Thesis.
SECTION VI: ON THE IMMORTALITY OF GOD
Thesis.
§ 159. God is immortal and incorruptible. This is confirmed by: (I) Holy Scripture, both negatively, when it removes mortality and corruption from God—“They have changed the glory of the Incorruptible,” etc. (Rom. 1:23); “To the incorruptible King of ages be honor and glory” (1 Tim. 1:17); and “The King of kings and Lord of lords alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:[15])—and affirmatively, when it attributes life to God—Gen. 16:[13–]14; Deut. 5:26; Jer. 2:13; etc. For this life is eternal, incorruptible, and will never perish. Deut. 32:40: “I live forever.” God lives of Himself and of His own nature, but life is essential to God, and, in fact, God is life itself. Consequently, the life of the rest of living things is accidental and participated.
Life is attributed to God: (1) Absolutely, not only preeminently but also uniquely, for He alone properly [proprie] lives and is essential life itself. (2) Comparatively, with respect to idols, which are not living gods but dead images that have neither life nor signs of life, neither sense nor movement. Ps. 106:28. (3) Effectively, because He gives life to all things that live. 1 Tim. 6:13. “In Him we live and move and are” (Acts 17:28). “You have made my life and mercy; and Your visitation has protected my spirit,” that is, my life, the sign of which is breathing (Job 10:12).
(II) Reason. (1) From His eternity, because He is eternal of Himself and of His own nature. Therefore. Just as living water is the same thing as that which flows constantly and perpetually—as the poet sings: “The perpetual springs are the image of eternal life”—so the living God is eternal and incorruptible. (2) From His simplicity. Whatever lacks all compounding, that also does not admit cancellation and corruption. Because of the supreme simplicity of His essence, God is devoid of all compounding. Therefore. (3) From His immutability. Whatever is simply and in every way unchangeable is also incorruptible. God is simply and in every way unchangeable and always remains the same. Therefore. In fact, because God alone is absolutely and simply immutable, therefore He alone is said to have immortality (1 Tim. 6:16). Augustine (Contra Maximin., bk. 3, c. 12) demonstrates this elegantly, saying:
In every changeable nature, change itself is a death because it causes something that used to exist in it not to exist. Accordingly, even the human soul, which is called immortal because it somehow never stops living in its own way, nevertheless has its own sort of death in its own way, because if it used to live justly and sins, it dies to righteousness, and if it used to sin and is justified, it dies to sin. Also the nature of heavenly creatures could die because it could sin. Even angels sinned and became demons, and those that did not sin could have sinned.
(4) From the removal of causes of death and corruption—both external and internal. Because God’s life is purest actuality, living of itself, and because God has nothing potential,39 therefore He is simply immortal. (5) From the nobility and perfection of the divine essence. Living things are more perfect and noble than nonliving things. But God is the most perfect and noble being. Therefore He is a living being and, in fact, living in such a way that He lives through and of Himself, is self-living and ever-living, having life in Himself (John 5:26). Thus He alone can say truly: “I live” (Deut. 32:40, etc.). (See our commonplace [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3 (On the Nature of God)], §§ 104–5.) (6) From God’s blessedness. If God were not immortal, He would not be able to be blessed. Consequently, to live at any time is the same thing as leading a blessed life (Ezek. 37:14).
(III) The agreement of all men, for engraved on all minds is that preconceived notion that God is a living and immortal being. The Greeks call [their] god “Zeus,” from the Greek word for “living,” because [God] alone truly lives and gives life to all things, so that deservedly He can be called “He who lives” [
] in the same way as He is called “He who is” [
].
Questions about the immortality of God.
§ 160. (I) The question arises: Does the life of God differ from the essence of God? We respond. As God is His own being, so also He is His own living. Thus in the nature of the thing, essence and life in God do not differ in actuality. Nevertheless with respect to our conceptual ability these two are distinguished, for we conceive of God as He is in one way and of God as He lives in another. Two things in nature are found in which all perfection of things is contained: essence and life. The former is the property of every creature that exists; the latter, only of certain things that have the power to live. (See Ps. 104:29; Acts 17:28.) These two are called “the two causes of nature” [naturae momenta], which must be placed on God with the mode of supereminence above the essence and life of all created things (Ps. [102:26–27]; 1 Tim. 6:16). Hence not only is God said to exist and the name “Jehovah” is given to Him, but He is also said to live and is called life itself. Neither of these befits creatures in this way.
(II) The question arises: How many ways is the life of God manifested? We respond. The life of God is act [actus] by which the essence of God demonstrates that it is active. As the Scholastics teach, the divine essence shows that it is active in three ways: in intellect, in will, and in power to act [potentia agendi]. Therefore these three pertain to God’s life: His intellect, His will, and His power to act.
(III) The question arises: Is God correctly called the life of all the living? We respond. He is this not formally but causally. Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 7, c. 5: “The soul is not a portion but a condition of God. He is not the soul of all, but He has made every soul. When He alone illumines it, the soul becomes blessed if it is not ungrateful for His grace.”
(IV) The question arises: Is God impassible and unable to suffer [
et impatibilis]? We respond. As God alone is simply immutable and immortal, so also He alone is simply and absolutely impassible. He is an infinite being. Therefore because of this infinity nothing can act upon Him, because all things besides God are finite, which cannot act upon the infinite. He is an utterly simple being and sheer actuality. Therefore because of this simplicity of essence, He cannot receive the action of anything. He is an independent being. Therefore because of His independence, nothing can force or change Him. If you say, “God is honored by the devout and is treated disgracefully by the wicked; therefore He receives action and suffering,” we must distinguish between real and intentional sufferings, between subjective and terminative sufferings, between transmutative and relative [
] sufferings. When the wicked blaspheme God, this is not real, subjective, and transmutative suffering in the way that fire heats water; instead, it is intentional, terminative, and relative in the way the human eye sees water.
Practical use.
§ 161. Exhorting. Because of sin, all we wretched humans are subject to death. 2 Sam. 14:14: “We are all dying, and we are like water spilled on the ground that cannot be gathered up.” Ps. 144:4: “Our days are like a passing shadow.” They pass by like a rushing torrent that exists only when it rains and a little later no longer flows. They are like a flower that opens in the morning but wilts in the evening when it is picked. (See Ps. 90:6.) Job 14:1–2: “Man that is born of a woman lives for a brief time and is full of many miseries. He comes forth like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and never remains in the same state.” Bernard comments on these words as follows: “Man is born for labor, not for honor. Man is born of woman and for this reason with guilt. He lives a short time and, therefore, with fear, full of many miseries, thus with tears [non propterea cum fletu], and many of them, because he is at the same time made of soul and body” (Ad Eugen., bk. 2, col. 1024). In these words Job is describing the brevity, frailty, fleetingness, instability, and manifold adversity of human life. These call to our mind every day that we should turn our heart away from corruptible things and fix all our confidence, our every hope and desire, on God, who is immortal and incorruptible. Whoever loves transitory things perishes with transitory things. He who clings by faith and love to God, who is immortal and incorruptible, becomes one spirit with Him and lives forever with Him. Our soul is immortal, and because it was created for immortality, it is not satisfied nor does it rest except in God, who is immortal and incorruptible (Ps. 17:15).