CHAPTER LII
NO CREATURE CAN SEE GOD NATURALLY
species by which it understands; which cannot be said of the essence of any separate substance. And yet it cannot be the form of another thing through its natural being. For it would follow that, once united to another being, it would constitute one nature ; which is impossible, since the divine essence is in itself perfect in its own nature. But an intelligible species, in its union with the intellect, does not constitute a nature, but perfects the intellect for understanding ; and this is not inconsistent with the perfection of the divine essence.
This immediate vision of God is promised to us in Holy Scripture (i Cor. xiii. 12) : We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. It would be impious to understand this in a material way, and imagine a material face in the Godhead ; for we have proved that God is not a body.^ Nor is it possible for us to see God with a bodily face, since the eyes of the body, which are situated in the face, can see only bodily things. Thus then shall we see God face to face, because we shall see Him immediately, even as a man whom we see face to face.
It is through this vision that we become most like God, and participators of His blessedness, since God understands His substance through His essence, and this is His blessedness.
Therefore it is said (/ John iii. 2): When He shall appear, we shall be like to Him; because we shall see Him as He is.
Again, our Lord said (Luke xxii. 29, 30) : / dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a banquet, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom. Now these words cannot be understood as referring' to bodily food and drink, but to that which is taken from the table of Wisdom, of which Wisdom says (Prov. ix. 5) : Eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. Accordingly, to eat and drink at God's table is to enjoy the same blessedness as that which makes God happy, and to see God as He sees Himself.
"C. G., I, 27.
CHAPTER LII
THAT NO CREATED SUBSTANCE CAN BY
ITS NATURAL
POWER ARRIVE AT SEEING GOD IN HIS ESSENCE
However, it is not possible for any created substance to attain, by its own power, to this way of seeing God.
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
For that which is proper to the higher nature cannot be acquired by a lower -nature, except through the action of the higher nature to which it properly belongs. Thus water cannot become hot except through the action of heat. Now to see
God through His essence is proper to the divine nature, since to operate through his own form is proper to each operator.
Therefore no intellectual substance can see God through the divine essence, unless God Himself bring this about.
Again. A form proper to A does not become B's except through A's agency, because an agent produces its like by communicating its form to another. Now it is impossible to see the divine substance unless the divine essence itself become the form by which the intellect understands, as we have proved.^ Therefore no created substance can attain to that vision, except through the divine agency.
Besides. If any two things have to be united together so that one be formal and the other material, their union must be completed by an action on the part of the one that is formal, and not by the action of the one that is material
; for the form is the principle of action, whereas matter is the passive principle. Now in order that the created intellect see God's substance, the divine essence itself must be united to the intellect as an intelligible form, as we have proved. Therefore no created intellect can attain to this vision except through the divine agency.
Further. What is so of itself is the cause of what is so through another.^ Now the divine intellect sees through itself the divine substance, for the divine intellect is the divine essence itself, by means of v/hich God's substance is seen, as we proved in the First Book.^ But the created intellect sees the divine substance through the divine essence as through something other than itself. Therefore this vision cannot be acquired by the created intellect, except through the action of God.
Moreover. Whatever exceeds the limits of a given nature, cannot be acquired by that nature except through the agency of another; and thus water does not flow upwards unless it be moved by something else. Now it is beyond the limits of any created nature to see God's substance, because it is proper to every created intellectual nature to understand ac- ^Ch. 51.
=Cf. Aristotle, Phys., VIII, 5 (2S7a 31).
^C. G., I. 45-