PROPOSITION XXII.

Finite existing Essence is only conditionally immutable.

The following is the proof. For,

I. Such Essence is only immutable for such time as the Act of the Divine Will is terminated to its conservation in existence. But the conservation of existing finite being is terminatively conditional; that is, it is dependent on the Free Will of the Creator.

II. For so long as that condition is verified, the existing Essence is, plainly enough, immutable. For what does essential change imply? It means that this Essence should be another Essence, that is to say, that it should at the same time be itself and not itself. But this is impossible, even de potentia absoluta.

DIFFICULTIES.

I. The present Proposition is not reconcileable with the principles on which the preceding Proposition has been established. Therefore, if the one be true, the other must be false. For the existence of created Essences is predetermined in the Decree of the Divine Will. But the Decree of the Divine Will is really no other than the Divine Will Itself, which is eternal. It was therefore true from all eternity that these Essences would exist. Consequently, finite existing Essence is absolutely immutable, and not conditionally only.

ANSWER. The Antecedent is denied. There is no real opposition between the two Propositions. And now, let us proceed to investigate the alleged proof. It will be willingly granted, that the existence of created Essences is predetermined in the Decree of the Divine Will; and that the Divine Will, and, therefore, any Decree of the Divine Will, is eternal and immutable entitatively, i.e. as It is in Itself, because it is really identical with the Divine Nature. But, if It is considered terminatively, i.e. as terminated by such and such an object outside Itself, It is neither immutable nor eternal. For, though Itself, in the luminousness of Its own self-existing Being, remains always unchangeable, always one Act; yet the external secondary objects change before It, and come and go, as It wills, like objects passing across the field of a telescope, In the Minor of the second syllogism, in which it is affirmed, it was true from all eternity that those Essences would exist, there is an apparent ambiguity. For the truth of a Judgment is one thing; and the truth of the entity that is the subject of the Judgment, another. Yet, in the above Premiss these two are confounded. Once suppose the Divine Decree; it is an eternal and unchanging truth, that such a being will exist at such a given point of time. But it is not true, that the existence of such being is itself eternal and immutable, or that its actuated essence is absolutely immutable.

II. The doctrine enunciated in the above Proposition gives rise to a much more serious difficulty; since it threatens to subvert the very foundations of human science. For Science is conversant only with realities; and if those realities are not necessary, eternal, unchangeable, there can be no Science, properly so called. Now, it has been already stated, that actual finite Essence is produced by the First Efficient Cause; just as its Existence, with which the former is really identified, is generally acknowledged to be. Besides, actual finite Essence can cease to be, as the Thesis evidently supposes. But if so, there can be no such thing as immutable and eternal truths within the sphere of finite Essence, and, consequently, no Science of it. For whatever is enunciated of finite Essence, is only verified for so long as it exists; and, therefore, before its creation, there was no truth about it either way. In like manner, after its destruction or corruption, there will be no truth. So also, since all knowledge of God in the natural order is derived from the truth of His created works; it follows that anything like a scientific knowledge of God's Existence or Nature is impossible, because a conclusion cannot carry beyond the strength of its premisses. Thus, that man is a rational animal, for instance, is only true while a man exists; before and after, it is a mere conceptual figment. So, likewise, that three and four make seven, is only verified for such time as four things exist and three things exist. There is, at the most, but a subjective necessity; consequently, such propositions are Categories of our reason, or synthetical a priori Judgments, and nothing more. They can have no objective nature; and belong to Logic rather than to Metaphysics, which, under the circumstances, would be an impossible Science.

ANSWER. This difficulty has been felt and has been variously treated by different Doctors of the School. Some moderns have gone the length of admitting, that these enunciations concerning finite Essence are not eternal and immutable. But such an opinion is exceptional and contrary to the persistent teaching of the Peripatetics, Pagan as well as Christian. Others, while agreeing as to the fact of their eternal unchangeableness, have differed in their way of explaining the intimate reason why they are so. The following Proposition offers a solution of the question, according to the mind of St. Thomas.