CHAPTER LIV
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
CHAPTER LIV
ARGUMENTS THAT WOULD SEEM TO PROVE THAT GOD CAN-
NOT BE SEEN IN HIS ESSENCE, AND THEIR SOLUTION
Someone will object against the foregoing [i] No additional light can help the sight to see things that surpass the natural ability of corporeal sight, since the sight can see only colored things. Now the divine substance surpasses every capacity of a created intellect, more even than the intellect surpasses the senses' capacity. Therefore no additional light can raise the created intellect to see the divine substance.
[2] Again. This light, that is received into the created intellect, is something created. Therefore it also is infinitely distant from God, and consequently such a light cannot help the created intellect to see the divine substance.
[3 ] Besides. If the aforesaid light can do this for the reason that it is a likeness of the divine substance, since every intellectual substance, for the very reason that it is intellectual, bears a Hkeness to God, the nature itself of an intellectual substance will suffice for it to see God.
[4] Further. If this light is created, since there is no reason why that which is created should not be connatural to some creature, there might possibly be a creature that would see the divine substance through its connatural light. But the contrary of this has been proved.^ [5] Moreover. The infinite, as such, is unknown?- Now we proved in the First Book that God is infinite.^ Therefore the divine substance cannot be seen through the light in question.
[6] Again. There should be a proportion between the one understanding and the thing understood. But there is no proportion between the created intellect, even perfected by this light, and the divine substance ; for there still remains an infinite distance between them. Therefore the created intellect cannot be raised by any light to see the divine substance.
By these and like arguments some have been induced to maintain that the divine substance is never seen by a created
^Ch. 52.
''Aristotle, Phys., I, 4 (187b 7).
^C. G., I, 43-
GOD'S ESSENCE CAN BE SEEN
intellect. This opinion both destroys the rational creature's true happiness, which can consist in nothing but the vision of the divine substance, as we have proved,* and is contrary to the authority of Holy Scripture, as appears from what we have said.^ Therefore it should be rejected as false and heretical.
Now it is not difficult to answer the above arguments. For the divine substance is not so outside the range of the created intellect, as to be absolutely beyond its reach, as sound is to the sight, or an immaterial substance to the senses. For the divine substance is the first intelligible, and the principle of all intellectual knowledge. Rather, it is outside the range of the created intellect as exceeding its power, just as the highest sensibles are outside the range of the senses. Therefore the Philosopher says that our intellect stands in relation to the most evident things as the owl's eye does in relation to the sun.^ Therefore the created intellect needs to be strengthened by some divine light in order to be able to see the divine substance. This solves the first argument.
Moreover, this light raises the created intellect to the vision of God, not because of its affinity to the divine substance, but because of the power which it receives from God to produce such an effect; even though in its being it is infinitely distant from God, as the second argument stated. For this light unites the created intellect to God, not in being, but only in understanding.
Since, however, it belongs to God Himself to understand His substance perfectly, the light in question is a likeness of God in this that it perfects the intellect for seeing the divine substance. Now no intellectual substance can be like God in this way. For since no created substance's simplicity is equal to the divine simplicity, it is impossible for the created substance to have its entire perfection in one subject: for this is proper to God, as we proved in the First Book,"^ Who is being, understanding and blessed in respect of the same reality.
Consequently, in the intellectual substance, the created light through which it is raised to the beatific vision of God differs from any light whereby it is perfected in its specific nature and understands proportionately to its substance. Hence the reply to the third argument is clear.
* Ch. 50.
" Ch. SI.
Metaph., la, i (993b 9).
' C. G., I, 28.