Summa I, Q.11, Arts. 3–4: God Is One and Most of All One; Review of the Treatise on God's Substance

Orientation #

He opens straight on “Article Three now,” continuing q. 11 (prev. lecture: aa. 1-2). Near the end he says the twelfth and thirteenth questions, on our knowing and naming God, “we’ll get in the fall,” beginning the Thursday after September 8, the house’s foundation feast. The previous class treated q. 11 aa. 1-2 (whether one adds to being, whether one and many are opposed); the next treats qq. 12-13 on knowing and naming God.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3, objections and sed contra (“Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one”) #

The point: whether God is one, set up by two objections and a text.

• Obj. 1: St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, “many gods and many lords.” Berquist: this is probably “nuncupation” [reading uncertain in ASR] — they are called gods, said to be gods.
• Obj. 2: neither sense of one fits God. The one that is the beginning of number cannot be said of God, since no quantity is said of God; the one convertible with being implies a privation, a lack, and every privation is an imperfection. “He could be lacking in something, right?”
• Sed contra: Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one.” “That’s a pretty good text.”

2. First demonstration: from his simplicity (“that whence some singular is a this something”) #

The point: because God is his own nature, what makes him God makes him this God, so there cannot be many.

1. That whence a singular is a “this something” (Aristotle’s phrase for the individual) is in no way communicable to many; that whence Socrates is a man is communicable to many, but that whence he is this man to one only.
2. If Socrates were this man by the very thing by which he is a man, then as there cannot be many Socrateses there could not be many men.
3. But this is true of God: he is his own nature, no distinction between the two.
4. Therefore by the same thing he is God and this God; so many gods are impossible. He recalls that in the Compendium of Theology the unity of God sits in the middle of the consideration of simplicity: “you see the connection here again between the two.” Aside: Plato anticipates this with his forms. The form of man is nothing other than what a man is, so there is only one form of man, one of dog, one of horse: “that’s the way God is.”

3. Second demonstration: from the infinity of his perfection (“as if coerced by truth itself”) #

The point: two perfect beings would have to differ, and any difference costs one of them a perfection.

• He notes the coupling of infinity and perfection, as of one and simple: “can I get down to three?” Couple one with simple and infinite with perfection and the five attributes are down to three.

1. God comprehends the whole perfection of being (shown above).
2. Many gods would have to differ, so something would belong to one that did not belong to the other.
3. If that is a privation, he is not simply perfect; if a perfection, the other lacks it.
4. Therefore many gods are impossible.

• Thomas then turns to the ancient philosophers, who, “as if coerced by truth itself,” laying down that the beginning was infinite, posited only one such beginning. Berquist ties the phrase to Aristotle on the Greeks and change by contraries: none gave a reason why change must be by contraries, but all who talked about change explained it by some pair of contraries; the Chinese did the same at the same time, and so do the moderns. Anyone who thinks about change comes to contraries; “it doesn’t seem to be a hypothesis.” Likewise anyone who thinks about men and women comes to the idea that they are different.

4. Third demonstration: from the unity of the world (“some of them serve others”) #

The point: one order requires one orderer, and the first cause must cause per se, not by happening.

1. All things are found ordered to each other, some serving others.
2. Diverse things do not come together in one order unless ordered by one beginning.
3. It is better that many be reduced to one order by something one than by many, because per se one is the cause of one, and many are the cause of something one only by happening, insofar as they are somehow one. Berquist: the old idea that what is through itself is before what is through happening.
4. What is first is most perfect and through itself; so the first reducing all to one order is one only, and this is God. Student: why does Thomas write plures rather than multos for “many gods” here, e.g. at the conclusion of the first argument and elsewhere in the reply? Berquist: perhaps a grammatical reason, “I don’t know”; Brother Mark is the one to consult. Left open.

5. Replies to Article 3, and the senses of privation (“not known by us except by way of privation”) #

The point: the numerical one is excluded from God, the metaphysical one is affirmed, and “privation” here is only our mode of understanding.

• Ad 1: those who worship many gods, taking the planets, stars, or parts of the world as gods; “for us there is one God.” “No big deal.”
• Ad 2 (the more forceful objection): the one that begins number is said only of things having being in matter; it belongs to the genus of mathematical things, which have being in matter but are abstracted from it by reason. The one convertible with being is metaphysical, since according to its very being it does not depend on matter. Though there is no privation in God, according to our mode of understanding he is not known except by privation, removal, negation; so things are said of God privatively, as incorporeal, infinite, and one.
• Berquist adds that in other texts Thomas goes back to the fifth book of Aristotle’s book on wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V], where the meanings of lack are ordered: (a) strictly, the un-being of what one is able to have and should have (blindness against not seeing), not a pure negation; (b) lesser, not having what one’s kind of animal is apt to have but one’s particular kind need not; (c) not having what something or other is able to have, where the idea of something bad drops away. The word privation moves from a bad sense to one not bad at all “by dropping out parts of the meaning.” Why keep the word at all: one does not mean undivided, period, but undivided being, so a positive subject remains. Objection 2 falls back into the first sense, which is inappropriate for God.
• Aside (Trinity): reading the treatise on the Trinity, he found Thomas answering the objection that Father and Son are not distinct because each is the same as the divine nature, by going back to Physics III, where acting upon and undergoing are both the same as the motion yet not the same as each other, differing in definition: my kicking you is from me to you, your being kicked is in you from me. “Something like the Trinity, where they’re towards each other.” One might think Thomas invents a distinction to save a difficulty, but Aristotle already makes it “in something more proportioned to us.”

6. Article 4, objections and sed contra (“God is not more one than the unit and the point”) #

The point: whether God is maxime unus, most of all one.

• Obj. 1: one is said by privation of division, and privation does not receive more and less.
• Obj. 2: nothing is more indivisible than what is indivisible in act and potency, like the point and the one; the more indivisible, the more one; so God is not more one than the unit and the point. Aside: modern mathematicians all followed up on that one, and the one is even simpler than the point.
• Obj. 3: what is essentially good is most good; so what is one through its essence is most one; but every being is one through its substance (Aristotle, Metaphysics IV); so every being is most one.
• Sed contra: Bernard, that among all things said to be one the unity of the divine Trinity holds the high point. “Tell that to Muhammad.”

7. Body of Article 4 (“one is undivided being”) #

The point: both parts of the meaning of one are maximal in God.

1. One is undivided being; both elements are involved.
2. To be most one, something must be most of all being and most of all undivided.
3. God is most of all being: he has no being determined to a nature to which it comes, but is subsisting being itself, “I am who am, as we saw,” undetermined in every way.
4. God is most of all undivided: neither divided in act nor divisible in ability [ed.: potency], since he is in all ways simple, as shown above. Conclusion: God is most of all one. He notes that both premises, “I am who am” and simplicity, were established in the treatise on simplicity, which is why the Compendium puts unity in the middle of simplicity.

8. Replies to Article 4 (“the point and the unit are not most beings”) #

• Ad 1: Thomas agrees privation of itself does not receive more and less, but privatives are said more or less as their opposite is: as something is more or less divided or divisible, or in no way, it is more, less, or most one.
• Ad 2: the point and the unit are not maxime entia, since they have being only in a subject, as accidents; so neither is most one. As the subject is not most one because of the diversity of accident and subject, neither is the accident. Berquist links this to Aristotle’s critique of Melissus (being infinite) and Parmenides (being finite, like a sphere): once you have quantity you have substance and quantity, hence multiplicity.
• Ad 3: every being is one through its substance, but not every substance is equally a cause of unity, since some substances are composed of many, others not. My substance is body and soul, the body of many parts, so I am not as one as the angels; but even in them there is composition of existence and substance, so they are not as one as God. “That’s the end of the consideration of the substance of God.”

9. Looking back over qq. 2-11 and ahead (“Why do we have these three here?”) #

The point: the plan of the treatise, and why our consideration of God has parts God does not have.

• q. 2: the existence of God. qq. 3-11: his substance, in five parts: simple, perfect, infinite, unchanging, one. To some he attached another attribute: to perfect, good; to infinite, everywhere; to unchanging, eternal; and (he could have) to one and simple, the measure of all things.
• qq. 12-13 (in the fall): our knowing and naming God. It might seem out of order (why not in the first question?), but you must know something about God before seeing fully how we know and name him. After that, the operations, “the doings of God”; then the Trinity.
• Leaving the Trinity aside: are existence, substance and doing three things in God? No: existence and substance are the same, and his understanding and willing are his very substance. So why three parts? “The way we know”: we know God through the things he has made, and in the creature they are three. Your substance received its existence from God; and your substance is not your doing. Descartes was mixed up in this: “I think, therefore I am,” as if ceasing to think were ceasing to be; but your existence and substance are not your thinking.
• Diagram: God as a point from which descend three lines to three distinct points in the creature, existence, substance, doings; we return along them. Heraclitus: the way up and the way down are the same; but God’s way goes from one and simple to many and composed, and ours the reverse. So I consider the one point as the end of this line, of that line, and of the third: a threefold consideration, not false, arising from my starting point. As I go on I discover that in God existence and substance are the same, doings the same as substance, willing and understanding the same too.

10. No name adequate to God; why the Trinity comes after the operations (“the name Father expresses something about Him, but not all”) #

The point: every thought we have of God falls short, and the order of the treatise follows what must be known first.

• In qq. 12-13 Thomas will stop and point out that “Father” expresses something of God but not all, “God” something but not all; the Trinity something more.
• The Trinity must come after the divine doings, because the Son proceeds from the Father by way of understanding. Starting points in us: when I imagine, an image proceeds in my imagination; when I think, a thought proceeds in my reason; when I love, the person makes an impression on my heart, something of them is in my heart. So God proceeds by way of love too. And to answer “can there be more than one Son?” you must know from the operations that God understands everything by one act: one thought, one Son; one act of will.
• Thomas’s comparison of God to the center of a circle, used for eternity: the points of time are before and after each other but all across from the eternal now; past, present and future present to God, not to each other. “All these things kind of fall short.”

11. Complementarity: the electron, metaphor, and Bohr’s Kierkegaard (“neither one seems to be adequate”) #

The point: our several inadequate thoughts of God are matched, for the opposite reason, at the bottom of things.

• De Broglie on the electron: the difficulty in knowing God is that he is too much for the weakness of our mind; the difficulty in knowing the electron is that “it hardly exists.”
• Recall Thomas on why Scripture uses metaphor, proper to the poet, the lowest teaching: both use it because they speak of something beyond our mind, but for opposite reasons; Scripture brings something down to our level, the poet brings something up to it.
• Bohr’s complementarity (with an e, not an i): the thing behaves sometimes like a particle, sometimes like a wave; the two are not the same thought, neither adequate, both needed. History: the 19th century had settled that light was wave-like; Einstein got the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, which needs light to behave as a stream of particles. Joke: Monday, Wednesday, Friday it is particles. The likeness to God: no one of our thoughts expresses him as he is, yet each corresponds imperfectly.
• Bohr told his students to read Kierkegaard’s symposium (not Washington Irving): men at a dinner in the countryside each give a talk on woman, a married man, a professional seducer, a tailor, a young student; different views, each with some correspondence to the reality. The same woman is mother, sister, daughter, lover: “I can’t look upon my wife and my daughter in the same way, even though my wife was a daughter and my daughter is a wife.” Each is an imperfect but partially true understanding.

12. God knows and loves himself by one act (“no thought I have about God is really adequate”) #

The point: what is many acts in us is one in God, so our thoughts about him multiply where he does not.

• An objection from Avicenna in the Trinity treatise: relations of reason multiply forever, so there must be more than the four relations Thomas gives. Thomas: you are thinking in the human mind. If I know what a triangle is, knowing that I know is another act, and knowing that I know that I know another. God understands what a dog, a cat, a horse, a triangle are by one act, distinctly, and knows his very act by the same act, because what he understands is himself and his understanding is himself.
• Likewise I understand wisdom to some extent and love it to some extent, but my understanding is not my loving; God’s understanding himself and loving himself are the same. “I won’t really understand him until I see him as he is, which I hope to do someday.” He is nervous when people say he must love God a lot because he understands God more: “they’re not the same thing. I wish they were.”
• So I have different thoughts about God’s understanding and loving, though they are really one, and there is no multiplicity in God at all; hence no thought of mine is adequate to his perfection. This comes out in the next treatise, but one sees it better after the substance of God than in the first question. Aside: classes resume the Thursday after September 8, the foundation feast day.

His words #

• “a this something”: Aristotle’s phrase for the individual, that whence a singular is incommunicable to many.
• “one that is the beginning of number”: mathematical one, of things having being in matter, abstracted by reason.
• “one convertible with being”: metaphysical one, not depending on matter in its being.
• “undivided being”: what one means; not undivided simply, so a positive subject remains.
• “lack”: his rendering of privation, in Aristotle’s three ordered senses, from bad to not bad at all.
• “coerced by truth itself”: Thomas’s phrase for the ancients positing one infinite beginning; Aristotle’s for change by contraries.
• “through itself” vs. “by happening” [ed.: per se / per accidens]: the former always before the latter.
• “maxime unus”: most of all one; “maxime entia”: most beings, fullest beings.
• “ability” [ed.: potency]: “nor divisible in ability.”
• “I am who am”: subsisting being itself, undetermined in every way.
• “the doings of God” [ed.: operations]: understanding and willing.
• “complementarity, with an e”: Bohr’s term for wave and particle pictures, neither adequate.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 11, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 11, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Deuteronomy 6:4 (sed contra of a. 3)
• 1 Corinthians, “many gods and many lords” (obj. 1 of a. 3; 8:5 inferred)

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, unity of God placed within simplicity
• Bernard, on the unity of the divine Trinity (sed contra of a. 4; no locus given)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, every being one through its substance (obj. 3 of a. 4)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (“fifth book of the book on wisdom”), senses of lack
• Aristotle, Physics III, acting upon and undergoing the same as motion
• Aristotle on change by contraries among the Greeks; on Melissus and Parmenides (no locus)
• Thomas Aquinas, treatise on the Trinity (Summa I, qq. 27ff. inferred), objection on Father and Son; Avicenna on relations of reason
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, on Scripture’s use of metaphor (a. 9 inferred)
• Summa Theologiae I, qq. 2-3, existence of God, “I am who am”
• Descartes, “I think, therefore I am”; Heraclitus, the way up and the way down; Louis de Broglie on the electron; Niels Bohr on complementarity; Einstein on the photoelectric effect; Kierkegaard’s “Symposium” [ed.: “In Vino Veritas”, Stages on Life’s Way, inferred]

His questions #

• Why does the unity of God stand in the middle of the treatise on simplicity in the Compendium? Because both things needed to show God is most one, subsisting being and being in all ways simple, are shown there.
• Can I get the five attributes down to three? Yes: couple one with simple and infinite with perfection.
• Why does Thomas write plures rather than multos here? (student) Left open; “Brother Mark would be the guy to consult.”
• Why keep the word privation if it no longer means anything bad? Because one means undivided being, keeping a positive subject; the word drops parts of its meaning.
• Question 2, what did you show? The existence of God; qq. 3-11 the substance, in five parts.
• Are God’s existence, substance and doings three different things in God? No; we consider them as three because we know God through creatures, in whom they are three.
• Is your existence, your substance and your thinking the same thing? No; Descartes was mixed up in this.
• Am I being false when I consider one point threefold as the end of three lines? No; the threefold consideration arises from my starting point.
• If I know what a triangle is, do I by the same act know that I know? No, that is another act; God knows all and his own act by one act.
• Are understanding God and loving God the same thing in me? No; in God they are the same, so no thought of mine is adequate to him.