Chap. 8: God’s Nature
CHAP. 8: GOD’S NATURE
AQUINAS'S VIEW OF GOD is an integral part of his view of reality (metaphysics). His exposition is deeply rooted in God's self-revelation. He continually cites the Bible in support of his position. This is true not only in his numerous commentaries on Scripture (see Chap. 4), but also in his theological writings.1 For example, in discussing God's immutability he quotes Malachi 3:6: "I the Lord change not." In defending God's self-existence (aseity), he cites Exodus 3:14, where God says to Moses, "I AM that I AM."
Aquinas's view of God falls within the classical theistic tradition of Augustine and Anselm. Aquinas is the greatest classical theist ever to write extensively on the topic. What distinguishes classical theists from non-classical theists is their belief that God is an absolutely simple, infinite, eternal, and immutable Being. Many contemporary theists deny one or more of these attributes of God. This deviation is the result of the process theology of Alfred North Whitehead and his followers, including Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, David Griffin, Schubert Ogden, and Lewis Ford. Their view that God is finite, temporal, and changeable is also known as neoclassical theism, panentheism (All-in-God), and bipolar theism. Modifications of this view are held even by many Roman Catholic and evangelical theologians which is often called Open Theism. Clark Pinnock (The Most Moved Mover), Gregory Boyd, John Sanders, and Richard Swinburne are proponents of the view. While the do not call all the way into Process Theology (Panentheism), nonetheless, they generally deny crucial attributes of the God of classical theism, including immutability, eternality, simplicity, impassibility, and infallible foreknowledge of future free acts.
The Nature of God
Aquinas defends all the traditional attributes of God, including immutability, eternality, simplicity, unity, and infinity. In fact, he anticipates many "modern" objections and responds to them with amazing profundity.
Pure Actuality
God is Pure Act (Actuality) as such, He unmeasured by any potentiality. Everything with potency is created. For no potency can actualize itself. Hence, there must be a Pure Actuality which actualizes every other potentiality that exists. Angels are acts as received in pure forms that wholly receive their actuality from creation. Humankind is act as received in form/matter (soul/body) that progressively receives actuality. In brief, God actually endures, but he endures as Pure Actuality. Since he has no potentiality, he cannot endure progressively. He endures in a much higher way—as Pure Actuality. Put another way, every creature has being. But only God is Being, pure and simple. He is a necessary Being and such must necessary exist. He is a Being that cannot not be. Only a contingent being (a creature) has the possibility (potentiality) not to be (exist). So, if God is a Necessary Being, then He has no potency. He is Pure Actuality.
Simplicity
Aquinas considered simplicity to be an important attribute of God. He often refers to it when discussing other attributes. Simplicity means that God has no parts. He is indivisible. His simplicity follows from his Pure Actuality since everything with parts has potentiality—the potentiality to be divided. Hence, what has no potentiality (viz., Pure Actuality) cannot have parts. It must be absolutely simple. Further, God is infinite, and it is not possible to have an infinite number of parts since no matter how many you have, one more could always be added. Finally, whatever is composed of parts making up a whole must have had a composer. But God is the First Uncaused Cause. Hence, he cannot have parts. So, God is absolutely simple and indivisible in His Being.
God's Immutability
In his epic Summa theologiae Aquinas asks whether God is altogether immutable.2 He offers three basic arguments in favor of God's unchangeability. The first is based on the fact that a God of Pure Actuality ("I Amness") has no potentiality. For everything that changes has potentiality. But there can be no potentiality in God (he is Pure Actuality). It follows, therefore, that God cannot change.
The second argument for God's immutability follows from his simplicity. If everything about a being changed, then it would not be the same being but an entirely new being. In fact, such a phenomenon would not be change but annihilation of one thing and creation of something entirely new. Now if in every change in a being something remains the same and something does not, then it must be composed of these two elements (i.e., what changes and what does not change). But an absolutely simple being, such as God, has no composition. Therefore, it follows that God cannot change.
The third argument for God's unchangeability begins with his absolute perfection. God is, by his very nature, an absolutely perfect being. If there were any perfection that he lacked, then he would not be God. To change one must gain something new. But to gain a new perfection is to have lacked it. Hence, God cannot change. If he did, he would not be God. Rather, he would have been a being lacking in some perfection, not the absolutely perfect God he is.
Aquinas also argues that God alone is immutable.3 All creatures exist only because of the will of the Creator. It was his power that brought them into existence, and it is his power that keeps them in existence. Therefore, if he withdrew his power they would cease to exist. But whatever can cease to exist is not immutable. For ceasing to exist is a change, and immutable beings cannot change. Therefore, God alone is immutable; everything else could cease to exist.
God's Eternality
God is not tempora1,4 but beyond time. Aquinas offers several arguments in support of this conclusion. First, whatever exists in time can be measured in terms of its befores and afters. A changeless being, however, has no befores and afters; it is always the same. Consequently, God must be timeless.
The second argument for God's eternality follows from his immutability, and stresses another aspect of time. Whatever is temporal has successive states, one after the other. But as an immutable being God has no changing states, one after another. Immutability necessarily implies eternity.5 Therefore, God cannot be temporal (in time).
Not only is God eternal but he alone is eternal.6 The reason for this is that God alone is essentially immutable, since all creatures can cease to exist. But, as we have seen, eternity necessarily follows from immutability. It follows, then, that God alone is essentially eternal.
Aquinas distinguishes eternity from endless time in several ways.7 First, whatever is essentially whole is essentially different from that which has parts. Eternity differs from time in this way (eternity is a now; time has now and then). Hence, eternity is essentially different from time. In other words, God's eternity is not divided; it is all present to him in his eternal now. So it must be essentially different from time that comes only moment by moment.
Second, endless time is not eternity; it is just more of time. Eternity, on the other hand, differs in kind from time (i.e., essentially, not merely accidentally). Endless time differs only accidentally from time because it is simply an elongation of time. Thus, eternity is essentially different from endless time.
Third, endless time can be computed in terms of befores and afters. Hence, endless time is not the same as eternity. The eternal is changeless, but what can be measured in terms of befores and afters has changed. It follows, then, that the eternal cannot be endless time. It must be something qualitatively rather than quantitatively different.
Fourth, Aquinas argues that there is a crucial difference between the "now" of time and the "now" of eternity.8 The "now" of time is movable while the "now" of eternity is not. Eternity is not movable in any way. The eternal "now" is unchanging, but the now of time is ever-changing. Therefore, they cannot be the same. There is only an analogy between time and eternity, not an identity. God's now has no past or future; time's now does.
Some have mistakenly concluded that Aquinas does not believe in God's duration simply because he rejects temporality in God. Aquinas explicitly addresses this issue. He argues that duration occurs as long as actuality exists. But all three endure in different ways. Eternity (God) endures without any potency. Aeviternity (angels) endure with completely actualized potency. Time (humankind) endures with progressive actualized potency. It follows, then, that the essential difference comes from the condition of the actuality that is measured.
Another way to understand the difference between God's eternity and time is to recognize that time is an accidental change, not a substantial change. A substantial change is a change in what something is, and an accidental change is a change in what something has. Aquinas points out that time is an accidental change. And only humankind, not God or angels, has accidental change. So, only humankind is in time. Although angels undergo substantial change (creation), this does not involve time. The only mode of being that existed before angels began was an eternal mode (God). Time does not begin with angels because time involves an accidental change and angels do not undergo accidental changes.
A substantial change (for humankind or angels) is not a change in time. For no substantial change has both a before and after in time. Eternity is one pole and time the other. Hence, substantial change for humankind is a change into or out of time but not a change in time. But God cannot change substantially or accidentally. Since he is a Necessary Being he cannot go out of existence. And since he is a simple Being he has no accidents. Therefore, God cannot be temporal in any way, since time involves change.
God's Unity
Aquinas offers three arguments for God's unity.9 The first is taken from the simplicity of God. An absolutely simple being cannot be more than one since to be more than one there must be parts. A simple being has no parts. An absolutely simple being is not divisible. God is an absolutely simple being. Therefore, God cannot be more than one being.
Second, God's perfection argues for his unity. If two or more gods existed, they would have to differ. And in order to differ one must have what the other lacks. But an absolutely perfect being cannot lack anything. Therefore, there can only be one absolutely Perfect Being.
Third, God's unity can be inferred from the unity of the world. The world is composed of diverse things. Diverse things do not come together unless they are ordered. But the world has an ordered unity. Therefore, there must be one Orderer of the world.
Aquinas argues that essential unity is better explained by one Orderer than by many orderers. For one is the essential cause of oneness, but many is only the accidental cause of oneness. Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that there is only one cause of the world, not many. In short, this is a universe, and a uni-verse calls for a uni-tary cause (namely, One).
God's Relatability
One of the criticisms of classical theism is that an eternal, unchanging God cannot relate to a changing world. Aquinas anticipates this objection and treats it extensively under several headings.
First, there is a real relationship between the unchanging God and the changing world.10 There are three kinds of relations: one where both terms are ideas (e.g., the same is the same as itself); one where both terms are real (e.g., a small thing compared to a large thing); and one where one is real and one is an idea (e.g., on the right side).
Since creatures are really dependent on God but God is not really dependent on them, they are related as real to an idea. That is, God knows about the relationship of dependence but he does not have it. Thus, when there is a change in the creature there is no change in God. When a person moves from one side of a pillar to the other, for example, the pillar does not change; the person changes in relation to the pillar. So, while the relationship between God and creatures is real, God is in no sense dependent in that relationship.
Aquinas is only denying dependent relationship, not all real ones. He is denying that God changes in his relationship with the world, not that there are real changes in God's relation with the world.
The real but unchanging relation of God to the world is made even more clear when Aquinas treats the question of how the eternal God is related to the temporal world.11 He argues that temporal relations exist only in God's ideas of temporal things but not really. For example, to create is a temporal relation. But God is not a creature. Hence, to have a relationship with the temporal world God does not have to be temporal. In short, it makes no more sense to say God has to be temporal in order to relate to a temporal world than to say he has to be a creature in order to create.
God is really related to creatures as their Creator. But creatures are really related to God because he is their Creator. The real relation of dependence, then, lies in the creature, not in the Creator. Therefore, the relation of God to creatures is real and not merely ideal. But it is a real relationship of dependence on the part of the creatures, not on the part of God.12
God's Knowledge
If God is absolutely simple, then how can he know himself? All knowledge involves both a knower and a known. But God has no such duality; he is completely simple. In self-knowledge the knower and known are identical. Hence, God can only know himself through himself.13 In short, God knows himself by himself and in himself. And since God is simple, it follows that he knows himself simply.
Furthermore, God also knows himself perfectly. Something is known perfectly when its potential to be known is completely realized. And there is no unactualized potentiality in God, since he is complete actuality (Pure Actuality). Therefore, God knows himself perfectly. His self-knowledge is completely actualized.14
The fact that God knows himself perfectly does not mean God cannot know evil. For perfect knowledge of things must include knowing all that can occur to them. And evil can occur to good things (as a corruption of them). Hence, God can know evil. But things are knowable only in the way in which they are (exist). And evil exists only as a privation in good things (but not in itself ). Therefore, God knows evil as a privation in a good but does not know evil in itself the way darkness is known by light but not in itself.15
Further, God's knowledge is identical with his essence. For if God's acts of knowledge were really distinct from his essence, then they would be related as actuality to potentiality. But there can be no potentiality in God; he is Pure Actuality. Therefore, God's knowledge and essence are really identical.16 This does not mean that God cannot know things other than himself, however, for God is the Efficient Cause of all things.
All effects preexist in their efficient causes. Hence, whatever exists must preexist in God who is its Efficient Cause. And God knows himself perfectly. But to know himself perfectly entails knowing all of the various kinds of perfection in himself as well as those that can participate in his likeness. Therefore, it follows that God knows whatever exists perfectly insofar as they all preexist in him.17
Since God is unchanging and his knowledge is identical with his essence, does this mean that God cannot know changing things? Not at all. For God knows everything in one eternal now, including the past, present, and future. And God knows the future before it happens in time. Therefore, when time changes God's knowledge does not change, since he knew it in advance. In other words, God knows what we do but not the way we do. God knows the whole of time from (in) eternity, but he knows what is before and what is after the temporal now of human history.18
Likewise, God is one but he knows many things. For God knows his own essence perfectly. And knowing his essence perfectly entails knowing it according to every mode by which it can be known, namely, in itself and as participated in by creatures. Every creature has its own proper form in which it is like God. It follows, therefore, that God knows the form or idea of every creature as it is modeled after him.
In brief, the basis for what God knows is his own essence, but the extent of what he knows is not limited to that one essence but reaches to all things like it.19 God's knowledge of all things in himself does not mean that he only knows other things in general but not in particular. For God's knowledge extends as far as his causality. And God's causality extends to singular things, since he is the cause of every individual thing. Therefore, God knows singular things.20
Furthermore, God has a perfect knowledge of everything. To know something only in general but not in particular is improper knowledge. God knows everything properly. For example, he does not know radii merely by knowing the center; he knows the radii as well as the center. This is further demonstrated by the fact that perfect knowledge involves the ability to distinguish one thing from another. God not only knows what things have in common but how they differ. Therefore, God knows all things in their individual essences. But all things preexist in God's knowledge. Therefore, all things preexist in God's knowledge not only with regard to their existence but also with regard to their individual essences. In addition, by knowing himself perfectly God knows perfectly all the different ways his perfections can be shared by others. For there is within the essence of God all the knowledge of all possible kinds of things that his will could actualize. Hence, God knows all the particular things that could ever be actualized.21
God knows the same things we do, but he does not know them the same way we do. Our knowledge is discursive, moving from premises to conclusions. In human knowledge there is twofold discursiveness: where one thing is known after another and where one thing is known through another. But God cannot know things sequentially, since he is timeless and knows all things eternally at once. Nor can God know things inferentially, for he is simple and knows all things through the oneness of himself. Therefore, God cannot know anything discursively.22
God knows things other than himself through himself—neither successively nor inferentially, but simultaneously and intuitively. In brief, God knows the created effects in himself but not through himself in a discursive way.23 This is not an imperfection in God's knowledge but a perfection. For God's knowledge is more perfect precisely because he does not have to know things discursively through their causes but knows them directly and intuitively.24
God not only knows all things in and through himself, but he also causes all things by his knowledge and Being. His Being is the cause of all other beings. But God's Being and knowledge are identical. Hence, God causes all things by his knowledge.25 This does not mean that creation is eternal because he is eternal. For God causes all things as they are in his knowledge. But that creation should be eternal was not in God's knowledge (this Aquinas accepts by faith in the authority of Scripture). So, even though God's knowledge is eternal, creation is not eternal.26
God's knowledge is not simply of the actual; he also knows the potential. He knows both what is and what could be. For God can know whatever is real in any way it can be known. Now both the actual and the potential are real. Only the impossible has no reality. Thus, whatever is potential is real. This being the case, it follows that God can know what is potential as well as what is actual.27 This means that God can know future contingents, that is, things that are dependent on free choice. For the future is a potential that preexists in God. And God knows whatever exists in himself as the cause of those things.28 Furthermore, since God is a timeless Being, he knows all of time in one eternal now. But the future is part of time. Therefore, God knows the future, including the free acts to be performed in it. Of course, whatever God knows he knows infallibly, since he cannot err in his knowledge. And since God knows future contingents, it follows that they too are known infallibly by God. They are contingent with regard to their immediate cause (human free choice) but necessary with regard to God's knowledge. God can do this without eliminating free choice, for an omniscient being can know whatever is not impossible to know. And it is not impossible for a timeless being to know a necessary end that is brought about by a contingent means.
In brief, God can know that what may-be must-be but that it can't-be. Therefore, an omniscient being (God) knows as necessarily true all future contingents. This he can do because he knows necessarily that what will be must be. That is, if it will be and God knows it, then what he knows about what will be, must be true. An omniscient mind cannot be wrong about what it knows. Therefore the statement, "Everything known by God must necessarily be," is true if it refers to the statement of the truth of God's knowledge, but false if it refers to the necessity of the contingent events.29
God's Will
God not only knows, but he also wills. For wherever there is intellect there is also will, for will follows upon intellect. And there is intellect in God. Hence, there is also will in God. Further, every nature inclines to its own proper end or good. When the end is rational then the inclination is a rational inclination. But a rational inclination toward its own intelligible good is what is meant by will. And God has rational inclination toward the good of his own nature. Therefore, God has will.30
Although God has a will he does not change. For the object of God's will is himself, namely, the divine Goodness. And whatever is in one's self necessitates no movement outside one's self to attain. Hence, God does not have to move outside himself to attain his own proper end. That is, God's essence is his own end; there is no end outside of God. And will is an inclination toward one's own end. So, there is will in God inasmuch as he inclines toward his own good. Furthermore, will also loves and delights in what is possessed. God loves and delights in the possession of his own nature. Therefore, God has will in the sense of delight but not in the sense of desire.31
Simply because God wills things only in himself does not mean that he wills only himself For it is in accord with the nature of being to communicate its good to others. And God is Being par excellence; he is the source of all being. Hence, it is in accord with the nature of God to will beings other than himself.32 So God wills things other than himself in and through himself. God is not other than himself, but he can will things other than himself in himself. For will implies a relationship. Hence, although God is not other than himself, yet he wills things other than himself.33 Just as God understands other things through himself, so God wills others through himself.
For what is moved by itself to act is not moved by another. Hence, God is not moved by another when he wills to create through himself.34 But in willing things other than himself, God is not moved by any insufficiency in himself but by the sufficiency in himself, that is, by his own goodness. Therefore, willing other things through his own sufficiency denotes no insufficiency in God.35 Just as God knows many things (truth) through the oneness of his essence, he can will many things through the oneness (good) of his will.36
For Aquinas, God is a Necessary Being and what he wills he does so with necessity. But there are two ways God wills things with necessity. He can will things with absolute necessity—his own goodness. This God must will; he cannot choose otherwise. Or, God can will things with conditional necessity, such as willing the goodness of creatures. This God need not will, but if he does will it then, of course, he cannot thereby not will it. But he does not have to will it to begin with. Now whatever is willed by conditional necessity is not absolutely necessary. Creation is willed by conditional necessity.
Of course, God wills other things because of his own goodness but not as necessitated by it. For God can exist without willing other things. God need only will his own goodness necessarily and other things contingently. Therefore, these other things need not be willed with absolute necessity. It is necessary to God's will that he will his own nature necessarily. But it is not necessary to God's will that he will created goods necessarily. Hence, it is not necessary that God will anything other than himself. But God did will things other than himself. God must have willed these other things voluntarily.37
It would seem that God must will things necessarily. For as a Necessary Being he must know necessarily whatever he knows. It would seem, then, that he must will necessarily what he wills. Aquinas responds as follows. Divine knowing is necessarily related to the created thing known, because knowledge exists in the Knower (God), who is one with his essence. But divine willing is not necessarily related to the created thing willed, since willing is of the things as they exist in themselves outside of the necessity of the divine essence. Hence, God knows necessarily what he knows but does not will necessarily what he wills. Further, all things God knows exist necessarily in God, but nothing exists necessarily outside him. But God needs only to will necessarily what is necessarily to his own nature. Therefore, God needs only to will other things contingently, that is, as they exist in themselves outside of himself.38
Further, God's will is the cause of all things. For all created effects preexist in God according to his nature. God's knowledge is identical with his nature. Hence, all created things preexist in God's knowledge. Now will is the inclination to put into act what one knows. Therefore, all created effects flow from God's will.39 Of course, God must bestow good on all he chooses to create; God cannot create evil. But it is not necessary that God will any other being or good than himself. Therefore, God need only bestow good on what he chooses to create.40
As to whether God's will has a cause, Aquinas gives a negative answer. God's will is the cause of all things, and what is the cause of all needs no cause at all. For in God the means and the end preexist in the cause as willed together. Hence, the end willed is not the cause of God's willing; rather his willing is the cause of the end (and means) willed. And since all things preexist in the First Cause (God's will), then there is no cause for God's will (for God's will is the First Cause and there is no cause of the First Cause; rather, it is the cause of everything else41).
God's will can never fail. For the will of God is the universal cause of all things. Therefore, the will of God never fails but is always fulfilled, for what falls from God's will in one order returns to God's will in another order. For example, what falls from the order of his favor returns to the order of his justice. Particular effects may fall short of particular forms but not of their universal form. For example, something may fail to be a person or an animal, but it cannot fail to be a being. But the failure of a particular cause is included within the success of the universal cause. So, when particular causes fail, the universal cause does not fail. God cannot fail.42
Aquinas distinguishes, however, between the antecedent and consequent will of God, not with regard to his will in itself but regarding the thing willed. God wills antecedently that all should be saved. But God wills consequently that some will be lost, namely, those whom justice demands. But what is willed antecedently is not willed absolutely but only conditionally. Only the consequent is willed absolutely in view of all the circumstances. Of course, God wills some things through secondary causes. And first causes are sometimes hindered through defects in secondary causes. For instance, the locomotion of the body is hindered through a bad leg. Likewise, God's antecedent will is sometimes hindered by a defect in a secondary cause. But his consequent will is never frustrated. For first universal causes cannot be hindered by defective secondary causes, any more than goodness as such can be hindered by evil. And God is the universal First Cause of being. Therefore, God's will cannot be hindered.43
Neither can God's will be changed. For he is omniscient, and what he knows will be, will be. God's will is in perfect accord with his knowledge. Therefore, God's will is unchangeable. This does not mean that God does not will that some things change, but that God's will does not change even though he does will that other things change.44 Of course, the Bible speaks of God repenting, but God repents only in a metaphorical sense. Actually, God knew from eternity if people would repent. And God's will includes intermediate causes such as human free choice. So God knows what the intermediate causes will choose to do. And God's will is in accord with his unchangeable knowledge. Therefore, God's will never changes, since he wills what he knows will happen. That is to say, what is willed by conditional necessity does not violate human freedom, since what is willed is conditioned on our freely choosing it. God wills our salvation only conditionally. Therefore, God's will to salvation does not violate human free choice; it utilizes it.
The Nature of God Defended
The relevance of Aquinas is evident in the current critique of classical theism by process theologians. The rationale for rejecting Aquinas's view of God has been stated most forcefully by Schubert Ogden and Charles Hartshorne. Their objections can be put in the form of five antinomies.
The Antinomy of Creation
Ogden insists that if God is a Necessary Being and yet his will is one with his essence, then creation cannot flow freely from God, as Aquinas would have it. Hence, if creation is free, then God cannot be a Necessary Being. For if God necessarily willed creation, as his nature demands, then he was not free in creating.45
Aquinas's answer is simple and to the point: "As to things willed by God, we must observe that He wills something of absolute necessity; but this is not true of all that He wills." For example, "God wills the being of His own goodness necessarily. . . . But God wills things other than Himself in so far as they are ordered to His own goodness as their ends."46 That is to say, God is necessary goodness and this he must will necessarily. All other things are contingent and their goodness is willed contingently. For whatever is in God's nature is there necessarily, but it is not in the nature of God that everything flow from him necessarily.47 Therefore, God can be a Necessary Being and yet creation can flow from him freely. Ogden's objection fails to show Aquinas's view is incoherent.
The Antinomy of Service
According to Ogden there is no meaningful sense in which Aquinas's God can be served.48 Service is doing something for God. But, according to Aquinas, God is immutably perfect and thus there is really nothing one can do for him. What can we give to a Being who literally has everything? For Ogden, God is "statically completed perfection." There is nothing we can add to him.
First, Ogden misunderstands Aquinas's view of God. God is not "statically completed perfection." Rather, he is Dynamic Act, Pure Actuality. Second, Aquinas would admit that one cannot literally add some perfection to the nature of the absolutely perfect Being God is. But, Aquinas would hasten to add, this does not mean that we cannot do anything for God. A perfect God does not need our service, but he does want it. That is, He does not want it because He lacks it but because he delights in it. Scripture tells us that "the Father seeks such to worship Him" (John 4:23)—for his glory and for our good. What, then, can we give to the God who has everything? Worship. Service. Why? Because he wants it for His glory and for our good. Finally, it is utterly presumptuous for finite and imperfect creatures to think that they can add anything to the infinitely perfect Creator. It is, however, humbling to know that such an exalted Being even wants (although he does not need) our service to achieve his ends in furthering his kingdom.
The Antinomy of Relationship
According to Ogden, the God of Aquinas is unrelatable to the world. For all genuine relationships involve give and take, or mutual dependence. But according to Aquinas, the world is dependent on God, but God is not dependent on the world. But if God is completely independent of the world, then he is unrelatable with the world. He cannot really interact with the world, as the Bible describes him doing.49
Here again, Aquinas would agree that God is not dependent on the world, but would deny that this means God cannot have a real relationship with the world. To claim, as Ogden does, that all true relationships involve mutual dependence is wrong. It is gross anthropomorphism. Just because all real relationships among creatures involve mutual dependence does not mean that this is so of creatures' relations to the Creator. Further, Aquinas shows clearly that there is a real relationship between creatures and Creator; it is simply not a relationship in which God depends on creatures. God and humankind are really related whether humankind is on the right side or moves to the left side. But it is humankind who changes, not God. Likewise, God enters into real relationships with changing creatures, but he does not change; they do.50
The Antinomy of Supreme Reality
Hartshorne objects to Aquinas's view of God on the grounds that either God must include all reality or else he cannot be supreme: "the supposition that the supreme reality is not all-inclusive implies that it is but a constituent of the totality, and so not the supreme reality after all."51
This objection is based on an equivocal use of the phrase "include all reality." If it means God must include all reality in his Being (essence), then Aquinas would reject it, since creatures are not part of the essence of God. Furthermore, if this is what it means then Hartshorne has begged the question in favor of his panentheism (all-in-God). If, on the other hand, "include all reality" means include it either in himself or in his power, then Aquinas would agree. For all reality preexists in its Cause (God) either actually (as does God's own essence) or potentially (as does creation). That is, God has the active power (ability) to create something other than himself. In this sense, he is all-inclusive. On the other hand, God is not identical with creation. If he were, he would be both created and uncreated, necessary and contingent, which is impossible. Finally, Hartshorne's objection is based on a univocal concept of being, whereas Aquinas shows that being is to be understood analogically (see Chap. 10). If being is different in Creator and creatures, then their being is not the same as his. Hence, Hartshorne's objection fails. For when Aquinas says the world is in God he does not mean it is God. It preexists in God's power but it does not coexist with his nature. Creation is dependent on God, but being finite, it is not identical with God.
The Antinomy of Contingent Truth
Hartshorne also rejects traditional theism because there is "the contradiction of a God held to be without accidental properties, although having knowledge of contingent truth. Thus he knows that a certain world exists which might not have existed. . . . And still, none of his properties or qualities was admitted to be contingent!"52
But how can God know the contingent if he is a necessary Being whose knowledge is identical to His Being? Again, Aquinas answered this problem hundreds of years in advance. All of God's knowledge is necessary, even his knowledge of contingents. Simply because an event is contingent does not mean that God's knowledge of it is also contingent. God knows everything that can be known (both actual and possible) in a necessary way, even if a thing known is not necessary. For example, God knows for sure what will happen freely. In Aquinas's own words, "things known are contingent because of their proximate causes, while the knowledge of God, which is the first cause, is necessary."53 So the event is necessary from the standpoint of God's knowledge, but free from the vantage point of its immediate cause. There is no contradiction involved here at all.
Many of the questions now being discussed by process theologians were anticipated and answered by Aquinas. He demonstrates how God can be unchanging and yet related to a changing world. Just as a pillar does not change when a person moves, even so God remains unchanged as he relates to his changing world. God is not dependent on the world; the world is absolutely dependent on him.
Most of the objections leveled against the traditional theistic understanding of God's knowledge are answered by Aquinas's distinction between what God knows and the way he knows. It is evident that an eternal and unchanging Being cannot know the way we know, since we know in a temporal and changing way. This is a limitation on us, however, not on God.
Protestant theology, whether Calvinistic or Arminian, is dependent on Aquinas's view that God is all-powerful and omniscient. Without these attributes there is no predestination, whether based on foreknowledge (as Arminians claim) or not (as Calvinists hold). In fact, if the basic metaphysical attributes of God, as articulated by Aquinas, are not preserved, then all of orthodox Catholic and Protestant theology collapses. Herein is another powerful reason for not neglecting the major contribution of Aquinas to the contemporary discussion about God.