Summa I, Q25, Articles 2–4: God's Infinite Power, Omnipotence, and Whether God Can Undo the Past

Orientation #

He begins directly at Question 25, Article 2, referring back to “the previous article” (the distinction of active and passive power, “the first article”) and to what “has been shown above” on the infinity of the divine essence. No remark about next time. The previous class treated q. 25 a. 1 and the active/passive senses of potentia; the next takes aa. 5–6 and opens q. 26.

The class, in order #

1. Article 2, objections: is God’s power infinite? (“everything infinite or unlimited is imperfect”) #

The point: the three objections and the sed contra, with his note that “infinite” has travelled a long way in meaning.

• Obj. 1 (Physics III): everything infinite is imperfect; God’s power is not imperfect. His comment: “infinite” was first used of quantity, where lacking a limit is lacking something; “so the word infinite has moved a long distance, from something defective to something universally perfect.”
• Obj. 2: every power is manifested through its effect, otherwise it is in vain; an infinite effect is impossible — “so God also has this unused power.”
• Obj. 3 (Physics VIII): an infinite bodily power would move in an instant; but God moves spiritual creatures through time and bodily creatures through place and time (Augustine, Genesis to the letter, bk. VIII). His note: “time” is equivocal in the two halves — the time of bodies is continuous, the time of angels discrete, “like numbers.”
• Sed contra: Hilary, De Trinitate VIII — God is of immense virtue. Hilary is the one Thomas quotes most after Augustine in the treatise on the Trinity. “Immense” is a negative word, literally unmeasured (a student, Father, supplies it); cf. Shakespeare’s “infinite and measureless”; some creeds list God as immensus, tied to his being infinite.
• De Potentia q. 1 corresponds to this question: “almost the same articles, but in a different order.”

2. Body of a. 2: active power infinite because the divine being is unreceived (“as an agent is more perfect”) #

The point: infinity of power follows from what was shown about the divine substance.

1. Active power (not passive) is in God according as he is in act (previous article).
2. His being is infinite in that it is not limited to something receiving it (shown in the treatise on the divine essence).
3. As an agent is more perfect, the form by which it acts is more powerful in acting — the hotter a thing, the greater its power to heat, and it would have infinite power to heat if its heat were infinite.
4. Therefore, the divine essence being infinite, his power is infinite. Distinction he unpacks: two infinities. Passive potency is limited by form, and form/act is limited by the potency receiving it. First matter “infinite” means, by itself, lacking all act, hence lacking perfection; the divine actuality, altogether simple and received in no potency, is not limited in its actuality, hence not limited in its perfection. “If you’re going to attach the infinity of God to one of His other attributes, you’d tie it up with His perfection.”

• Recalls the five attributes of the divine substance in order: simple; perfect and good; infinite, and therefore everywhere; unchanging, and therefore eternal; one. Infinity was the third.
• “Here’s another example of how he reasons from what has been shown about the substance of God to something about his power of operating” — it shows the order in which these things must be considered.

3. Reply 1: the philosopher’s infinite is that of quantity (“Aristotle is somebody”) #

The point: Aristotle speaks of the infinite on the side of matter not limited by form, i.e. the infinite of quantity; God’s essence and power are not infinite in that way, so imperfection does not follow.

• Continuous quantity (line, surface, body) is divisible forever (Physics VI); so motion is infinite, and in Physics III the infinite is taken up right after motion since “it falls upon motion intrinsically.” Discrete quantity: because the continuous is divisible forever, numbers can grow forever.
• Summa contra Gentiles: infinity is the fifth and last attribute (ch. 43); Thomas first shows God is not infinite in either quantitative sense — not continuous, since simple without parts; not discrete, since one — and only then the true sense: no limit to his perfection. Quantity is the accident that follows on matter. “It’s much more explicit in my favorite book.”

4. Reply 2: univocal vs. non-univocal agent; power not ordered to an end (“its whole power is not manifested”) #

Distinction: univocal agent vs. agent not univocal. A univocal agent produces something of the same nature (a student’s gloss, which he accepts): dogs produce dogs, cats cats, men men — the generative power of a man can do nothing more than generate a man, so its whole power is manifested in its effect. A non-univocal agent’s whole power is not manifested in one effect: the sun’s power is not exhausted in generating an animal from putrefaction (“the old somewhat disproven theory”) — its causality extends not to another sun but to all animals and plants. God is not a univocal agent (“you call him an equivocal agent — understand that properly”): nothing agrees with him in species or genus; he is in no genus (question on simplicity). So his effect is always less than his power; infinite power need not be shown by an infinite effect — it could be shown, e.g., by creating.

• Is the power then unused, in vain? Even if he produced no effect, no: the in-vain is what is ordered to an end it does not attain; the divine power is God himself, beginning and end of all things, so it is not ordered to an effect as an end but is the end of its effect. Contrast: a man with a medical degree who never heals — that learning was for the sake of healing; the divine power is not for the sake of creatures. Digression, the principle of simplicity: nature uses no more than necessary — found in Aristotle (Physics I) and in Einstein, Heisenberg; Max Born: the genuine physicist believes obstinately in the unity and simplicity of nature despite appearances; Newton: nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. Applied to the Trinity: the fullness of the divine nature is in the Father, so the Son and Spirit are superfluous. Thomas answers “the same way”: the principle rests on nature acting for an end (two arms suffice; a third would be handy with the groceries but is not needed); the generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit are not for any end, so the principle does not apply. In natural philosophy class he took the three main arguments against nature acting for an end; one claims matter, form and mover with mathematical chance suffice to explain the good in nature, so by simplicity no fourth cause is needed. He attacked it (a) because chance does not suffice, and (b) because the principle itself presupposes that nature acts for an end — “you’re saying that because nature acts for an end, it doesn’t act for an end.”

5. Reply 3: the infinite bodily mover and the bodiless mover (“it would move in none time”) #

The point: Aristotle proves that an infinite bodily power would move in no time, yet shows the mover of the heavens has infinite power because it moves in infinite time; so the conclusion holds of bodies, not of a bodiless mover.

• Reason: a body moving a body is a univocal agent, so its whole power is manifested in the motion; the greater the bodily mover’s power, the faster it moves; infinite power would move faster than any proportion, i.e. in no time. Nature is determined to one and acts with its whole power — fire burns with its whole power, not “so much or so much.”
• A bodiless mover is not univocal, so its whole power need not be manifested; especially since it moves according to the disposition of its will — God can will this much or that much. “That’s another point that he makes all the time.”

6. Article 3, objections and sed contra (“I believe in God the Father, Almighty”) #

The point: omnipotence is in the creed; four objections against it.

• Obj. 1: to be moved and to undergo belong to all things; God cannot — this overlooks the active/passive distinction of a. 1.
• Obj. 2: to sin is to do something; God cannot sin or deny himself (2 Timothy 2).
• Obj. 3: God shows his omnipotence most in pardoning and mercy; but creating another world is greater. “Kind of strange argument.”
• Obj. 4 (1 Corinthians 1, gloss): God makes worldly wisdom stupid by showing possible what it judges impossible (the Greeks laughed at resurrection); so possibility is judged by divine power, not lower causes; then nothing is impossible, so nothing necessary — which is impossible.
• Sed contra: Luke 1:37, “no word will be impossible before God.” A student asks why he doesn’t use the creed as sed contra; he uses the creed sometimes and even comments on it, but especially likes to use Scripture.

7. Body of a. 3: the two senses of “possible”; omnipotence and contradiction (“able to do all things He’s able to do”) #

All confess by faith that God is omnipotent, but the definition is hard to assign: what is comprehended when we say “all things are possible for God”? Power is said with regard to possibles, so omnipotent = able to do all possible things — but “possible” is equivocal (Metaphysics V, “fifth book of wisdom,” which explains the meanings of the words used in wisdom and in the axioms; Thomas commented it). Distinction: (A) possible with regard to some power — as what is subject to human power is possible for man (“it’s not within my power”). Omnipotence cannot mean able to do all that is possible to created nature (divine power extends further), nor all that is possible to his own power — a circle: “God is omnipotent because He’s able to do all things He’s able to do.” (B) possible absolutely, from the relation of subject and predicate: possible when the predicate is not repugnant to the subject (Socrates sitting), impossible when it is (a man to be an ass — Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing). Why omnipotence means (B):

1. Every agent makes what is like itself. Seen inductively: dogs produce dogs, oaks oaks not dandelions; the carpenter’s house is like the house in his head — he acts through his mind, so the effect is like what is in his mind. The reason: act, not ability (passive sense), is what is communicable; every agent acts insofar as it is in act and communicates its actuality. “A very common, common principle” — of a cause as such, not an accidental cause.
2. So to each active power corresponds its proper object according to the notion of the act it is founded on — as the power of eating refers to the eatable.
3. The divine being, on which divine power is founded, is infinite being, not limited to any genus, having beforehand the perfection of being as a whole; so whatever can have the notion of being is contained under the absolutely possible — “He’s the cause of being as being.”
4. Nothing is opposed to being except not-being; what implies being and not-being together cannot have the notion of the makeable — not through any defect of the divine power. “It is more appropriately said that they are not able to be than that God is not able to.”

• Reconciles Luke 1:37: what implies a contradiction cannot be a word, since no understanding can conceive it.
• Childhood puzzle: can God make a stone so big he can’t lift it? Either answer seems to yield something God can’t do; the proper answer — it is not possible absolutely, it implies a contradiction. Square circle: you can put the words together but not understand the thing.

8. Replies 1–3: passive power, sin, Aristotle on God doing bad, mercy (“to sin is to fall away from a perfect action”) #

• Reply 1: omnipotent by active, not passive, power. English “power” is stuck in the active sense; “able” shows both — God is not able to get hungry, tired, walk, “but he’s not in bad shape because of this.” Aristotle’s distinction is “altogether essential to understanding the omnipotence of God.”
• Reply 2: to sin is to fall away from a perfect action; to be able to sin is to be able to fail in acting, repugnant to omnipotence. Parallel: can God be mistaken? Being mistaken is failing; it would be a lack of power if he could.
• Footnote on Topics IV, that God and the good man (spoudaios) can do bad things. Thomas gives three readings: (i) a conditional with impossible antecedent — “if God wanted to do bad, he could”; an if-then can be true with a false or impossible antecedent (“if I am a dog, I am four-footed”; “if man is an ass, he has four feet”); (ii) God can do things that now seem bad but would be good if he did them; (iii) Aristotle speaks according to the common opinion of the Gentiles (men transferred to gods, Jove, Mercury). Thomas often notes that Aristotle speaks per common opinion or his predecessors: Ethics I says the end of household science is wealth, though Politics I denies it; in the Physics he says “we Platonists”; Physics III shows no infinite material world assuming what his predecessors thought of matter, then in the book on the universe (sun, moon, stars, thought a different matter) resumes the question on his own position. He does it “very clearly,” before determining the truth himself. Aside: he himself uses opinions from modern science to illustrate, not prove — “hydrogen can be without water, but water cannot be without hydrogen,” so water is before hydrogen in being; “I don’t care if that’s true or not.”
• Reply 3 (parcendo et miserando — “sparing and taking mercy”): God’s power is shown most in sparing and mercy because (a) it shows he has the highest power, freely dismissing sins — one under a superior law is not free to dismiss; (b) by mercy he leads men to partaking of the infinite good, himself, the last effect of divine power; (c) the effect of divine mercy is the foundation of all divine works — nothing is owed anyone except on account of what God gave with no debt; the divine power is shown most in the first institution of all goods, God presupposing nothing to his causality. Student: the greatest thing God made is the Incarnation, wholly unmerited by human nature.

9. Reply 4: absolute possibility vs. possibility by proximate cause (“knowing neither the scriptures nor the power of God”) #

Distinction: possibile absolutum is said by neither superior nor inferior causes but by itself — “a man can be white” means no contradiction in white belonging to man, not that some gene or God does it. Possible by a power is named from the proximate cause: creation, justification of the sinner, are possible by the superior cause; what comes about by lower causes is possible by them; effects have contingency or necessity from the condition of the proximate cause. Worldly wisdom is stupid in judging what is impossible to nature impossible to God — so omnipotence does not remove impossibility and necessity from things.

• The Sadducees denying the resurrection: Christ, “knowing neither the scriptures nor the power of God”; the Greeks laughing at Paul; today: “we can’t make something from nothing, therefore God can’t.”

10. Article 4: can God make the past not to have been? (“Socrates sits and does not sit”) #

The point: a more particular case; it involves a contradiction.

• Obj. 1: God can do the impossible per se (illuminate the blind, raise the dead), so a fortiori the impossible per accidens; the past not to have been is impossible per accidens (Socrates’ not having run is impossible because it is past). “Very subtle, hard to read.” De Potentia q. 1 has an article on the very same question.
• Obj. 2: whatever God could do he can do, since his power is never diminished; before Socrates ran God could make him not run; so after.
• Obj. 3: charity is greater than virginity; God can repair lost charity, so he can make what was corrupted not corrupted.
• Sed contra: Jerome — God who can do all things cannot make a corrupt thing incorrupt; so neither the past not past. Aside: women who later discovered the merit of virginity wanted God to do something about it; “God can’t do anything about it.”
• Body: nothing implying contradiction falls under omnipotence; as “Socrates sits and does not sit” is contradictory, so “he sat and did not sit” — to say he sat is to say it was, to say he did not is to say it was not. Augustine, contra Faustum: whoever says God can make what was made not made does not see he is saying God can make what is true, for the very reason it is true, false. Aristotle, Ethics VI: of this alone God is deprived, to make ungenerated what was made. “It brings together the three greatest minds.”
• Aside on the Fathers: Augustine’s many “contra” works show the ad hoc, piecemeal development of theology against heretics; Vatican II’s text says read Scripture, then the Fathers, then Thomas for the order; the medieval summas (with anticipations earlier, and Lombard’s Sentences) bring it together.
• Reply 1: considering the thing past (the running), its not having been is impossible per accidens; considering the past under the notion of past, it is impossible absolutely, implying contradiction. “If I ran yesterday, I didn’t have to run yesterday” — but now “I cannot not have run yesterday.” So it is more possible for the dead to rise than for him not to have run: raising the dead is impossible only to a power, nature, and such possibles are subject to divine power.
• Reply 2: as to the perfection of his power, whatever God could do he can; but some things fall away from the notion of possible — they once had it, before they were done, and lose it when done.
• Reply 3: God can take away all corruption of mind and body from the corrupted woman, but not that she was not corrupted; as he cannot take from a sinner that he sinned and lost charity. Student summary he accepts: he can restore charity “as though you hadn’t lost it,” but not make it that you didn’t lose it — “I’m still a sinner.”

His words #

• Natural Hearing — his name for Aristotle’s Physics [ed.: Physics].
• infinite — first said of quantity as lacking a limit (defect); of God, not limited in perfection.
• immense (immensus) — literally unmeasured; a negative word.
• ability / power — his two renderings of potentia/dunamis; “power” in English is stuck in the active sense, “able” carries both [ed.: potency].
• univocal agent — produces an effect of the same nature; God is an “equivocal agent, understand that properly.”
• in vain — what is ordered to an end it does not attain.
• principle of simplicity — nature uses no more than necessary; grounded in nature acting for an end.
• fifth book of wisdom — Metaphysics V, on the meanings of words used in wisdom and in the axioms.
• possible absolutely (possibile absolutum) — from the relation of subject and predicate, no repugnance.
• spoudaios — the good man (Topics IV).
• parcendo et miserando — “sparing and taking mercy.”
• impossible per se vs. per accidens — raising the dead vs. the past not having been.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 25, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 25, a. 3 (whole)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 25, a. 4 (whole)
• Luke 1:37 (sed contra of a. 3)

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, q. 1 (corresponds to q. 25; has an article on the past)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, ch. 43 (infinity, fifth attribute); Thomas’s commentary on Metaphysics V
• Aristotle, Physics I, III, VI, VIII; Metaphysics V; Topics IV; Nicomachean Ethics I and VI; Politics I; the book on the universe [ed.: De Caelo, inferred]
• Hilary, De Trinitate VIII; Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram VIII; Augustine, Contra Faustum; Jerome
• 2 Timothy 2; 1 Corinthians 1 and gloss; gospel on the Sadducees
• Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing; Newton; Max Born; Bohr–Einstein correspondence
• Vatican II text on reading Scripture, Fathers, Thomas; Peter Lombard, Sentences

His questions #

• What did “infinite” first mean? Quantity lacking its limit — a defect; now it names universal perfection.
• Which attribute would you tie God’s infinity to? His perfection: not limited in perfection because not received in any potency.
• What do they mean by a univocal agent? One that produces something of the same nature — dogs produce dogs.
• Isn’t God’s unused power in vain? No; the in-vain is ordered to an end it fails to reach; the divine power is God, the end of its effects.
• How does Thomas answer “the Son and Spirit are superfluous”? The same way: the principle of simplicity presupposes an end, and the processions are not for an end.
• What does “God is omnipotent” mean? Able to do all that is possible absolutely, i.e. whatever does not imply a contradiction.
• Can God make a stone so big he can’t lift it? Not possible absolutely; it implies a contradiction, like a square circle.
• Can God be mistaken? No; to be mistaken is to fail, and that would be a lack of power.
• What is the greatest thing God has made? The Incarnation, wholly unmerited.
• Can God make the past not to have been? No; it involves a contradiction (he sat and did not sit).