permitted evil, He also foresaw, and indeed willed, man's efforts to diminish its extent. i.W