CHAPTER LIII
CREATURES NEED GOD'S AID TO SEE HIM
cording to the mode of its substance. But the divine substance cannot be thus understood, as we proved above.^ Therefore no created intellect can possibly attain to a vision of the divine substance except by the agency of God, Who surpasses all creatures.
Hence it is said {Rom. vi. 23): The grace of God is life everlasting. For we have proved that man's happiness consists in seeing God, which is called life everlasting.^ Now we are said to obtain this by God's grace alone, because that vision surpasses the ability of every creature, and it is impossible to attain thereto except by God's gift; and when such things are obtained by a creature, it is put down to God's grace. And so our Lord says (Jo. xiv. 21): / will manifest myself to him.
* Ch. 49.
^ Ch. so.
CHAPTER LIII
THAT THE CREATED INTELLECT NEEDS THE ASSISTANCE OF
THE DIVINE LIGHT IN ORDER TO SEE GOD IN HIS ESSENCE
To SO sublime a vision the created intellect needs to be raised by some kind of outpouring of the divine goodness. For it is impossible that the proper form of anything become the form of another, unless this other bear some resemblance to the thing to which that form properly belongs. Thus light does not actualize a body which has nothing in common with the diaphanous. Now the divine essence is the proper intelligible form of the divine intellect, and is proportionate to it; for these three, understanding, means of understanding and object understood are one in God. Therefore that same essence cannot become the intelligible form of a created intellect, except because the created intellect participates in some divine likeness. Therefore this participation in a divine likeness is necessary in order that the divine substance be seen.
Again. Nothing can receive a higher form unless it be raised through some disposition to the capacity for this form for every act is realized in its proper potency. Now the divine essence is a higher form than any created intellect.
Therefore, in order that the divine essence become the Intel ligible species of a created intellect, which is requisite iiv
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
order that the divine substance be seen, the created intellect needs to be raised to that capacity by some higher disposition.
Besides.
If two things, after not being united, become united, this must be either because both are changed, or only one. Now if we suppose that some created intellect begins to see the divine essence, it follows, from what we have said,^ that the divine essence comes to be united to that intellect as an intelligible species. But it is impossible that the divine essence be changed, as we have proved.^ Therefore this union must begin through a change in the created intellect, and this change can consist only in the fact that the created intellect acquires some new disposition.—The same conclusion follows if we suppose some created intellect to be endowed from the outset of its creation with such a vision. For if, as we have proved,^ this vision exceeds the ability of nature, it is possible to conceive any created intellect as complete in the species of its nature without its seeing God's substance. Consequently, whether it see God from the beginning, or begin to see Him afterwards, its nature needs something to be added to it.
Further. Nothing can be raised to a higher operation except through its power being strengthened. Now a power may be strengthened in two ways. First, by a mere intensifying of its power. Thus, the active power of a hot thing is increased by the intensity of the heat, so that it is capable of a more vehement action of the same species. Secondly, by the addition of a new form. Thus the power of a diaphanous body is strengthened so that it can give light, through its being made actually lucid by receiving the form of light anew. This increase of power is necessary in order to accomplish an operation of another species. Now the natural power of the created intellect is not sufficient for the vision of the divine substance, as we have shown.^ Therefore its power needs to be increased in order that it attain to that vision. But increase tJirough intensification of the natural power is insufficient, because that vision is not of the same kind as the natural vision of the created intellect; which is clear from the distance separating the things seen. Therefore there must be an increase of the intellectual power through its receiving a new disposition.
^Ch.
51.
'C.
G., I, 13.
'Ch.
52.
*Ibzd.
CREATURES NEED GOD'S AID TO SEE HIM
Now, owing to the fact that we derive our knowledge of intelligible beings from sensible things, we transfer the terms employed in sensible knowledge to our intellectual knowledge; especially those terms that pertain to the sight, which of all the senses is the highest and most spiritual, and therefore most akin to the intellect. It is for this reason that intellectual knowledge is called sight
[visio\. And because bodily sight is not effected without light, those things which serve for the perfection of intellectual vision are called light
; and so Aristotle compares the agent intellect to light, because the agent intellect makes things actually intelligible, even as light somehow makes things to be actually visible.^ Accordingly, the disposition whereby the created intellect is raised to the intellectual vision of the divine substance is rightly called the light of glory; not indeed because it makes the object actually intelligible, as the light of the agent intellect does, but because it makes the intellect able to understand actually.
This is the light of which it is said (Ps. xxxv. lo) : In Thy light we shall see light, i.e., the light of the divine substance.
Again it is said (Apoc. xxii.
[cf. xxi.
23]):
The city, namely of the Blessed, hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon .
. for the glory of God hath enlightened it. Again it is said {Isa. Ix. 19) : Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.—For this reason, too, since in God to be is the same as to understand, and because
He is to all the cause of their understanding. He is said to be the light {Jo. i. 9) : That was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world; and (/ John i. 5)
God is light. Again (Ps. ciii. 2) : Thou .
. art clothed with light as with a garment.—For this reason, too, both God and the angels are described in Holy Scripture in figures of fire, because of the splendor of fire {Exod. xxiv. 17; Acts ii. 3; Ps, ciii. 4).
^De An., Ill, 5 (430a 15).