Chapter VII:
CHAPTER VII: ON THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES IN GENERAL
The divine attributes are one with the divine essence.
§ 104. Until this point we have been discussing the unity of the divine essence. Consequently, we must next speak about the divine attributes, concerning which we form two theorems. (I) The divine attributes, as we consider them in and of themselves [in se ac per se], are really and most simply one with the divine essence, as we showed in detail in our article On the Nature of God [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3], § 47ff. The definition depends (1) on the simplicity of the divine essence, which excludes18 every composition of essence and of accidents without exception. Rabbeinu HaKadosh, in Gale razeia, according to Weidner (Loc. fid., treatise 1, p. 119), says: “Nothing is found in God that is not God Himself.” Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 8, c. 6: “For Him, being is not one thing and living another, as if He could be without living; nor is living one thing and understanding another for Him, as if He could live without understanding; nor is understanding one thing and being blessed [beatus] another for Him, as if He could understand and not be blessed. Rather, for Him living, understanding, and being blessed—for Him this is being. Whatever is said worthily about God is not a quality but [His] essence.” See also Leo, epistle 91.
(2) It depends on the unchangeability of the divine essence. If the attributes were in God like qualities, God would be made changeable because every quality and accident is present in changeable fashion. Alcuin, De Trinit., bk. 1, c. 11: “His eternity and unchangeability deny the instability of any accident in God, because with regard to time, it is possible or was possible or even will be possible for every accident to be or not to be.”
(3) It depends on eternity. Every accident is added to a subject because it is outside the essence of the subject. But concerning God, one cannot say or think that something is added to Him, for He is eternal and has everything from Himself and from eternity. Augustine, treatise 20 on John: “Whatever is God’s and is what He is, is consubstantial with Him.” (Cf. Bernard, sermon 80 on Song of Songs.)
The corollaries of this theorem are that: (a) All the attributes are in God equally, for they are the essence of God. It is with respect to us and with respect to His operations that “mercy” is said to “be exalted over judgment” (James 2:13). (b) They are in God in an unchangeable way, so that they are not stretched nor diminished nor do they accept more or less. Thus today God is not more just nor more wise, etc., because He is justice itself and wisdom. (c) They are in God inseparably, for as it is impossible for the essence of a thing to be separated from the thing itself, so also the attributes cannot be separated from God because they are God’s essence itself.
** When Justin names “the free acts of God accidents that inhere contingently in God” (QQ. et resp. ad Graecos, p. 135), this is understood to mean accidental predicates, not inherent and properly so-called “accidents” or “qualities.” After all, God wills, decrees, and works freely, and these wills, decrees, and works are logically distinct from His essence, but [they] are predicated of it contingently because they have a relationship to created things that exist contingently. **
(d) They are in Him without any opposition because essence is not opposed to itself. Therefore though we may distinguish justice and mercy with regard both to their objects and to their effects, nevertheless they are not opposed to each other.
The divine attributes are distinguished in various ways because of the weakness of our conceptual ability.
§ 105. (II) For the sake of instruction and because of the weakness of our conceptual ability, the divine attributes are distinguished in various ways. Scaliger, Ex. 365, section 6: “Goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence are in Him in such a way that they are the same; they are in Him in such a way that nothing precedes and nothing follows. On the basis of our intellectual capabilities, which are very limited, some attributes are conceived in our minds first before others.”
In our Commonplaces [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3 (On the Nature of God), § 57], we established these divisions: (1) Some attributes are predicated of God and of His creatures at the same time, such as those by which things that are accidents in creatures but substances in God are signified, as when God is said to be good or wise. Some, on the other hand, are predicated of God alone, such as those by which the things that befit God alone are explained, as when God is said to be eternal or infinite.
(2) Some attributes are spoken of God absolutely, that is, without any relation to creatures, as when God is called “eternal,” “immense [i.e., immeasurable].” But some are spoken relatively, as when God is called “Creator,” “Judge,” “King.”
(3) Some are spoken negatively (
), as when God is said to be invisible, immortal, incorporeal. Some, on the other hand, are predicated affirmatively (
), as when He is said to be good or just.
(4) Some attributes are spoken of God properly, such as that He is good, wise, etc. But some are predicated improperly and figuratively, such as when human parts and emotions are attributed to Him through anthropopathism. Metaphorical attributes are assigned to God not in a theological way [
] but by accommodation [
]. In Dial. 2, Theodoret says that they are attributed as a sort of “co-affirmation [
].” They are said of Him by way of anthropopathism but are understood in a way fitting for God.
(5) Some attributes are said about God in the abstract, such as when He is called “life,” “goodness,” “truth”; and some in the concrete, such as when He is said to be living, good, truthful.
(6) Some attributes are considered in the simple divinity, and these neither reveal themselves through external operations nor do they take any consideration of creatures, such as the fact that God is: first, a spiritual and invisible essence; second, utterly simple; third, eternal and consequently unchangeable and immortal; fourth, infinite. But some attributes reflect themselves outwardly in creatures and have a relation to them, such as the fact that God is: first, omnipotent; second, supremely good; third, just; fourth, wise; fifth, an utterly free agent; sixth, truthful. The former are called “unshared” [
] and the latter, “shared” [
], that is, attributes of which rational creatures can become partakers partially and by likeness. From the attributes of both types taken together arise: first, the perfection of God; second, His majesty and glory; third, His blessedness. What we should mark concerning these individual divisions of attributes we explained in detail in the same work.
(7) Some of God’s attributes are internal, such as His infinity, eternity, spirituality. Some are external, and these are either inimitable (such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence) or imitable (such as goodness and righteousness).
(8) Some attributes befit God from eternity, such as that He is infinite, immense. Others befit Him in time, such as that He is the Creator and Preserver. All of these relative (
) attributes do not argue for a change in God Himself that has occurred in time. Instead, they indicate a new work that He has produced and they denote that a change has occurred in His creatures. The Scholastics say that nothing temporal is predicated of God inherently but “either as a cause,” as Creator, “or by means of union,” such as “the Word was made flesh.” And then the change occurs with reference to the creature.
(9) Some attributes are common to the entire Trinity, and for this reason they are called essential, which this commonplace is discussing, such as that God is good, just, wise, the Creator. Some, on the other hand, are proper to the individual persons, such as that the Father is said to be unbegotten, the Son begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. The rabbinic scholars call the attributes 
(“properties”) of the 
(“divinity”) or of the 
(“essence”).
Antithesis.
According to Bernard, sermon 80 on Song of Songs, Gilbertus Porretanus, bishop of Poitiers, taught that the attributes of the Deity differed from the Deity itself just as accidents differ from their subject. Eugenius later condemned him in the Council of Rheims [AD 1148].
Question 1: Whether attributes are predicated in the same way of God and of creatures.
§ 106. (I) Here the question arises: Are the shared attributes predicated in the same way of God and of creatures? We respond: Not at all. Rather, they are predicated of God essentially, preeminently, and thus (obviously) uniquely, while they are predicated of creatures only accidentally and through a kind of participation and similarity. You see, as the goodness of God and the goodness of man are distinguished from each other by an infinite difference (precisely as Christ says that no one is good—that is, essentially and immutably—except God alone, Matt. 19:17), so also the manner of attribution and assertion differs greatly. Concerning God it is said in the abstract; concerning His creatures, only in the concrete. The goodness of God not only belongs to God essentially and is the essence of God but also is the cause and rule of goodness in man, because in this life, man is commanded to set constantly before his eyes the model of that goodness and to express it to the utmost of his ability. As distant as a shadow is from a body, an imperfect imitation from the perfect rule, an accident from the essence, indeed, the finite from the infinite—so distant is the goodness of man from the goodness of God.
Question 2: Whether the relative attributes are real.
§ 107. (II) The question arises: Are the relative [
] attributes real? We respond. Relative predicates can be taken in two ways: (1) To signify an actual causality. In this way they do not speak of a perfection in God but only of an external relationship that is added to God. (2) To signify the power or might to create, save, etc. In this way they speak of a real perfection. In the first sense they indicate an action; in the second, a principle of acting. The former occurs in time; the latter is in eternity. On the part of the creature there is a real relation to God the Creator because in being, creatures depend on God, without whose will they certainly would not have been able to exist and would not have been preserved up to now. On the part of the Creator, however, there is not a real relation because no new perfection is added to the Creator in time from His work of creation. Rather, He Himself remains in Himself the same and immutable and He has brought to His creature a perfection, namely, existence. Therefore the relative attributes induce some change not in God but in His creatures and imply that something has happened not to God but to His creatures. God is sheer and pure actuality in Himself, and though He varies the effects of His works, He remains unchangeable in Himself.
Question 3: Whether attributes can be predicated of God in the concrete.
§ 108. (III) The question arises: Can attributes be predicated of God in the concrete? Scaliger denies this. He says: “Because many attributes are given to God—such as that He is omnipotent, omniscient, merciful, pious, just, avenging, holy, strong, immortal, good, prime being—the use [of these expressions] cannot be twisted rightly, so to speak. For if any one of them were predicated of Him denominatively,19 then something would have been abstracted from Him, something would be prior to Him, which is clearly wicked. Therefore He is not a being, but essence; He is not good, but goodness” (Exerc. 365, section 6).
Yet Scripture often speaks about God in the concrete: that He is good, wise, just. In all these passages we can hardly acknowledge an impropriety of speech. Therefore we repeat the rule: Whatever things are transferred from God’s creatures to Him must first be cleansed of all imperfections, then, finally, that must be attributed to God which is perfect. Thus in the case of humans, the concrete denotes a subject truly existing along with its accidental or substantial form. Remove the composition of subject and accident as an imperfection and there will remain a being that subsists of itself. This is attributed to God in an absolutely perfect way through the use of concrete names.
One could conclude on the basis of the same principle that he should also not use abstract names when he refers to God. Abstract names denote forms that nowhere exist of themselves but that must be distinguished by the reflection of the mind from subjects and individuals. Abstract names do not exist of themselves but as they are in their subjects. However, God is not any such form that subsists nowhere separately. What then? Separate every imperfection from abstract names and attribute that which is utterly perfect to God. Abstract forms are utterly simple and perfect. In this way whiteness, separate from a wall in thought, though it never exists separately, is utterly simple and perfect, having nothing dissimilar, nothing contrary, mixed into it. Therefore perfections (that is, in the abstract) must be attributed to God, who is therefore said not only to be good but also to be goodness because He is essentially and most perfectly good. In fact, He is also the cause of goodness in the way that concretes are named from abstracts. Because abstractions do not exist apart and of themselves, we must remove this imperfection from God, who is not only a being [ens] subsisting of itself but who also provides essence to all beings.
Question 4: Whether the divine attributes are correctly said to be proper.
§ 109. (IV) The question arises: Are the divine attributes correctly said to be proper? We respond. The term “proper” is taken in two ways: (1) According to nature [physice], which indicates an accident inhering in its substance and really distinct from its subject. (2) Logically. In this way, not only are things called proper that inhere in their substance and are reciprocal with their subject but also the subject’s essential form [ratio] itself. In this way the Philosopher (1. Top.) calls “definition” proper because definition is always and only attributed to one thing, though inherence may be excluded. “Definition” is said to be proper not through inherence but through simple identity. In this sense we can say that attributes are proper.
Question 5: Whether we can conceive of the divine attributes as distinct.
§ 110. (V) The question arises: Does our intellect correctly conceive of the divine attributes, conceiving of them distinctly, which are really one with the divine essence and among themselves? Some of the Scholastics draw the following conclusion: A formal concept, which we form from something we perceive [de re intellecta], cannot be true unless an objective concept actually corresponds to it. But if there is only one objective concept in God, and if it is utterly simple, we cannot form distinct formal concepts about God without falsehood. For this reason the Scotists claim that the divine attributes are distinguished formally from each other and from [God’s] essence.
But we respond: Although the divine attributes are distinguished neither from [God’s] essence nor from each other in actuality, according to their nature [actu ex natura rei], nevertheless they are distinguished in terms of their importance and power [eminenter et virtute], because the divine essence of itself and because of its infinity, simplicity, and perfection provides all those things that a created essence provides through its many different qualities. Consequently, it happens that we can form different concepts about the same divine essence. Objective concept in God is one in form, many in power and importance.
The same thing is obvious from the divine operations, for though in works of mercy the justice of God is not really separated from the divine mercy in God, nevertheless in His works of mercy God does not act fittingly [adaequate] according to His justice but rather according to His mercy. In the same way, heat and light in the sun are the same, yet in heating, the sun does not act fittingly according to its light but rather according to its heat. From this stems the rule: The divine attributes are predicated mutually of themselves and of [God’s] essence in an identical sense (because in itself there is no actual distinction here) but not in the formal sense (because they are distinguished in our concepts).
Question 6: We affirm that the [divine] attributes were communicated to Christ the man. Are we then separating the essential properties from the [divine] essence itself?
§ 111. (VI) The question arises: We teach that the [divine] attributes were communicated to Christ according to His human nature. Is it then right to infer that we are separating the essential properties from the [divine] essence and from each other? Polanus (Syntagm., bk. 2, c. 7, p. 141) makes us out to be guilty of this crime:
The Ubiquitarians are not far from the error of Gilbertus Porretanus when they argue that the essential properties of the Deity are communicated by a real transfusion to the human nature of Christ. Meanwhile, they do not dare to declare that the essence of Deity became common, because an essential property is one thing but the essence of the Deity is another. Also, while they say that some properties—namely, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence—have been communicated to Christ’s human nature, they deny that simplicity, infinity, and eternity are communicated, as if the essential properties of God actually differed among themselves and could be separated. Yet it cannot happen that when one essential property of God is communicated, the rest cannot be communicated to anyone, nor can any essential property of God be communicated outside the communication of His essence.
We respond. (1) We do not teach the transfusion but the communication of the divine attributes to Christ’s human nature, unless someone should use the word transfusion not for the physical movement of attributes from subject to subject but for a real conferring thereof, as the Holy Spirit is said to have been “poured out” upon devout believers (Titus 3:6) and as the love of God is said to have been “poured forth” in our hearts (Rom. 5:5).
(2) We contend that not only were the attributes communicated to the human nature in Christ but also the divine essence itself, lest we be condemned along with the Samosatene,20 who taught that “the two natures are completely unshared [
].” You see, if there is no communication of the divine and human natures in Christ, surely there is no personal union of the two natures, because union without communion is mere proximity [
], and there will no longer be a place for the personal propositions: “This man is God”; “The Holy One who is born of Mary is the Son of God” (Luke 1:[35]).
(3) If it is correct to say that the pious are “made partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), how much more impudent will it be to deny that Christ’s human nature, assumed and exalted into the very hypostasis of the Word, has become partaker of the divine nature through this personal communication and union?
(4) As Christ’s human nature has truly become a partaker of divine attributes without any abolition of its essential properties, so also the divine nature of the Word has been communicated to the human nature through union without any abolition of its essence. As the glory, so also the union and communication do not remove but exalt the flesh; they do not kill it but perfect it.
(5) We say that not only some but all the divine attributes without exception have been communicated to Christ’s human nature, for what else is the “whole fullness of the deity” dwelling in the assumed body (Col. 2:9) but the complete and undivided divine essence of the Word along with all its attributes? However, we do differentiate between mediate and immediate communication. Only those attributes are communicated immediately that show their activities through the assumed nature. Those that are considered in the very essence and internal comprehension [complexu] of the Deity and do not reveal their operations through the assumed nature are communicated mediately. Thus though infinity, eternity, etc., are not communicated immediately to Christ’s flesh, nevertheless they are communicated to it mediately because omniscience, omnipotence, etc., are communicated to the flesh with an infinite and eternal omnipotence. Some call mediate communication “indwelling [
]” and immediate communication “communion [
] so-called specifically.”
(6) If we prefer, however, to indulge our own reasoning rather than to stay in the footsteps of Scripture, let Polanus explain to us how the hypostasis of the Word itself is communicated to the flesh yet the hypostatic property is not communicated to it. The first he cannot deny, unless he should go on to deny the union itself. The latter he cannot affirm, unless he would like to assert that Christ’s human nature has been eternally begotten from the Father. Therefore as the infinite wisdom and power of God could find a manner and means by which the hypostasis of the Word was communicated to the flesh through the union (but not communicated immediately, that is, by a hypostatic property), so also He could find a means whereby eternity, infinity, etc., were not communicated immediately while omnipotence, omniscience, and the other attributes pertaining to the fulfillment of Christ’s office were communicated [immediately]. In De gloria Dei, disp. 9, § 2, we discussed in detail whether, on the basis of the same communication of attributes (which we resolutely teach occurred to the flesh of Christ), one can firmly conclude whether we claim two divine omnipotences and two divine omnisciences, as the Calvinists ascribe to us.
The practical use of the doctrine of the divine attributes.
§ 112. (1) Consoling. Because the attributes of God are not a changeable accident in God but are His very essence, therefore the love and affection by which He embraces the devout must be more ardent than we can grasp with our thought. Sirach 2:[18]: “As great as God is, so great is His mercy.” But He is infinite, immense, invariable, eternal, therefore so also is His mercy, which “prevails over us forever” (Ps. 117:2). It does not vary or change unless we are changed, just as the sun remains unchanged though people who turn away from its light and heat deprive themselves of the benefits of the sun. Num. 23:19: “God is not like a man that He should lie or as a son of man that He should repent. Has He said and will He not do it? Or has He spoken and will He not fulfill it?” That is to say, people are so fickle that what they promise today they revoke tomorrow, whom they embrace in love today they persecute in hatred tomorrow. However, God is not so changeable in affection toward humans nor in His promises. In addition, Jer. 31:20 and Hosea [11]:9: “I shall not do the fury of My anger. I am God and not a man.”
(2) Exhorting. Our changeable goodness sets before itself the unchangeable goodness of God for imitation so that the mutability and instability of our goodness may be absorbed, as it were, by that immutability. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” the Savior cries out (Matt. 5:48). “Be holy, because I, too, am holy,” God urges (Lev. 11:44). But there is no perfection of holiness, goodness, and love unless immutability is connected to it. Therefore in this life let us aspire to that to which we shall be exalted perfectly in the next life.
18 This reading is from Cotta. Preuss and Hamburg/Frankfurt editions read includit.
19 That is, a statement that names, a manner of predicating accidents of a substance. Schütz, Thomas-Lexikon, s.v. “praedicatio.”
20 Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch ca. AD 260–268.