RESPONSE:
RESPONSE:
It should be said that the relation to God is something in the creature. In evidence of which it should be noted that, as the Commentator says in Metaphysics 11, some thought relation to be a second intention because it is the weakest being of all the categories. The things first understood are outside the soul, and intellect bears on them as things to be understood; what is thought secondly are called intentions consequent on our mode of understanding, and these the intellect understands secondarily insofar as it reflects on itself, understanding itself to understand and the manner in which it understands.
It would follow from this position that relation is not among the things outside the mind, but only in the intellect, like the intentions of genus and species, and of second substances.
But this cannot be. Only what exists outside the mind is placed in any of the categories. But the being of reason is contrasted with being divided by the ten categories, as is clear from Metaphysics 5. If relation were not among the things outside the soul, it would not be included as one kind of category. Moreover, the perfection and good that are in things outside the soul are based not only on something absolutely inhering in things but also on the order of one thing to another, just as the good of the army consists in the order of the parts of an army. The Philosopher compares the order of the universe to this order.
Therefore it is necessary that in things themselves there be an order and this order is a kind of relation. Hence, there must be relations in things themselves according to which one is ordered to another. One thing is ordered to another either on the basis of quantity or of some active or passive power. Only on the basis of these two does something exist in one with respect to another extrinsic thing. For something is measured not only by intrinsic quantity but also by extrinsic. By active power a thing acts on another and by passive power is acted upon by another. By substance and quality, however, something is ordered only to itself, not to another, except incidentally; that is, insofar as quality – or substantial form or matter – have the note of active or passive power and insofar as some notion of quantity is considered in them: thus what is substantially one is the same, the qualitatively one is the similar, and number or multitude cause the dissimilar and diverse in the same; the dissimilar is taken to be the more or less so than another: for thus something is said to be whiter than another. On account of this, the Philosopher in Metaphysics 5, assigning the species of relation, holds that some are caused by quantity and some by action and passion.
Therefore, it is necessary that things ordered to something are really referred to it, and that the relation is something in them. But all creatures are ordered to God as to principle and end, for the order of the parts of the universe among themselves is from the order of the whole universe to God, just as the order between the parts of the army is for the sake of the order of the army to the leader, as is clear from Metaphysics 12. Hence it is necessary that creatures are really referred to God and that this relation is something in the creature.
Ad 1. It should be said that the fact that when there is a mutual relation of creatures that posits nothing in either of the extremes this is not because of the distance between them but rather because the relation is not based on any order among the things but on one which is in intellect alone. Which cannot be said of the order of creatures to God.
Ad 2. It should be said that these relations are not referred to another by some other relation but of themselves, because they are essentially relations. It is not the same with things that have absolute substance, hence it does not follow that there is an infinite regress.
Ad 3. It should be said that the Philosopher in the same place concludes that if all are referred to the best, that which is infinite in species must be the best, and thus nothing prevents what is infinite in species from being referred to an infinity of things. But God is such, since the perfection of his substance is restricted to no genus, as was said above. On account of this, nothing prevents an infinity of creatures from being referred to God.
Ad 4. It should be said that the creature is referred to God, according to his substance as the cause of the relation, but according to the relation formally, just as something is called similar according to quality causally, but according to similarity formally. For the creature is denominated similar from it.
Ad 5. It should be said that an intermediate cause is excluded when the creature is said to proceed from God immediately, but not a mediating real relation, which follows naturally on the production of the creature; just as equality follows the production of quantity indeterminately, so the real relation naturally follows on the production of created substance.
Ad 6. It should be said that creatures follow on God’s knowledge as effect on cause, not as the proper notion of their being, as if a creature were nothing else than being known by God. This is the way those spoke who held that all appearances are true, and the thing to follow on opinion and sensation, such that for anything to be is for it to be sensed or thought by another.
Ad 7. It should be said that the relation that is nothing other than the order of one creature to another has one feature insofar as it is an accident and another insofar as it is a relation or order. For insofar as it is an accident, it is in a subject, but not insofar as it is a relation or order, but only because it is, as it were, passing into another and in a way taking up a position in the related thing. Thus relation is something inherent, though not insofar as it is a relation, just as action insofar as it is action is considered to be from the agent, but insofar as it is an accident it is considered as in the acting subject. So nothing prevents such an accident from ceasing to be without a change in that in which it is, because its nature is not perfected by the fact that it is in the subject but insofar as it tends to another. That being taken away, the notion of this accident is taken away as actual but it remains with respect to its cause, just as, matter being taken away, heating is taken away, although the cause of heating remains.
Ad 8. It should be said that created being is not ordered to non-being, although it has an order to uncreated being, so the similarity does not obtain.
Article 10: Is God really referred to the creature in such a way that this relation is something in God?
The answer seems to be yes.
1. The mover is really related to the moved, hence the Philosopher, in Metaphysics 5, identifies the relation of mover to moved as a species in the category of relation. But God is compared to the creature as mover to moved. Therefore, he is really related to the creature.
2. But it might be said that he moves creatures without any change in himself, and therefore is not really related to the thing moved. On the contrary, one of relative opposites does not cause the other to be called by the same name: for something is not double because it is half, nor is God Father because he is the Son. Therefore, if the mover is said relatively to the moved, the relation of moving is not in something because the relation of being moved is in it. Therefore, the fact that God is not moved does not prevent him being really related as mover to the moved.
3. Moreover, as a father gives existence to his son, so does the creator give existence to the creature. But a father is really related to his son; therefore, the creator is really related to the creature.
4. Moreover, things which are properly and not metaphorically said of God place the thing signified in God. But among such names Dionysius puts ‘Lord’. Therefore the thing signified by the name ‘Lord’ is really in God. But this is a relation to creature, therefore, etc.
5. Moreover, knowledge is really related to the knowable, as is evident in Metaphysics 5. But God is compared to created things as knower to known. Therefore, there is in God a relation to creatures.
6. Moreover, what is moved always has a real relation to the mover. But will is compared to the thing willed as mover to moved, for the desirable is an unmoved mover and appetite a moved mover, as is said in Metaphysics 12. Therefore, since God wills things to be, he seems to be really related to creatures.
7. Moreover, if God is not related to creatures, there seems to be no other reason for this than that he does not depend on creatures and because he exceeds creatures. But in a similar way celestial bodies do not depend on elementary bodies and exceed them disproportionately. Therefore, on this basis it would follow that there is no real relation of the higher bodies to the lower.
8. Moreover, every denomination is from form. But form is something inherent in the thing whose form it is. Since therefore God is named from relations to creatures, it seems that these relations are something in God.
9. Moreover, proportion is a real relation, for example double to half, but there seems to be a proportion of God to creature, since there must be a proportion between mover and moved. Therefore it seems that God is really related to the creature.
10. Moreover, since concepts are likenesses of things and words are signs of things, as the Philosopher says, these have one order for the learner and another for the teacher, for the teacher begins with things from which he receives knowledge in his intellect, of whose conceptions words are signs, but the learner begins with words by which he attains the conceptions in the teacher’s intellect, and from them knowledge of things. It is necessary that what is said of the foregoing relations is first known by some teacher. Therefore, with him such relative names follow the conceptions of his intellect which are consequent on things. Therefore, it seems these relations are real.
11. Moreover, such relatives as are said of God temporally are either relatives according to existence or according to talk. If they are relatives according to talk, nothing real is posited in either extreme. But this is false according to the foregoing, for they exist really in the creature related to God. So they must be relatives according to existence, and it seems therefore that they posit something real in both extremes.
12. Moreover, it is the nature of relatives that, when one is given, the other is given, and if one is taken away, so is the other. If, therefore, there is some real relation to God in the creature, there must be a real relation to creatures in God.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. Augustine says in On the Trinity 5, that it is manifest that God is spoken of relatively because of an accident in the thing relative to which God begins to be talked of. Therefore, it seems that these relations are said of God, not because of something in himself, but according to something outside, and thus they posit nothing real in him.
2. Moreover, as the knowable is the measure of knowledge, so God is the measure of all things, as the Commentator says in Metaphysics 10. But the knowable is not related to knowledge by a relation which is really in it, but rather because of the relation of knowledge to it, as is clear from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 5. Therefore, it seems that God is not spoken of relatively to creatures because of some relation which is really in him.
3. Moreover, Dionysius says, ‘We do not have conversion between causes and effects, for the effect is said to be like the cause, but not vice versa.’ What is true of similarity seems true of other relations. Therefore it seems that no more do the other relations bring about a conversion from God to creature, such that, because the creature is really related to God, God is really related to creatures.
RESPONSE:
It should be replied that when God is said to be related to creatures the relation is not really in him. In evidence of which it should be noted that since a real relation consists in the order of one thing to another thing, as has been said, a mutual real relation is only found in things in which on both sides there is some notion of order of the one to the other, which is found in all relations based on quantity, for since the notion of quantity is abstracted from everything sensible, there is the same notion of quantity in all natural bodies. For the same reason that one thing having quantity is really related to the other, the reverse is true.
But a quantity taken absolutely has an order to another according to the notion of measure and measured, and according to the name of whole and part, and other such things that follow on quantity. But in relations which are founded on active and passive power there is not always the order of motion from both sides. For that which always has the note of patient and being moved, or caused, is ordered to agent or mover, since an effect is always perfected by its cause and depends on it, hence it ordered to it as to its perfecter.
But agents or movers or even causes are sometimes ordered to patients, to the moved, to the caused, insofar as having brought about the effect or passion or moved, a certain good and perfection of the mover and agent results, as especially is evident in univocal agents which by acting bring about a likeness of their species, and to the degree possible preserve it in perpetuity.
The same is clear in all other things which are moved in moving or acting or causing, for by the motion itself they are ordered to producing effects, and similarly in all of them some good comes about in the cause from the effect. There are some things which are ordered to others, but not vice versa, because they are quite outside the genus of actions or powers which this order follows. As it is clear that knowledge relates to the knowable, because the one knowing, through an intelligible act, is ordered to the thing known which is outside the soul. The thing itself that is outside the soul is in no way touched by such an act, since the act of intellect does not pass out to change any external matter. Hence the thing itself outside the soul is completely outside the intelligible genus, and because of this the relation consequent on the act of intellect is not in it.
There is a similar argument concerning sense and the object of sense, for although the object of sense changes the organ of sense in its action, and because of this has a relation to it – as other natural agents to the things acted on by them – still the alteration of the organ does not bring about actual sensing, which is brought about by the act of the sense power, of which the sensible outside the soul is wholly incapable. Similarly man is related to a column as being to the right of it because of the power to move that is in him, according to which he can move to right or left, to front or rear, up or down. Therefore, such relations are real in the man or animal, but not in the thing that lacks this power. Similarly the coin is outside the activity through which the price comes to be, which is an agreement arrived at between men, and a man is outside the genus of the art-making activities through which his image is effected.
Therefore, a man does not have a real relation to his image, nor coin to price, but vice versa. God does not act through an intervening action which is understood as proceeding from God and terminating in the creature, but his action is his substance and whatever is in him is wholly outside the genus of created existence by which the creature is related to God. Nor does any good accrue to the creator from the production of the creature. Hence his action is supremely liberal, as Avicenna says. It is also clear that he is not moved to act, but without any change on his own part makes mutable things.
The result is that there is in him no real relation to the creature, although there is a relation of the creature to him, that of effect to cause. The Rabbi was multiply wrong when he tried to prove that there is no relation between God and creature because God, not being a body, has no relation to time or place. For he considered only the relation consequent on quantity, not that which follows on action and passion.
Ad 1. It should be said that the natural mover and agent move and act by means of action or motion which is between the mover and moved, the agent and the acted upon. Thus the agent as agent is not extraneous to the genus of the acted upon insofar as acted upon. Hence there is a real relation of both to the other, especially when that mediate action is the proper perfection of the agent. Consequently, that in which action terminates is its good. But this does not happen in God, as has been said, so there is no similarity.
Ad 2. It should be said that the fact that the mover is moved is not the reason why the relation of moving is really in it, but a sign. From this it appears that in a certain way it falls into the genus of the moved, from the fact that it is a moved mover, and it also appears that that to which it is moved is its good from the fact that it is ordered to it by its motion.
Ad 3. It should be said that the father gives existence of his own kind to his son, since he is a univocal agent, but it is not thus that God gives existence to the creature, so the similarity does not obtain.
Ad 4. It should be said that the word ‘Lord’ includes three things in its meaning, namely, the power of coercing subordinates, an order to the subordinate which follows this power, and being the term of the order of subordinates to the Lord, for in one relative the other is understood. This meaning of the word is saved in God with respect to the first and third, but not the second. Hence Ambrose says that this word ‘Lord’ is a name of power and Boethius says that dominion is the power whereby the servant is coerced.
Ad 5. It should be said that the knowledge of God compares to things differently than does ours, for it compares to them as cause and measure. Such things are according to the truth which God in his knowledge has ordered. But these things are the cause and measure of our knowledge. Hence just as our knowledge really refers to things, and not vice versa, so things really relate to God’s knowledge, and not the reverse. Or it could be said that God understands other things in understanding himself, hence the relation of divine knowledge is not directly to things, but to the divine essence itself.
Ad 6. It should be said that the desirable which moves appetite is the end; those things which are for the sake of the end do not move appetite except by reason of the end. But the end of the divine will is not something other than the divine goodness. Hence it does not follow that other things are compared to the divine will as movers to moved.
Ad 7. It should be said that celestial bodies really relate to inferior bodies according to relations consequent on quantity, because there is the same notion of quantity in both, and also according to relations consequent on active and passive power, because they move as moved by a mediate action which is not their substance, since some good of theirs is had from this that they are causes of the lower bodies.
Ad 8. It should be said that that from which a thing is denominated is not always a natural form but it suffices that it be signified in the manner of form, grammatically speaking. For man is denominated from action and from clothing and other like things which are not really forms.
Ad 9. It should be said that if proportion be understood as some definite excess, there is no proportion of God to creature. But if proportion is understood as a relation alone, then there is one between creator and creature, in the creature really, but not in the creator.
Ad 10. It should be said that although the teacher begins with things, the conceptions of things are received in the mind of the teacher in a way different from the way they are in the nature of things, but what is received is received in the manner of the receiver, for it is evident that conceptions in the mind of the teacher exist immaterially, although they exist materially in nature.
Ad 11. It should be said that this distinction of relatives according to existence and according to speech has nothing to do with a relation’s being real. For there are relations according to existence which are not real, like right and left in the column, and there are some relatives according to speech which imply real relations, as is evident in knowledge and sensing. Relatives are said to be according to existence when the names are imposed to signify the relations themselves, and they are said to be relatives according to speech when the names are imposed to signify the qualities or the like principally, on which relations follow. And this has nothing to do with relations being real or of reason alone.
To the last it should be said that although to posit one relative is to posit the other, it is not necessary that both be posited in the same way, but it suffices that one be posited according to reality and the other according to reason.
Article 11: Are these temporal relations in God according to reason?
It seems not.
1. A notion to which nothing corresponds is empty and vain, as Boethius says. But these relations are not really in God, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, the notion would be empty and vain if they were in God only according to reason.
2. Moreover, what is according to reason alone is only attributed to things insofar as they are in the intellect, like genus and species and order. But such temporal relations are not attributed to God only insofar as he is in our intellect, for thus it would be nothing to say that God is Lord since God is understood to pre-exist creatures, which appears false. Therefore, such relations are not in God according to reason.
3. Moreover, this word ‘Lord’ signifies a relation, since it is a relation according to existence. But God is not Lord according to reason alone. Therefore such relations are not in God according to reason alone.
4. Moreover, even if no created intellect existed, God would still be Lord and creator. But there cannot be any being of reason if no created intellect exists. Therefore Lord and creator and the like do not mean relations of reason alone.
5. Moreover, that which is only according to our reason was not from all eternity. But some relations of God to creature were from eternity, such as the relations implied by knowledge and predestination. Therefore, such relations are not in God according to reason only.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Names signify notions or concepts, as is said in the beginning of On Interpretation . But these names are clearly said relatively. Therefore, such relations must be according to reason.