1. All Given and All Received: the Foundation of Mystical Union in the Deus in se of Aquinas’ Summa theologiae A paper for the “Franz von Baader: Writings and Sources of a Christian Mystic”, Independent Reading Group in the Institute for the Public Life of the Arts and Ideas at McGill University February 19, 2014 Wayne J. Hankey Department of Classics, Dalhousie University and King’s College, Halifax 1

2. Note for those preparing for the Reading Group. It is my hope that we can discuss the material in slides 3 to 27. Notice that slides 3 to 11 repeat what is given in the paper. 2

3. The metaphysics of Pure Being in St Thomas’ Summa Theologiae Very being [ipsum esse subsistens] is real, not notional, giving [dare] and receiving [accipere] of itself to itself. This giving and receiving of infinite being forming three infinite subsistences, makes understandable, though not by a compelled necessity, the emanation of finite beings, creation. Prior to that procession, and its basis, is what Thomas calls “the mission of the Divine Persons”. This is where what has come to be called “mystical experience” enters, with the language of touching, common to the tradition from Plato and Aristotle, and, crucially for Aquinas, to Plotinus and Augustine, “attingit ad ipsum Deum”: “… God is in all things by His essence, power and presence, according to His one common mode, as the cause existing in the effects which participate in His goodness. Above and beyond this common mode, however, there is one special mode consonant with the nature of a rational being in whom God is said to be present as the known in the knower, and the beloved in the lover. And because the rational creature by its operation of knowledge and love touches God Himself, according to this special mode God is said not only to exist in the rational creature but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. No other effect than sanctifying grace is able therefore to be the explanation that a divine person would be able in a new mode to be present to a rational creature.” 3

4. Beginning with the structure of ipsum esse subsistens, Thomas’ thearchy unrolls and rewinds by way of linked concentric circular motions ever more inclusive of otherness until the Summa theologiae, if completed, would have described even the encircling of evil within the mone, proodos, epistrophe of Thomas’ tripartite system of God, human, and Christ as the man-God. The circular motions returning upon themselves are of diverse kinds, and we must map them and their connections, but by far the most important are those which Aquinas deduces from the Proclean logic of simple substance. From the Liber de causis and Dionysius, he knows that simple substance has perfect self-return, a shape he has manifested, following Dionysius, in the initial questions on the divine names. In consequence, ipsum esse subsistens is, by the absolute necessity of its nature, knowing and willing. These two operations, processions or emanations—the terms are used more or less interchangeably by Aquinas for whom emanation was a Scriptural term (Liber Sapientiae, 7.25 )—are internal to the divine essence. By employing the notion of motionless motion, through which the Neoplatonists reconciled Plato and Aristotle at their greatest difference, Aquinas is able to attribute the characteristics of Plotinian NOUS to Aristotle’s (and his own) God as self- thinking thought and to predicate life of it. 4

5. However, motionless motion is a metaphor for Aquinas—he always refuses to apply the proper Aristotelian physical motion to God. Nonetheless, the ascent to God begins with it in the Quinque Viae of Summa theologiae 1.2.3. There the circle of going out from and return to origin is primarily in the subject seeking cause. Despite a start of this kind, the divine self-diremption must be real. Thus, just before the treatment of the Trinitarian Missions, we get “Et licet motus non sit in divinis, est tamen ibi accipere.” [ST 1.42.1 ad 3]. Accipere and its correlative dare are essential to the logic of infinite esse, as the form under which it is, or contains, the relation of opposites. Such a relation is real, not merely “rational”, that is, a projection of human perspective, precisely because the differentiation of the essence is through opposition, action and reception. Thus, within the divine simplicity, the two relations of this kind must of necessity form subsistences, or hypostases, to use another word which is both Scriptural and Neoplatonic, called persons in religious language. 5

6. The parts of this paper Reasons we should look at Thomas’ metaphysics of infinite being as including the whole fundamental structure of the Deus in se. Why we are able to do so. What prevents such an obvious reading. A map of the logic of the Deus in se indicating how the theology founds mystical experience and finite existence. 6

7. Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, O.P. Humbrecht’s two recent books treating the Deus in se and Aquinas’ Summa theologiae exhibit the institutional structures, the historical traditions, and the philosophical and theological aims and positions which separate the deo uno from the deo trino in a way the Summa theologiae does not do. These prevent seeing their unifying logic. Théologie négative et noms divins chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 2005), 841 pages, is a dissertation directed by Olivier Boulnois, Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Professeur, Institut catholique de Paris, with Gilles Emery, Jean-Luc Marion, Remy Brague, Ruedi Imbach, and Alain de Libera on the jury. Théologie négative earned him a doctorate in Philosophy from the secular École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. It was succeeded by Trinité et création au prisme de la voie négative chez saint Thomas d’Aquin, Bibliothéque de la Revue thomiste (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2011) 788 pages. Trinité et création was written as Fr Humbrecht’s dissertation for the canonical doctorate of Theology at the Dominican University of Fribourg in Switzerland. It was supervised there by Gilles Emery, O.P., Ordinary Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Fribourg, with François-Xavier Putallaz, and Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P. (of the Toulouse convent which publishes the Revue thomiste), on the jury, among other notable philosophical – theological scholars of St Thomas. 7

8. The Deus in se of the Summa theologiae has a compelling, logic, evolving in step by step modifications, from its beginning in Question 2 “On the Existence of God to its completion in Question Forty-three “On the Sending of the Divine Persons”. Indeed, that logic continues into the questions on creation, and thus into the Summa as a whole. Creation, in a series of contrasts with the Divine in itself, is represented as the result of a productive operation, that of power, which, unlike knowing and willing, works outside the essence, as a procession or emanation of the Trinitarian subsistences in their essential unity. Unlike the internal operations, that of power is neither according to nature nor necessity. It constitutes a relation with the opposition of giving and receiving, but, in contrast to the Trinity, the terms are unequal. Thus, the relation is not mutually of the relative terms but in the recipient. There are two gatherings, breaks and transitions within the de deo, but there is a strong impulse throughout, and the structure, when reduced to its elements, is stunningly simple. A consequence of this simple logic uniting the whole is that the mystical anagoge, or mystagoge, begins with the rise towards cause in the Quinque viae, and the contemplation of the structure of ipsum esse subsistens implicitly and ever more explicitly trinitarian. 8

9. For those considering the foundations of mystical experience in Aquinas, it is not only important that the culmination of the whole de deo is in the sending of the hypostatic giving and receiving of knowing and loving, but also that the two gatherings, breaks and transitions within the treatise essentially involve the human subjective moment. Thus, the first of these, the questions on knowing and naming God begin with that on how God is “a nobis cognoscitur”, because, writes Aquinas, after the consideration “qualiter Deus sit secundum seipsum” the question is “qualiter sit in cognitione nostra”. [Summa theologiae 1.12, title and prologue.] Even more striking from this point of view is the question concluding the whole de deo uno, On the Divine Happiness, which is objectively the summum bonum but is also a good participated by the creature. [Summa theologiae 1.26.3 ad 1: in genere bonorum participabilium a creatura.] The Divine Beatitude concludes by gathering: … the ‘de divina beatitudine’ involves a return to the point of departure which contains what intervenes. Happiness is a perfection which collects rather than removes. This is made clear by the first words of the first article; according to Boethius, happiness is ‘status omnium bonorum aggregatione perfectus’. … 9

10. … Specifically, happiness is presented as an intellectual activity containing will and power, rather than as a less complete relation to the object than they. Happiness knows the good it possesses—or, put otherwise, it is by knowledge that will enjoys its self-possession as its own end or good. Further, the intellectual nature, which is happy, is, as will, the source of good or evil, and has power over its acts. Intellect is the origin of will and power—this was already clear—and they are also, thus, the perfections of intellect. So, as a self-complete activity, intellect contains them and is happy. Beatitude is intellect knowing and enjoying its will and power, the happiness of God, and synthetically completes the divine operations. Beatitude also involves the subjective relation to God explicit in questions 12 and 13, i.e. the relation of rational creatures to God. Partly God is recognized to be happy ‘secundum intellectum’, because it is by intellect that we enjoy God in vision. He is our blessedness. Objectively, he alone is happy since other intellects are happy by knowing him. Returning to the solutions in question 12, Thomas is able to place happiness in the subjective act of finite intellects through created grace. 10

11. The whole de deo uno is then concluded by showing that God’s happiness includes all happiness. So, as God’s unity gathers into his simplicity all those positive perfections which its initially privative form seemed to deny, happiness gathers into his knowledge all the perfections of his creatures: “quidquid est desirabile in quacumque beatitudine, vel vera vel falsa, totum eminentius in divina beatitudine praeexistit” (ST 1.26.4). [God in Himself, 112-113.] 11

12. Mapping the Structure of the Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the Deus in Se of the Summa theologiae Secundum Ordo disciplinae (Prologus) The Summa theologiae as a whole and its parts describe self-related circles of Remaining ( Remaining (mone) Going-out ( Going-out (proodos, exitus) Return Return (epistrophe, reditus) by which all things come out from and circle back to their beginning, namely God. Three parts (Summa theologiae 1.2) God (de Deo) Human being seeking God (de motu rationalis creaturae in Deum) Christ (de Christo, qui secundum quod homo, via est nobis tendendi in Deum) uniting the two, and thus bringing the human back to its source. 12

13. The Tripartite Structure of the de Deo De Deo uno. What belongs to the essence of God (ad essentiam divinam pertinent). Questions 2-26 De Deo Trino. What belongs to the distinction of Persons (ad distinctionem Personarum). QQ 27-43 Together, these constitute the Deus in se. De Deo Creante. What belongs to the procession, or emanation, of creatures (ad processum creaturarum) QQ 44ff. The De Deo uno is tripartite Whether God is (an sit Deus) Q 1.2 In What way God is, or better, is not (quomodo sit, vel potius quomodo non sit), QQ 3- 13 What belongs to the operations of the divine essence (ad operationem ipsius), QQ 14- 26 Whether the subject of this science, God, is (De Deo an sit) is tripartite: Is God’s existence self-evident (per se notum)? ST 1.2.1 Can God’s existence be proved (demonstrabile)? ST 1.2.2: Utrum Deus sit (ST 1.2.3): The Five Ways to Knowing That God Is. Beginning with the perception of motion (sensu constat aliqua moveri in hoc mundo) and concluding with motion’s term in the final cause (omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem), the Quinque viae have a circular structure. 13

14. The Circle described by the names of the Divine Essence QQ 3-11 1. Q3 de simplicitate, as simple. Esse negates all composition, is per se forma, and thus subsistent, and identical with essentia. The entrance to thinking the divine is the Platonic / Aristotelian denial of corporeality. 6. Q8 existentia dei in rebus. God exists in all things “intime” and “immediate” “sicut agens adest ei in quod agit”, “ut dans eis esse et virtutem et operationem”. But operations intra and extra distinguished. 2. Q4 de perfectione, treats remaining. “in uno existentia omnia praehabet” (Dionysius, 1.4.2 sc). Perfection is a negation by eminence, not in a genus, ipsum esse per se subsistens, has no proper likeness, creation is participation. 7. Q9 de immutabilitate. Picking up from the negation implicit in the distinction of the interior operations of knowing and willing from the exterior of power, Q9 begins the reditus by denying mutability of ipsum esse. 3. Q5 de bono in communi begins the exitus. Following Plato, Goodness is simultaneously efficient and final cause. 8. Q10 as time depends on motion, motion denied leads to eternity, another negation. Inclusive as “tota simul” “non est aliud quam ipse Deus”. 4. Q6 de bonitate dei is self diffusive: 1.6.2: “omnes perfectiones…effluunt ab eo”. 9. Q11 de unitate dei. “Unum convertitur cum ente” adds nothing real. This unity is above beings, ex eius simplicitate, in things, ex infinitate eius perfectionis, and of things “ab unitate mundi” 1.11. 3. 5. Q7 de infinitate: “maxime formale omnium est ipsum esse”, so is infinite and perfect as per se forma (1.7.1). Unity is a “second perfection”; unity contains the difference between the starting simplicity and the many and varied beings which came out from it. 14

15. Aquinas’ Motionlessly Moving God The circle described by the move from Simplicity through multiplicity back to Unity is only the first of many circles describing God’s inner and outer life. The next ones concern how God circles upon himself in self-knowing and self- loving. They come after two questions: 1. 1.12 How God is Known by Us, and ST 1.13 How God is Named by Us, followed by the internal operations of God, knowing and loving 2. 1.14-18: God’s Knowledge, Ideas, Truth, Falsity and Life ST 1.18 God’s Life is where Aquinas explicitly applies motionless motion to God 3. 1.19-21: God’s Will, Love, Justice and Mercy 4. 1.22-24 God’s Providence & Predestination (the combination of knowledge and will) 5. Operatio ad extra. 1.25: God’s Power Summary and transition. 1.26: God’s Happiness 6. Beginning with ST 1.27 The Processions within God and the Origin of Persons in God we get the Trinity, personal emanations within God based in his internal operations of Knowing and Loving. Scriptural revelation is necessary in order to know that there is real relation with the opposition in the essence of Giving and Receiving, the conclusion is the Mission of the Divine Persons and the gracious 6. Beginning with ST 1.27 The Processions within God and the Origin of Persons in God we get the Trinity, personal emanations within God based in his internal operations of Knowing and Loving. Scriptural revelation is necessary in order to know that there is real relation with the opposition in the essence of Giving and Receiving, the conclusion is the Mission of the Divine Persons and the gracious “attingit ad ipsum Deum”. 7. Beginning with ST 1.44 On the First Cause of all Beings we get the procession based on power which is outside God’s essence, the emanation of Creation. Here what receives is unequal to what gives (the divine essence united in the real subsistences) and the relation is not mutual but rather of creature to creator. In fact that unequal relation of dependence is what constitutes the creature as creature. 15

16. From the Names of the Essence to its Operations, Internal Trinitarian Relations, and the External Relation to it, Creation (i) QQ 12 & 13: a break, a summation, and a transition We reflect on what was accomplished in following the names of the common essence when going out from the perfect simplicity of esse to its multiplication in things and back to its inclusive and exclusive Unity in on How God is known by us and Named by Us. The likeness of our created knowledge to the divine knowing is by analogy (secundum aliqualem analogiam sicut ipsum esse est commune omnibus, 1.4.3 and, at length, 1.13.4-6). These questions sum up the first naming but do not themselves predicate a name, they are therefore a break in the argument, but as manifesting a created likeness they, in common with the Quinque viae and Thomas’ method throughout, allow a further step in the ascent from effect to cause. QQ 14-26: The Operations of the Essence: two perfect and internal (knowing and willing) and one imperfect and external (power). For the internal (and thus perfect) activities, the object of the act is within the action: the known is in the knower, the willed in the lover. For Aquinas only from these can the internal Trinitarian relations come. QQ 14-18: De scientia, ideis, veritate, falsitate, et vita. Deduced from the perfect return of simple esse upon itself and understood in relation to human and angelic knowing, these questions (and the operations generally) are centered around knowing, derive from it their figure, motionless motion, with which they conclude as enabling the attribution of life to ipsum esse subsistens. 16

17. Excursus I The Determining Principles in respect to Knowledge in the First I. Simple subsistent being is without composition and cannot be affected from outside, in consequence the argument of the de deo shows it as self- determining and self-affected. The same holds for knowing which cannot be affected by what is outside it or below it. II. The Aristotelian identity of knower and known: the form of what is known is the form of the mind of the knower. With the Peripatetics, I and II together prevent God’s knowledge of the world of material particulars. For Aquinas, should these principles prevail in this way, God could also not be their cause. III. The Neoplatonic principle (with its logical basis in Porphyry at the latest) “a thing is received (or known) according to the mode of the receiver (or knower)”. Aquinas knows and uses this from the beginning of his writing. It comes to him early both from Boethius and the Liber de causis, so he does not think of it as Platonic rather than Aristotelian. This modifies the Aristotelian identity in such a way as to enable God’s knowledge of creation and is fundamental to the analogia entis and the positive knowledge of God by us. 17

18. Excursus on the Determining Principles in respect to Knowledge Two things prevent III being sufficient to solve all the problems. a) If the First Cause is only knowing, and causes by knowing, then all it knows will necessarily exist. To prevent this the emanation of creatures requires will as well (Moses Maimonides, whose Guide of the Perplexed was well known to Aquinas, works out this problematic). b) The basis of the effect must be discernable in the cause in order for it to be known as cause. Ultimately, this requires the internal self- differentiation of Ipsum Esse Subsistens to which we are attending. Its concluding result is the giving and receiving which is the Trinity, and, as Trinity, is the cause of creation, so the necessary and natural emanations of knowing and willing are the origin of the voluntary emanation which is creation. We cannot exhibit the whole dialectic here but: 1) Aquinas maintains “the knowledge of God implies a relation to creatures as they are in God” (1.14.15), on the basis of principle II above, 2) the composition this introduced into God (although constantly denied by Aquinas on the basis of principle III above) is allowed, because, as he puts it, when discussing the ideas “the multiplication of the divine Ideas is not caused by things but by the divine essence comparing itself to things” [multiplicantur Ideae non causantur a rebus sed ab intellectu divino comparante essentiam suam ad res]. 3) By such reflective comparing, real differentiation is introduced into God by Aquinas (it is not merely our way of looking at God), he allows it as self-affectivity (a term I owe to Michel Henry). 18

19. From the Names of the Essence to its Operations,… (ii) Widening and strengthening of internal difference. Evidently this structure requires a thearchy with an ever widening and strengthening of differentiation. While the moving circle described by the divine names from simplicity to unity may merely belong to our knowing and naming (I do not think that this can be Thomas’ ultimate position), the operations involve such a widening in several ways. First, there is their very existence, a distinction between the esse and the operations of the esse. Again, this may only belong to our way of knowing, however, following Dionysius (mediating Proclus), Aquinas thinks this division is characteristic of spiritual beings. The second must require more. Both knowing and loving in the esse require self- relation. The self-relation of esse is self-knowledge, and the affirmation of known by the knower is the further identity given in the ecstatic impulse called love. Third, knowing is multiplied in the ideas. These too might be only the divine essence from the perspective of the multiple creatures, but, this is made impossible because the divine is also truth. Fourth, because truth is not in things but is in the judgment of intellect, an act of comparison for Aquinas, to be called truth the divine intellect must circle around itself to compare what goes out from it to itself as truth (see Excursus I). Finally (and fifthly), unless, impossibly, all God knows exists necessarily in virtue of its being known, will must be added to knowledge for the coming forth of creatures. QQ 19-21: De voluntate, amore, iustitia et misericordia. Knowledge is attributed to the ipsum esse subsistens because it is simple and returns on itself, so willing, which is the impulse for a greater unity of subject and object than what knowledge, with its duality (according to Plotinus and his successors) gives, follows. 19

20. From the Names of the Essence to its Operations (iii) QQ 21-24: De providentia, praedistinatione, de libro vitae A third general distinction within the operations, those with respect to intellect and will together (simul intellectum et voluntatem). In order to allow ipsum esse subsistens to have its proper effect, entia, as themselves participated forms of esse, and thus as substantial and proper images of the cause as causing as well as caused, Aquinas must go back to a difference as old at least as Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus and Boethius between providence and fate. He does this by distinguishing between providence which is in the cause, and governance or execution which is in the governed and requires the substantial reality of second causes. “Providence is not in the things provided for (provisis) but is a reason (ratio) in the mind of the provider (intellectu provisoris). But the execution (executio) of providence, which is called governance (gubernatio) is something active in the governor and something passive in the governed” (1.23.2). As secondary causes, all except the last effects are agents of government. Because these questions make clear that different states within the divine correspond to, and, also consist in, states of the creature, they bring out a reality appearing with God’s knowing. Aquinas had to distinguish modes in it which corresponded to modes of the creature. Otherwise things would be necessary and eternal in accord with the mode of absolute subsistent esse. These modes are indicated by such distinctions as those between God’s “scientia” “visionis” (of what is) and “simplicis intelligentiae” (of what could be but never is) (1.14.9) in knowing, and, most strikingly, when the love which creates irrational creatures is the ”amor concupiscentiae”, but “amor amicitae” creates rational creatures with whom God can enter into friendship. 20

21. From the Names of the Essence to its Operations and Trinitarian Relations (iv) QQ 25 & 26: De Potentia dei and Beatitudine dei: three breaks, summation, transition First we move from the internal, perfect activities or processions which become the relations of equals in the trinitarian essence to the external operation of power. It originates in what has no prior in any sense (the “Father”) and is modified in the divine intellect and will (“Word” and “Spirit”) to produce the emanation of universal being as an unequal reception, this relation of the unequal recipient to the divine esse is creation. The second break is that of an inclusive conclusion. We return to the beginning of the operations in knowing because happiness belongs to knowing beings only and because knowing is the origin of will and power: “scientia vel voluntas divina, secundum quod principium effectivum, habet rationem potentiae” ( 1.25.1 ad 4). Like the conclusion of the circle of the names of the essence, unity, divine happiness knows and enjoys its going forth in will and power and the happiness of the rational creatures who participate it: “habet continuam et certissimam contemplationem sui et omnium aliorum” ( 1.26.4). The third break is by coming to the end of processions of which there is an adequate analogy in the human mind. Despite Thomas’ developed judgment that our act of knowledge creates a mental word in us, he holds that we cannot deduce the real relations within divinity, and the real giving and receiving of the divine essence. In this sense, although the trinitarian real relations are formed from the internal activities of the essence, and are both necessary and natural, we need Scriptural revelation to be certain that they exist. This lack does not stem from weakness in their logical necessity but from the deficiency of human knowing: “Similitudo etiam intellectus nostri non sufficienter probat aliquid de Deo propter hoc quod intellectus non univoce invenitur in Deo et in nobis” (1.32.1ad2) 21

22. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (v) QQ 27 to 43: The Trinitarian processions of Ipsum esse subsistens as real relations in which the divine essence affects itself as given and received. On account of the problems arising from the inadequacy of the creating or conceiving which is human knowing to the same activities in the divine, and because of complexity which arises since the relations are both essential, stemming from conceptual names (notions), and, as real, are also subsistent individuals, the structure of the de deo trino in the Summa theologiae is complex, involving two circles moving in opposite directions. However, the fundamental logic which is our concern is simple. Although the trinitarian relations stem from the operations of knowing and willing, they draw us back to the esse/ essentia because they are not distinguished from it by being its operations, but are rather the relations of the essence itself in which it is opposed within itself as giving and being received. And, despite this return to the origin (Ipsum esse subsistens), they are the last internal stage in its fundamental logic, that of circular emanations ever more divided and ever more inclusive of the proceeding difference. Formally, they are Ipsum esse subsistens completely given and received in its self encircling as knowing and willing. Because the terms of the relation are opposed, they are subsistences in, or of, the essence. 22

23. The Conclusion of Real Distinction in God, the trinitarian hypostases, in the Mission of the Persons to the rational soul (vi) Q43, 3 The Invisible Mission of the Persons according to Sanctifying Grace “… God is in all things by His essence, power and presence, according to His one common mode, as the cause existing in the effects which participate in His goodness. Above and beyond this common mode, however, there is one special mode consonant with the nature of a rational being in whom God is said to be present as the known in the knower, and the beloved in the lover. And because the rational creature by its operation of knowledge and love touches God Himself, according to this special mode God is said not only to exist in the rational creature but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. No other effect than sanctifying grace is able therefore to be the explanation that a divine person would be able in a new mode to be present to a rational creature.” Summa theologiae 1.43.3: Est enim unus communis modus quo Deus est in omnibus rebus per essentiam, potentiam et praesentiam, sicut causa in effectibus participantibus bonitatem ipsius. Super istum modum autem communem, est unus specialis, qui convenit creaturae rationali, in qua Deus dicitur esse sicut cognitum in cognoscente et amatum in amante. Et quia, cognoscendo et amando, creatura rationalis sua operatione attingit ad ipsum Deum, secundum istum specialem modum Deus non solum dicitur esse in creatura rationali, sed etiam habitare in ea sicut in templo suo. Sic igitur nullus alius effectus potest esse ratio quod divina persona sit novo modo in rationali creatura nisi gratia gratum faciens. 23

24. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (vii) QQ44ff De deo creante Creation, whose characteristic act is effecting esse absolutely, is the emanation of the whole of being from a universal cause. Since there is no motion or mutation in the act of creation, it is diverse relations in the creator and the created. The relation of the creature to God is real. Passive creation is received in the creature and is the creature [the divine as creature]. 24

25. Creation (viii) QQ45.6 The Essential Text (English) The divine nature, although common to the three Persons, belongs to them in an order, inasmuch as the Son receives the divine nature from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both. Likewise the power of creation, while common to the three Persons, belongs to them in an order. For the Son receives it from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both. Hence to be the Creator is attributed to the Father as to Him Who does not receive the power of creation from another. And of the Son it is said (John 1:3), "Through Him all things were made," inasmuch as He has the same power, but from another; for this preposition "through" usually denotes a mediate cause, or "a principle from a principle." But to the Holy Ghost, Who has the same power from both, is attributed that by His sway He governs, and gives life to what is created by the Father through the Son. Again, the reason for this particular appropriation may be taken from the common notion of the appropriation of the essential attributes. For, as above stated (39, 8, ad 3), to the Father is appropriated power which is chiefly shown in creation, and therefore it is attributed to Him to be the Creator. To the Son is appropriated wisdom, through which the intellectual agent acts; and therefore it is said: "Through Whom all things were made." And to the Holy Ghost is appropriated goodness, to which belong both government, which brings things to their proper end, and the giving of life—for life consists in a certain interior movement; and the first mover is the end, and goodness. 25

26. Creation (ix) QQ45.6 The Essential Text (Latin) Ad secundum dicendum quod, sicut natura divina, licet sit communis tribus Personis, ordine tamen quodam eis convenit, inquantum Filius accipit naturam divinam a Patre, et Spiritus Sanctus ab utroque; ita etiam et virtus creandi, licet sit communis tribus Personis, ordine tamen quodam eis convenit; nam Filius habet eam a Patre, et Spiritus Sanctus ab utroque. Unde Creatorem esse attribuitur Patri, ut ei qui non habet virtutem creandi ab alio. De Filio autem dicitur per quem omnia facta sunt, inquantum habet eandem virtutem, sed ab alio: nam haec praepositio per solet denotare causam mediam, sive principium de principio. Sed Spiritui Sancto, qui habet eandem virtutem ab utroque, attribuitur quod dominando gubernet, et vivificet quae sunt creata a Patre per Filium. Potest etiam huius attributionis communis ratio accipi ex appropriatione essentialium attributorum. Nam, sicut supra dictum est, Patri appropriatur potentia, quae maxime manifestatur in creatione: et ideo attribuitur Patri Creatorem esse. Filio autem appropriatur sapientia, per quam agens per intellectum operatur: et ideo dicitur de Filio, per quem omnia facta sunt. Spiritui Sancto autem appropriatur bonitas, ad quam pertinet gubernatio deducens res in debitos fines et vivificatio: nam vita in interiori quodam motu consistit, primum autem movens est finis et bonitas. 26

27. Aquinas’ Motionlessly Moving and Self-Affecting God The view overall of Part I De Deo ST 1.1: The nature of Sacred Doctrine ST 1.2: Does the subject matter, God, exist. ST 1.3: ST 1.3: God is Simple. ST 1.4:ST 1.4: God is Perfect. ST 1.5ST 1.5 & 1.6: Goodness & God’s Goodness ST 1.7:& 1.8ST 1.7:& 1.8 God is Infinite and Exists in all things. ST 1.9 & 1.10:ST 1.9 & 1.10: God is Unchangeable & Eternal. ST 1.11:ST 1.11: God is One. ST 1.12 How God is Known by Us, and ST 1.13 How is Named by Us, then come the internal operations of God, knowing and loving ST 1.14 God’s Knowledge ST 1.15 God’s Ideas ST 1.16 Truth ST 1.17 Falsity ST 1.18 God’s Life ST 1.19 God’s Will ST 1.20 God’s Love ST 1.21 God’s Justice and Mercy… ST 1.22,23, 24 God’s Providence, Predestination and the Book of Life (knowing and loving together) ST 1.25 God’s Power ST 1.26 God’s Happiness Beginning with ST 1.27 The Trinity, personal emanations within God based in his internal operations of Knowing and Loving. Beginning with ST 1.44 On the First Cause of all Beings we get the procession outside God’s essence, the emanation of Creation. This is the great widening of the circle which ultimately returns to its origin through Part II On the Human seeking God and Part III on Christ the Union of both. 27

29. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (x) QQ27-43 Some important texts That by which the procession of creatures is distinguished from the procession forming the trinitarian real relations is identified in this principle: “immo quantum perfectius procedit tanto magis est unum cum eo a quo procedit” “the more complete the coming forth the more perfect is the unity between the origin and the term of the procession”(1.27.1ad 2). What is implied is pushed forward: there is a divine esse acceptum “inquantum procedens ab alio habet esse divinum” “insofar as it has esse divinum from another” [within the divinity] (1.27.2ad3) “Processio in divinis non est nisi secundum communicationem divinae naturae” (1.27.3ad2). “Cum autem aliquid procedit a principio ejusdem naturae, necesse est quod ambo, scilicet procedens et id a quo procedit, in eodem ordine conveniant; et sic oportet quod habeant reales respectus ad invicem. Cum igitur processiones in divinis sint in identitate naturae…necesse est quod relationes quae secundum processiones divinas accipitur sint relationes reales” (1.28.1) Both what comes forth and the origin of a procession of terms in the same order have real relation; since the divine processions are in the identity of nature, the relations formed from the processions are real. They are “per modum ad aliud se habentis” (1.28.1ad1) “by the mode of self-relation to another” and assimilated to the relation of identity “assimilat relationi identitatis” (1.28.1ad2). Thus, “Patet ergo quod in Deo non est aliud esse relationis et esse essentiae sed unum et idem”; “In God relation and nature are not other things but one and the same” (1.28.2). “De ratione autem relationis est respectus ad alterum secundum quem aliquid alteri opponitur relative. Cum igitur in Deo realiter sit relatio…oportet quod realiter sit ibi oppositio.” (1.28.3) 29

30. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (xi) QQ27-43 Some important texts “By definition relation implies reference to another according as the two things stand in relative opposition to each other. Therefore, since there is real relation in God, there is real opposition” (1.28.3) “Sicut ergo deitas est Deus, ita paternitas divina est Deus Pater qui est persona divina. Persona igitur divina significat relationem ut subsistentem. Et hoc est significare relationem per modum substantiae quae est hypostasis subsistens in natura divina; licet subsistens in natura divina non est aliud quam natura divina.” (1.29.4) “A divine ‘person’ means a relation as subsisting”, a hypostasis. “Est autem Filius Deus genitus, non autem generans Deus; unde est quidem intelligens, non ut producens Verbum, sed ut Verbum procedens, prout scilicet in Deo Verbum procedens secundum rem non differt ab intellectu divino, sed relatione sola distinguitur a principio Verbi” (1.34.2ad4). The knowledge which belongs to the divine esse as subsisting and returning on itself is modified as producing or received. Order in divinity: “Necesse est autem quod amor a verbo procedat; non enim aliquid amamus nisi quod conceptione mentis apprehendimus.” Love proceeds from a produced mental word because we love what we apprehend (Aquinas the pure Aristotelian here). “Nec potest aliquis ordo alius assignari nisi ordo naturae quo alius est ex alio” “It is impossible to assign any other order of coming forth within divinity except the order of nature by which one thing is from another” (1.36.2) 30

31. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (xii) QQ27-43 Some important texts “Divina simplicitas hoc requirit quod in Deo sit idem essentia et suppositum “ “The divine simplicity requires that in God essence and supposit [“person” or hypostasis] are the same”. “Persons are really distinquished mutually” because “[Persona vel relatio] comparata…ad oppositam relationem habet virtute oppositionis realem distinctionem” “A divine person or relation when compared to its co-relative is really distinct because of their opposition.” (1.39.1) “Origo significatur in divinis active et passive” “Origin in God is both an active and a passive term” (1.40.1) “cum in divinis non sit motus, actio personalis producentis personam, nihil aliud est quam habitudo principii ad personam quae est a principio.” (1.41.1ad2) “motus non sit in divinis, est tamen ibi accipere.” (1.42.1 ad 3) “Vere ergo dicitur quod quidquid dignitatis habet Pater, habet Filius. Nec sequitur: paternitatem habet Pater, ergo paternitatem habet Filius. Mutatur enim quid in ad aliquid: eadem enim est essentia et dignitas Patris et Filii, sed in Patre est secundum relationem dantis, in Filio secundum relationem accipientis. (1.42.1 ad 3) There is no motion in God in the proper physical sense but there is personal production which is a nothing other than a relation of what is from a principle to that which is its source. There is no motion in divine things but there is reception or affectivity. The Father and the Son have the same essence and dignity but in the Father as principle it exists as giving and in the Son, as from a principle, it is a something received. 31

32. From the Relations of Giving and Reception in the essence to the relation of what is received outside to its origin, i.e. creation (xiii) QQ44ff De deo creante Some crucial texts “Virtus…creativa Dei est communis toti Trinitati, unde pertinet ad unitatem essentiae” (1.32.1) “God’s creative power is common to the whole Trinity”. “Bonitas enim infinita Dei manifestatur etiam in productione creaturarum, quia infinitae virtutis est ex nihilo producere. Non enim oportet, si infinita bonitate se communicat, quod aliqod infinitum a Deo procedat sed secundum modum suum recipat divinam bonitatem. (1.32.1ad2) Law III (see Excursus I) saves infinite goodness from producing an infinite effect in an infinite mode. non solum oportet considerare emanationem alicuius entis particularis ab aliquo particulari agente, sed etiam emanationem totius entis a causa universali, quae est Deus: et hanc quidem emanationem designamus nomine creationis (1.45.1) oportet quod, subtracto motu, non remaneant nisi diversae habitudines in creante et creato (1.45.2ad2) Unde, cum creatio sit sine motu, simul aliquid creatur et creatum est (1.45.2ad3) Relatio vero creaturae ad Deum est relatio realis, ut supra dictum est, cum de divinis Nominibus ageretur (1.45.3ad1) creatio passive accepta est in creatura, et est creatura (1.45.3ad2) Oportet enim universaliores effectus in universaliores et priores causas reducere. Inter omnes autem effectus, universalissimum est ipsum esse. Unde oportet quod sit proprius effectus primae et universalissimae causae, quae est Deus (1.45.5) Illud autem quod est proprius effectus Dei creantis, est illud quod praesupponitur omnibus aliis, scilicet esse absolute (1.45.5). 32

33. Excursus II (1) [excerpted and modified from my Excursus II (1) [excerpted and modified from my “Ab uno simplici non est nisi unum: The Place of Natural and Necessary Emanation in Aquinas’ Doctrine of Creation”] From Trinitarian self-differentiation to Creation O PORTET PROCESSUM EMANATIONIS A D EO UNIRI QUIDEM IN IPSO PRINCIPIO, MULTIPLICARI AUTEM SECUNDUM RES INFIMAS (S UMMA C ONTRA G ENTILES 4.1 P ROEMIUM ) Commenting on the Liber de causis, Aquinas wrote: “not all things receive God’s goodness in the same mode and equally, but each according to the mode of its own potentiality.” This gives Thomas’ characteristically Platonic treatment of the emanation of creatures (the logical principles here are in the Timaeus). What proceeds out of God must be multiple, diverse, and unequal, only thus can what is outside the divine substance receive his goodness so that the universal order is both as good as it can be in itself and will also represent him as adequately as possible (perfectius participat divinam bonitatem et repraesentat eam totum universum). Creation for Aquinas requires three emanations of two distinct kinds. First, there are the internal emanations or processions within the divine essence which produce real distinctions and relations within the Principle. These two emanations are necessary (necessitate absoluta – “with an absolute necessity” (Super Sent., lib. 1, dist. 6, q. 1, art. 1) and natural. They are emanations of the primary and most simple unities from the first and most simple unity, i.e., the emanation of the Word, which is the necessary and natural result of God’s knowing himself, and the emanation of the Spirit, which is the necessary and natural result of the divine self-love. 33

34. Excursus II (2) From Trinitarian self-differentiation to Creation Aquinas tells us in Summa contra Gentiles, that “by necessity it must be that God always knows himself,” that the necessary result of this self-knowledge is the “emanation” of the Verbum conceptum, note the passive voice, and that “it must be that he proceeds naturaliter from the Father” (ScG, 4.11). Conceptio Verbi divini est naturalis (ST, 1.41.2 ad 4). These emanations are natural precisely as determined; the natural is what is ordered to only one result (ST, 1.41.2: natura determinata est ad unum). If these processions were not necessary, but contingent so that they might or might not happen, what proceeds would be a creature, not a divine being. At De Potentia, 2.3, Thomas invokes Avicenna on behalf of this necessity in God: per se necesse est esse (at ST, 1.41.2 Avicenna is quoted without being named). The same necessity of the divine nature determines the emanation of the Spirit as love, and, as with the Son, it is necessary that what proceeds be equal to its principle (De Potentia, 10.2 ad 5). Equality as a characteristic is also especially appropriated to the Word as the first emanation from the Father who is the principle of the Trinitarian processions. Aequalitas autem importat unitatem [...] Et ideo aequalitas appropriatur Filio, qui est principium de principio (ST 1.39.8). 34

35. Excursus II (3) “The first thing which proceeds from unity is equality and then multiplicity proceeds. And therefore, from the Father, to whom, according to Augustine, unity is proper, the Son processes, to whom equality is appropriate, and then the creature comes forth to which inequality belongs” (ST, 1.47.2 ad 2). The multiplication of equals is the origin of the other kind of emanation, that of “all being from the universal being” (ST, 1.45.4 ad 1). From his Commentary on the Sentences through all his writing, as Gilles Emery has established, for Aquinas, the procession of the Son is the cause and reason of all subsequent emanations: “les processions des personnes sont la cause et la raison de la procession des créatures (dans l’exitus comme dans le reditus).” The characteristics de la procession des créatures are contrary to those of the first kind. The necessary emanations within the divine determine the character of emanation outside it (ST, 1.45.5). This procession is voluntary, because the divine being is necessarily willing. Thomas’ position may be presented in words of Albert Magnus: “In the First, will and essence are the same. Thus, as the first invariable is in respect to essence, so also is the invariable according to will. It is, then, a consequence of the rule ‘from the simple one nothing comes except a unity,’ that, from a will which is not at all diversified by what it wills, there is nothing except unity. [...] Since, it follows that because [the First] knows himself as the principle of everything, he knows all which is, so also it follows that, because he wills himself as the principle of all things, he wills all which is.” (De causis et processu, 2.4.4.) 35

36. Excursus II (4) From Trinitarian self-differentiation to Creation For Aquinas will is essential to creation. Because it is willed and not necessary, creation is not an emanation or a real relation within God. Rather it is a relation in the creature to God (ST, 1.27.1 ad 3; ST, 1.45.3). Because creation also originates in an intellectual principle (the divine self-love is a consequence of the divine self-knowledge), which, as intellectual is filled with all the forms, the order created is of multiple, diverse and unequal beings. Far from opposing necessary emanation which is determined by the nature of the principle, Aquinas incorporates it into the very life of God. By his situation at a conclusion of a debate among the Arabic Peripatetics, he is moved to separate necessary and free emanations. In a way we do not find among the Hellenic Neoplatonists, Aquinas places one within God, the other in his relation ad extra. Avicenna’s God as necesse esse, who produces his like out of the necessity of his nature, has a very exalted place in the Thomistic theological hierarchy. Aquinas acknowledges his debt to Ibn Sina, both directly and by quoting him. The divine Henads have an equal exaltation in Thomas’ divinity. Their manner of coming forth in the One is echoed in the ab uno simplici non est nisi unum and the procession of the divine Persons. The ex uno non nisi unum is most recognizable in the procession of the Verbum as aequalitas—an idea Aquinas credits to Augustine. 36

37. Excursus II (5) From Trinitarian self-differentiation to Creation The equality of the unities within the thearchy and the ordered unity of the divine being, whose knowing and loving are self-determinations by which the essence is given and received to itself, distinguish this Christian Neoplatonism both from its pagan and from its Islamic and Jewish predecessors. Thomas’ construction also differs in many ways from the Greek Christian Platonism of Dionysius on which he is so dependent. They all, however, disclose the necessities of the logic within which all are working. Thomas understands this logic better as his knowledge of Platonism grows, and he grants a place in his system to what of its necessities each of his teachers discloses. 37

38. Excursus III The movement within the Quinque Viae 38

39. Aquinas’ Five Ways to Knowing That God Is ST 1.2.3: The Five Ways to Knowing That God Is. The First Way, the one most evident and certain to us, is from the bare fact of motion. Sensing motion requires that there be the motionless to which is it compared, so, as Aristotle’s Physics concludes, the analysis of motion brings thought to the Unmoved Mover, God. The First Way, the one most evident and certain to us, is from the bare fact of motion. Sensing motion requires that there be the motionless to which is it compared, so, as Aristotle’s Physics concludes, the analysis of motion brings thought to the Unmoved Mover, God. The Second Way is from the existence of distinct things. These require an efficient or making cause, so the analysis of making brings thought to a first maker, God. The Second Way is from the existence of distinct things. These require an efficient or making cause, so the analysis of making brings thought to a first maker, God. The Third Way is from a fundamental difference between things as we experience them in thought and practice, some are necessary, some only possible (contingent). In both theory and practice the possible depend upon the necessary. Thus in the analysis of beings we come, by way of the first fundamental difference between things, to what is necessary through itself and gives necessity to others, God. This way owes much to Avicenna (Ibn Sina). The Third Way is from a fundamental difference between things as we experience them in thought and practice, some are necessary, some only possible (contingent). In both theory and practice the possible depend upon the necessary. Thus in the analysis of beings we come, by way of the first fundamental difference between things, to what is necessary through itself and gives necessity to others, God. This way owes much to Avicenna (Ibn Sina). The Fourth Way is from a second fundamental difference among things, namely, that we grade them, as greater and less, better and worse. All of these require a standard of comparison: the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, etc. This best or highest requires a cause; the cause of highest being, goodness, beauty, and so on, we call God. The Fourth Way is from a second fundamental difference among things, namely, that we grade them, as greater and less, better and worse. All of these require a standard of comparison: the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, etc. This best or highest requires a cause; the cause of highest being, goodness, beauty, and so on, we call God. The Fifth Way is from purpose in things, that even things which do not know act to preserve themselves as individuals or as a species, for example. The Fifth Way is from purpose in things, that even things which do not know act to preserve themselves as individuals or as a species, for example. 39

40. Aquinas’ Five Ways to Knowing That God Is ST 1.2.3: The Five Ways to Knowing That God Is. The Fifth Way from purpose in things, continued: Aquinas argues here that to have purpose or intention in things which do not think requires an intelligence creating and moving nature, this, he says, we call God. Notice that we have arrived 1) at an articulated and ordered cosmos, 2) a cognition that can know it (moving from mere sensation to intelligence), such correspondence between self and object is at the centre of ancient and medieval understanding, 3) at a considerable knowledge of God. The interconnection of the physical, psyche, and divinity is also characteristic of ancient and medieval understanding. We have then, as well as a sensing, making, judging, and intelligently ordering knower, An Articulated and Ordered Cosmos: from mere motion, we came to things or substances, these were ordered first as necessary and possible (so for example, means and ends) and then as greater and less, better and worse; finally all were united into one teleological (purposeful) order of nature. A considerable knowledge of God. The Unmoved Mover becomes a Maker who is Necessary through itself, causes and is the standard of the greatest and best, and is the Intelligence which orders all things purposefully. A considerable knowledge of God. The Unmoved Mover becomes a Maker who is Necessary through itself, causes and is the standard of the greatest and best, and is the Intelligence which orders all things purposefully. Thus by the end of ST 1.2 we have come from Physics to cosmogony (a cosmos has come to birth in thought) and from both together to theology. 40

41. Order is of the Essence In my God in Himself (1987/2000) I compare Aristotle’s ordering of the four causes to that of Aquinas in the Summa. I excerpt (and modify) what I concluded on pages 141 & 142. “Thomas uses the causes to structure his writing only twice in the first forty-five questions of the Summa theologiae; in both cases he uses the same order. He places matter and form between the moving and final causes. Proper motion, as distinguished from activity generally, belongs to the material. When seen in relation to the divine causality, it involves a going out from simple immaterial being to matter which is raised to formal perfection as the good, or end, it lacks. In causing, God as the principle of all procession, i.e. the Father, knows the form by which he acts in [and as] the Son and loves the Son and himself as end in the Spirit. Thus understood, the order Thomas uses, in distinction from his sources in Aristotle, has a reason. The source of motion is the obvious beginning, just as its opposed cause, the final, is appropriate end… He says, glossing Aristotle, who also mentions their opposition, ‘motion begins from efficient cause and ends at final cause’ [In Meta. I.IV, 70]. ‘Prima autem et manifestior via est, quae sumitur ex parte motus.’ The moving cause is an obvious point from which to start the ways to God within a theology which also begins from him. Those ways ended: ‘Ergo est aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur a finem, et hoc dicimus Deum’. But ‘intelligere et velle’ are motions as ‘actus perfecti’ and as such display the ‘rediens ad essentiam suam’. This return is perfect in the divine being. Its exitus and reditus become fully manifest in the processions of persons founded in God’s activities of knowledge and love; these in turn make intelligible the procession and return of creatures.” 41

42. Excursus IV Motionless Motion: Aristotle, Plotinus, and Aquinas. 42

43. Aristotle 384-322 BCE History in Philosophy and the Activity of Intellectual Beings 43

44. Aristotle God’s Life as Activity Metaphysics XII.7 The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle…. On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy for but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God. 44

45. Plotinus 204/5 -270 CE 45

46. Plotinus on the Life which is God’s Mind Plotinus 204/5 -270 CE although his “neoplatonism” as we have identified it since the 18 th century is a synthesis of Plato and Aristotle, he derives his notion of the Mind of God from Aristotle. Ennead III. 2 Since we hold the eternal existence of the Universe, the utter absence of a beginning to it, we are forced, in sound and sequent reasoning, to explain the providence ruling in the Universe as a universal consonance with the divine Intelligence to which the Universe is subsequent not in time but in the fact of derivation, in the fact that the Divine Intelligence, preceding it in Kind, is its cause as being the Archetype and Model which the Universe merely images, the primal by which, from all eternity, the Universe has its existence and subsistence. The relationship may be presented thus: The authentic and primal Cosmos is the Being of the Intellectual Principle and of the Truly Existent. This contains within itself no spatial distinction, and has none of the feebleness of division, and even its parts bring no incompleteness to it since here the individual is not severed from the whole. In this Mind inheres all life and all intellect, a life living and having intellection as one act within a unity: every part that it gives forth is a whole; all its content is its very own, for there is here no separation of thing from thing, no part standing in isolated existence estranged from the rest, and therefore nowhere is there any wronging of any other, any opposition. 46

47. Ennead III. 2 Everywhere one and complete, it is at rest throughout and shows difference at no point; it does not make over any of its content into any newform; there can be no reason for changing what is everywhere perfect. …Such is the blessedness of this Being that in its very non-action it magnificently operates and in its self-dwelling it produces mightily. 2. By derivation from that Authentic Cosmos, one within itself, there subsists this lower Universe, no longer a true unity. It is multiple, divided into various elements, thing standing apart from thing in a new estrangement. No longer is there concord unbroken; hostility, too, has entered as the result of difference and distance; imperfection has inevitably introduced discord; for a part is not self-sufficient, it must pursue something outside itself for its fulfillment, and so it becomes the enemy to what it needs. … The Divine Intellect in its unperturbed serenity has brought the universe into being, by communicating from its own store to Matter: and this gift is the Reason-Form flowing from it. For the Emanation of the Intellectual Principle is Reason, [note that humans are reasoning, not intellectual beings] an emanation unfailing as long as the Intellectual Principle continues to have place among beings. The source of reason within a seed [its LOGOS] contains all the parts and qualities concentrated in identity; there is no distinction, no jarring, no internal hindering; then there comes a pushing out into bulk, part rises in distinction with part, and at once the members of the organism stand in each other's way and begin to wear each other down. 47

48. Ennead III. 2 So from this, the One Intellectual Principle, and the Reason-Form emanating from it, our Universe rises and develops parts, and they inevitably are formed into groups concordant and helpful in contrast with groups discordant and combative; sometimes of choice and sometimes incidentally, the parts maltreat each other; engendering proceeds by destruction. Yet: Amid all that they effect and accept, the divine Realm imposes the one harmonious act; each utters its own voice, but all is brought into accord, into an ordered system, for the universal purpose, by the ruling Reason-Principle. This Universe is not Intelligence and Reason, like the one above, but participates in Intelligence and true Reason: it stands in need of harmonizing because it is the meeting ground of Necessity and divine Reason—Necessity pulls towards the lower, towards the unreason which is its own characteristic, while yet the Intellectual Principle remains sovereign over it. The Divine Intellectual Sphere alone is true Reason, and there can never be another Sphere that is nothing else except Reason; so that, given some other system, it cannot be as noble as that first; it cannot be Reason: yet since such a system cannot be merely Matter, which is the utterly unordered, it must be a mixed thing. Its two extremes are Matter and the Divine Reason; its governing principle is Soul, presiding over the conjunction of the two, and to be thought of not as labouring in the task but as administering serenely by little more than an act of presence. 48

49. 49

50. Aquinas Reconciling Plato and Aristotle The Life of Intellectual Beings The Life of Intellectual Beings Motionless Motion For Aristotle, and for Aquinas following him, physical motion is the act of something which is imperfect. Evidently, the perfect God cannot move in this way. In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas represents Plato as teaching that “God moves himself but not in that way in which motion is the act of the imperfect”. For him Aristotle teaches that perceiving and thinking are motions in the general meaning of the word, rather than in the specifically physical meaning of the word. In this way motion can include the act of the perfect. The result is to dissolve the difference between a first being which moves itself (according to Plato) and a first being which is unmoved (according to Aristotle). Aquinas found this interpretation of Aristotle and the notion of God’s activity as motionless motion in the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Arabic commentators on Aristotle and in many other ancient sources. Aquinas supposed that Aristotle did not assert against Plato that knowing was different from motion, but that thinking was a different kind of motion. 50

51. Motionless Motion Commenting on Aristotle’s Psychology III, 7, 431a1 Aquinas says of perceiving that “if it be called motion, it is another kind of motion from that with which the Physics deals”: But this motion is the act of the perfect... and therefore simply different from physical motion. Motion of this kind is properly called operation, e.g. sensing, understanding and willing, and, according to Plato, it is according to this motion that the soul moves itself, in so far as it knows and loves its own self. [ [For further see my “Aquinas and the Platonists” from which what I give here is excerpted, strongly modified.] 51

52. Summa Theologiae 1.18 Life in God 1.18.1 It is clear that those things are properly called living that move themselves by some kind of movement, whether it be movement properly so called, as the act of an imperfect being, i.e. of a thing in potentiality, is called movement; or movement in a more general sense, as when said of the act of a perfect thing, as understanding and feeling are called movement. Accordingly all things are said to be alive that determine themselves to movement or operation of any kind: whereas those things that cannot by their nature do so, cannot be called living, unless by a similitude. 1.18.3 Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. …Wherefore that being whose act of understanding is its very nature, and which, in what it naturally possesses, is not determined by another, must have life in the most perfect degree. Such is God; and hence in Him principally is life. From this the Philosopher concludes (Metaph. xii, 51), after showing God to be intelligent, that God has life most perfect and eternal, since His intellect is most perfect and always in act. 52

53. Summa Theologiae 1.18 Life in God 1.18.3 Reply to Objection 1: As stated in Metaph. ix, 16, action is twofold. Actions of one kind pass out to external matter, as to heat or to cut; whilst actions of the other kind remain in the agent, as to understand, to sense and to will. The difference between them is this, that the former action is the perfection not of the agent that moves, but of the thing moved; whereas the latter action is the perfection of the agent. Hence, because movement is an act of the thing in movement, the latter action, in so far as it is the act of the operator, is called its movement, by this similitude, that as movement is an act of the thing moved, so an act of this kind is the act of the agent, although movement is an act of the imperfect, that is, of what is in potentiality; while this kind of act is an act of the perfect, that is to say, of what is in act as stated in De Anima iii, 28. In the sense, therefore, in which understanding is movement, that which understands itself is said to move itself. It is in this sense that Plato also taught that God moves Himself; not in the sense in which movement is an act of the imperfect. 53