PROPOSITION XXIII.
The immutable and eternal truth of enunciations in which essential attributes are predicated of finite Being, depends, not on finite Being in itself, nor ultimately on an abstract necessity arising out of any ideal identity between Subject and Predicate; but, fundamentally on the Divine Nature, formally on the Divine Intellect.
I. THE FIRST MEMBER of this Thesis, in which it is asserted that the immutable and eternal truth of these enunciations does not depend on the finite Being itself, is too plain to require elaborate proof. For, in such case, it must depend on finite Being, as purely possible, or as actual, or, lastly, as including both its merely possible and actual state. But purely possible Being may at once be put out of the question; because, in itself, it is nothing, and all reality in the concept is derived from another. There remains, therefore, nothing but actual finite Being. The immutable and eternal truth of these propositions, however, cannot depend on finite Being in its actual state, for the reasons already given. If they could, the contingent, temporary, and changeable, would be a sufficient reason of the necessary, eternal, and immutable; which is absurd.
II. IN THE SECOND MEMBER it is denied, that the immutable and eternal truth of these enunciations depends ultimately on an abstract necessity arising out of any ideal identity between subject and predicate.
The opinion herein rejected is that of Suarez.{1} He says that the absolute necessity and, consequently, eternal and immutable truth of such Judgments depends, not on the Divine Intelligence, but on the objective identity of the Subject and Predicate. Thus, in the proposition, Man is a rational animal, the Predicate Rational animal, is objectively identical with the Subject, Man. So, in like manner, in the judgment, Twice three make six, the Predicate, Six, is identical with the Subject, Twice three. In accordance with this theory, he makes the eternal and immutable truth of negative enunciations to depend on a necessary diversity of the Extremes. Thus, a stone is not an animal, is eternally true, because the Predicate, Animal, is necessarily diverse from the Subject, Stone. This necessity, moreover, according to Suarez, arises from the unity common to all Being, which postulates that a thing should be identical with itself and distinct or diverse from all other.
Now, it can scarcely be denied, that this identity on the one hand, and diversity on the other, between the two Extremes or Terms of an immediate analytical Judgment, in the order of human cognition, are a proximate and pro tanto sufficient reason for its eternal necessity. But, that the necessity, eternal and immutable truth, of these enunciations should ultimately depend on such a motive, is open to serious objections. For,
i. What constitutes this necessary identity or diversity? Why is it eternally necessary that a man and a rational animal should be identical, or that three and three should be identical with six? Why is it eternally necessary, antecedently to all induction of experience, that a stone should not be a living thing? It cannot be said that the two subjective ideas, holding the place respectively of Subject and Predicate, are precisely identical; for, in this case, the Judgment would be a mere barren tautology. Besides, Consciousness teaches that the two ideas, as ideas merely, are not precisely the same. Nevertheless, they essentially agree in the representation of one object; so that, in the idea of the Subject, on account of this essential unity, is implicitly contained the idea of the Predicate. So far, so good. But whence this unity? How is it that eternally, immutably, the Predicate, antecedently to all experience, is implicitly contained in the idea of the Subject? Surely, it is plain that no one can stop here, who is in quest of the sufficient reason, in ultimate analysis, of the eternal truth of these enunciations.
ii. The opinion in question seems to imperil the objectivity of truth in its very sanctuary. For all scientific demonstrations are derived from these immediate analytical enunciations, or axiomatic principles; and they cannot give to their conclusions that which is not theirs to give. But this theory reduces the necessity of these axioms to a mere subjective necessity; for it is acknowledged that it does not depend on actual Being, it cannot depend on possible Being as such, it is strenuously maintained that it does not depend on the Divine Intelligence: what remains, therefore, but that its necessity should be a subjective form of human conception, -- one of the Kantian Categories of the Understanding?
iii. It identifies the necessity of such enunciations with the necessity contained in the third signification of Is, as given us by the Philosopher; and, therefore, makes the necessity of metaphysical, to be nothing different from the logical necessity of purely conceptual, truths. Thus, for instance, that a chimera is a fabulous monster is eternally true -- the Predicate in this Judgment is objectively identical with the Subject -- the idea of the Predicate is simply contained in the idea of the Subject; what more is required to place this Proposition on a par with, e.g., the Principle of contradiction? The same may be said of the judgment, Blindness is a privation. Yet these two Judgments have for their object, not real Being, but fictions of the reason; wherefore, their necessity and consequent eternity and immutability are so far identical. The theory of Suarez does not seem to distinguish in anywise the one kind of necessity from the other.
iv. To make the eternal truth of these enunciations depend in ultimate analysis on the identity between the two Extremes, is to release these truths from their dependence on God. But, if this were once allowed, then God would not be the one only Source of all necessary truth. It would also seem to follow that, in the creation of finite Essences, He would be limited by a unity or identity which is independent of Himself. But neither of these conclusions are compatible with His infinite and infinitely perfect Being.
v. This theory would seem to make the Divine Science partially dependent on that which is outside and independent of God Himself. Indeed, Suarez apparently admits the consequence. For he says that these two enunciations are not eternally true because they are known to the Divine Mind, but rather God knows them because they are eternally true; and they are eternally true because of the identity between the Subject and Predicate. Nor can it be urged against this powerful argument, that these truths are not the only truths known to God which are self-determined; because the free actions of the creature are known to God because they are, not are, because they are known to God: and that it suffices, in order to save the supremacy of the Divine Wisdom, that these truths, like the free actions of the creature, should be known to God in His own Essence as an infinitely perfect Mirror of all truth. The cases are altogether different. It is of metaphysical necessity, that the free action of a being should not be determined by another; for such a determination would be a contradiction in terms. But, as regards finite Essence, God is absolute Cause in all respects. He is Cause, so to speak, of its possibility; He is Exemplar and efficient Cause of its actuation. It follows, therefore, that He is also absolute Cause of all truths necessarily and absolutely identified with those Essences.
For these intrinsic reasons, and, in particular, because it is opposed to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, we are compelled to reject this opinion of Suarez.
III. In THE THIRD MEMBER of this Proposition it is asserted, that the immutable and eternal truth of enunciations, in which essential attributes are predicated of finite Being, (and the same may be said of negative enunciations on the same subject-matter), depends fundamentally on the Divine Nature, formally on the Divine Intellect or Idea.
This part of the Thesis is a Corollary from the preceding parts and from the twenty-first Proposition in this Chapter. For, (supposing that there are such necessary Judgments), if the immutable and eternal truth of these enunciations does not depend on finite Being itself, however regarded, -- if it does not depend on an abstract necessity derived from the identity of their extremes, it follows that it must depend somehow on God; for there is nothing else remaining. Again: In the twenty-first Proposition it has been shown, that there is a true sense in which possible finite Essence is absolutely immutable; while, on the other hand, it has been made equally clear that, by the actuation of finite Essence, it is brought under the Categories of Time and Space -- subject to succession and, therefore, to change, with a beginning and end, or at least a beginning, which excludes it from the fulness of eternity. Therefore, it is through possible Essence that we must pass, in order to discover the eternity and unchangeableness of these truths, if we would hope to find the one or the other. But possible Essence is absolutely eternal and immutable -- not in itself for in itself it is nothing -- but both fundamentally and logically in God.
Furthermore: God is the only real Truth, existing from everlasting to everlasting, and infinite in Its comprehension. Therefore, no truth can be outside of Him in any difference of time, which is not ever in Him through the infinite Present of His Eternity. As St. Thomas says, 'The Truth which remains after the destruction of true Beings is the First Truth which, amid the change of things, is Itself unchanged.'{2} No truth can be independent of Him. For either it is absolutely, because He is; or it is momentarily independent, after a sort, of Him, (as in the case of the free action of the creature), because He has willed to create an independence which He foreknew in all the minutest details of its free determination, and even of its free determinability, in order that the truth might return to Him from Whom it sprang. But this latter class of truths does not at present enter into the question, which is concerned only with the truth of finite Essence, and has no connection with the free determinations of the creature. It follows, therefore, that the eternity and immutability of these truths reposes wholly on God.
Again: The Divine Wisdom is the measure of all finite Being, and, therefore, the measure of its truth. God is its measure, because He is the Efficient Cause; for the measure of a thing produced, the measure of its truth, is the exemplar or prototypal Idea in the mind of the Maker. As St. Thomas remarks, 'The Divine Intellect is the Cause of finite Being, whence it must of necessity be measured by the Divine Intellect, since everything is measured by its first principle.'{3}
Yet again: The pattern of all finite Being is the Divine Nature; so that, though created things exist individually outside God, yet there is no reality in the creature which is not contained either formally or virtually, and in all cases eminently, in the Creator. The Being of the finite is an imitation, more or less remote, of the Infinite Being. Hence, the nature, so to say, of the former is in the Latter, and as eternal as, and no more subject to change than, the Divine Nature; so that the eternal and immutable truth of finite Essence is an echo of the eternity and unchangeableness of God.
Once more: In the past eternity, (to speak after the manner of men), there could be no real truth but God; seeing that nothing else was, whereas He is.
The doctrine here contended for is unequivocally the teaching of St. Thomas. Indeed, Suarez confesses to it. Accordingly, we come across it repeatedly, up and down the various works of the former. Thus, in the Summa he says, 'In this way, therefore, things true and necessary are eternal; because they are in the Eternal Intellect, which is the Intellect of God alone.'{4} So, again, in his Commentary on the Sentences: 'Necessary things are eternal only in the Divine Mind; as likewise the truths of enunciable propositions have been eternally in God.'{5} Again, in one of his Opuscula: 'Definitions and certain propositions are said to be unchangeable by reason of the necessary relation of one Term to the other. Thus, Socrates is mutable, and in like manner his running and movement are mutable; nevertheless, the following is immutable: -- If Socrates runs, he is in motion. This unchangeableness, however, does not make the proposition eternal, save inasmuch as it is in the Eternal, i.e. in the Divine Intellect.'{6} In this passage, the Angelic Doctor admits that the necessity and consequent invariableness of certain propositions arises proximately from the identity of the two Extremes, but he does not end there as Suarez does; for he goes on to say, that they are eternal, and so, absolutely necessary and absolutely immutable, only as they are the object of the Divine Idea. And, in another place, he expressly adds, (having again stated, that as only One Being is eternal, so the one Divine Truth is alone eternal), 'In like manner, the same is to be said of the immutability of truth as of the immutability of Being; for there is no other Being that is absolutely immutable save the Divine. Therefore, there is no truth simply immutable save the Truth of God.'{7} Once more, he declares in another place, 'When a true thing perishes, the truth perishes so far as regards the being which it has in that thing. But, nevertheless, the truth conceived may remain, either according to the being which it has in another thing, or according to the being which it has in the Soul. And, if all these are abstracted, the truth will remain only in God.'{8} It will be of service to consider these words of the Angelic Doctor with some curiousness, and to elucidate them by a concrete example. Let a stone be presented to the intellect by sensible perception. The mind recognizes it to be a substance, and forms (let it be supposed) the following Judgment: -- Stone is a substance. Now, we will suppose that the stone has been destroyed. The real truth perishes with the stone, so far as the original object is concerned: yet the truth somehow remains. Why? Because there are other stones. Destroy every stone; still it remains. But where? In the created intellect. Then, sweep away all finite intellect. The truth still remains in the Divine Idea. Thus, therefore, a truth may live, even when the finite being which gave birth to its cognition in the mind of man has perished. Thus, Zoologists have a true idea of the nature of a Dodo, although it is now extinct; and they clearly recognize that, if it should ever be reproduced in the actual order, it must exhibit such and such characteristic and essential notes. But, if the idea be really and objectively true; that idea, whether it be human or even Divine, must be determined by some object which is sufficient reason of the concept and of its truth. Was it eternally and immutably true, before ever man was created, that 'Man is a rational animal?' Then there was no Intellect but the Divine, no real object of the Divine Idea but the Divine Essence. And now, after this digression, to conclude the quotations from St. Thomas: -- we find it stated in the Summa, that 'The nature of the circle and that Two and Three are Five have their eternity in the Divine Mind.'{9} These two instances will prove of service in the discussion of the question, which alone remains, touching the way in which such truths are objected to the Divine Intelligence in the Divine Essence.
To begin with what is the easier: -- The essential entity of finite spiritual Being, which is least remote of all from the Infinite Being by reason of the excellence of its nature, is formally, though eminently, precontained in the Divine nature. For God is a Spirit; and God is Substance in a way in which nothing else is, or can be, either spirit or substance. There is no difficulty, therefore, in understanding how, from God's contemplation of His own Essence, the Divine Intellect can form to Itself (speaking after the way of men) the Exemplar Idea of pure spiritual substances or angelic natures. But, descending down the scale of Being, the difficulty grows. As soon as Matter, Extension, Quantity continuous and discrete, local Motion, Composition of parts, either enter into the constitution of Essences or flow from the Essence as essential properties; it seems hard to understand how the Exemplar Idea of such Beings can be derived from the Divine nature. Nevertheless, it may be possible, by a little further thought, to lessen, at all events, the mysterious obscurity of this problem; though it must always be remembered, that God would not be God, the Infinite, and infinitely Perfect, if the bottomless depths of His Being were of easy apprehension to the finite understanding.
A more perfect finite Being may virtually at once and eminently contain in itself inferior Essences, which do not formally enter into its constitution, because of those imperfections or defects in its nature, which follow from its having been fashioned in a lower grade of likeness to the Divine nature. Thus, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, the soul of man is one and simple; yet, in its spiritual entity, it virtually and eminently contains both vegetable and animal life. But it includes neither the one nor the other formally; because vegetable life, as such, formally postulates the absence of sensitive, -- animal, the absence of purely spiritual faculties. It need not surprise us, therefore, if the Infinite Being should include all that is or can be, virtually and eminently in Himself. Indeed, it must be so. For, if He be the sufficient reason of all possibility and the efficient Cause of all actual Being that is not Himself; He must know beforehand His own work and, to know it beforehand, must somehow precontain it in His own nature; for no one can give that which he has not to give. But how can the Infinite, Who is pure Spirit, most simple Act, immutable Now, wholly omnipresent by Essence, precontain in Himself Matter, Composition, Quantity continuous and discrete, Extension, local Motion, and the like? It is most evident that He does not contain them formally, though they are His handiwork; because it would be a contradiction in terms. But cannot He contain them virtually and eminently? They carry along with them, it is true, by their very nature, a defect of ulterior reality, -- a boundary of nothingness (so to say), which cannot be in God. But they have their own perfection too; otherwise, they could not be real Beings with energies and operations of their own. This must be in God, simply because it is perfection. Thus, Matter in itself is not Being, but Being in halves, or, rather, half-Being; so that it cannot exist without its substantial Form. Yet, it has a partial entity that is its own; and, so far, must be somehow precontained in Him Who is Infinite Essence. Again: composition supposes parts, and the priority of the parts to the composite whole; therefore, the want of self-sufficiency. This is defect of Being, -- its limit, which cannot be in God, though God knows it. But composition, likewise, connotes order, unity; and these must be in God. So, Quantity, as an accident, has no power of itself to exist absolutely in itself; but requires some other Being as the Subject of its inhesion. This is defect of Being, -- Nothing; and, therefore, is not in God, though it is known by God. For even the mind of man can cognize Privatives and Negatives. But Quantity gives to Substance its capacity for being in place, or being localized. This is a mixed perfection; for it means Presence, but Presence with a limit. The Presence is in God without the limit. Therefore the Where of material Being is virtually and eminently contained in the Divine Omnipresence. But this Where, which is correlative with the limits of continuous Quantity, supposes those limits. And those limits take form and are subject to laws of form, which regulate the circumjacent Where, and are themselves concomitants of the prescribed degree of likeness to the Divine Image in the nature of the creature; and that degree fixes the position of the creature in the scale of creation. Hence, the figures and laws of geometry are contained virtually and eminently in the Divine nature. So much for continuous Quantity. Discrete Quantity results from the mutual separation or division of continuous quantities; and its form or law is Number. But all number proceeds from Unity, as the Pythagoreans so perseveringly remind us; and Perfection is said to consist in unity under a sort of multiplicity. For those, then, who profess the Nicene Faith, there is no difficulty. Predicamental Number is eminently precontained in that transcendental Number of Three in One. A similar analysis of the rest will conduct us to precisely similar conclusions.
But, there still remains a point to be cleared up. Whence the necessity and immutability of these Essences and Laws or Forms? It is easier now to apprehend, how all these realities are included eminently, whether formally or virtually as the case may be, in the Divine Essence; but it is by no means so clear, why one Essence might not glide into another, or a law admit of variations.
a. First then, we will take the Essences of things. Why, for instance, is it a necessary and immutable truth that, man is a rational animal? It will not do to say, because the two terms are identical; for this is simply to beg the question. We are in search of the sufficient Reason for this identity. What guarantee is there, that this supposed identity may not be a mere conceit of the human understanding, having no objective reality? Neither, again, is it enough of itself to say, that these Essences are necessary and immutable, because they are so conceived immutably and necessarily in the Divine Prototypal Idea. For, then arises the ulterior question, why the Divine Idea is so determined; and we are at once confronted with the assertion of Suarez, that finite Essences are not necessarily such, because the Divine Idea so represents them, but rather that the Divine Idea so represents them, because they are necessarily such, and no other. The answer to the question is virtually contained in the doctrine which has been developed in the preceding paragraphs. For the one primary object of the Divine Prototypal Ideas, is the Divine Essence as indefinitely imitable outside Itself in various grades of Being. Hence, in the Divine Essence, there is that definite grade of imitability, which is represented in the Divine Prototypal Idea, e. g. of Man. As this imitability is nothing else than the infinite fulness of the Divine Being, considered (so to speak) partially and under limits; it is as immutable and necessary as God Himself. For instance, that a man should not be a rational animal, is tantamount to God not being God. His imitability in such or such a grade of perfection has its own defined limits. Beyond those limits, this particular grade ceases; and another supervenes. Wherefore, it is no longer this finite Essence, but another. Such a definite perfectness as is in the type is likewise in the Prototype, and infinitely beyond; but, once go beyond in the former, and the nature will be specifically other. The same, somewhat modified, however, by the nature of the subjectmatter, may be said of the limits of continuous quantity, which constitute geometrical forms. All these forms are virtually and eminently contained in the Divine Reality, whence, the Divine Intellect conceives the prototypal ideas of material Being which, as being material, is necessarily subject to quantitative forms. Hence, .. j that the circle, for instance, is a figure wherein all lines drawn from ihe centre to the circumference are equal, is a necessary and immutable truth; because those material entities, of which it is the figure, are Images of God in a certain definite grade of reality, and, within that grade, bear an infinitesimal resemblance to His Omnipresence.
6. The question of the geometrical forms of continuous quantity naturally leads on to that of analytical Principles; for the former are on the border-land, as it were, between natures and laws. Here, again, it must be said, that those Principles are fundamentally contained in the Divine Essence. That three and two make five -- that twice three make six, are principles founded on Unity in its necessary and transcendental relation to Plurality, and have their prototype in God. All the principles of Number are echoes of the Divine Harmony. The Principle of contradiction, in like manner, is ultimately based on the Divine Perfection. For God is; and, according to the fulness of the meaning of Being, it is impossible that He should not be. The Principle of efficient causality is in Him, and in His most excellent and perfect nature. For, imperfect imitation implies two things, viz, a limit and an original. But nothing can be self-limited; and that other which limits it, is its Cause. No imperfect imitation can be its own original; and that other, which is the original, is its Cause.
DIFFICULTY.
There is only one objection, urged by Suarez against the doctrine maintained in this last Proposition, which has not already received an answer in the declaration of the Thesis; and that one is not of much force against the doctrine as a whole, but only against a part of it. Nevertheless, it must not be passed over. If, says this illustrious writer, the eternity of these enunciations were determined by their Being in the Divine Intellect; it would, for the same reason, follow, that contingent enunciations, v.g. that there was an eclipse of the sun on such a day, would be able to boast of a like eternity; for their truth was always present to the Divine Wisdom.
ANSWER. This difficulty is solved by a distinction. Such contingent propositions would be subjectively eternal, i.e. they would be eternally included in the Divine Knowledge. So much is undeniable. But, objectively, they would not be eternal; because the Infinite Wisdom would know them as now not being and afterwards being, according to succession of time. But the enunciations, which are at present under discussion, God eternally knows as eternally and necessarily true, i.e. they are both subjectively and objectively eternal.
{1} See Metaph. Disp. xxxi, § 12, nn. 38-47.
{2} 'Veritas quae remanet, destructis rebus veris, est Veritas Prima, quae, etiam rebus mutatis, non mutatur.' De Veritate, Q. i, a. 6, ad 3m.
{3} 'Intellectus Divinus est causa rei. Unde oportet quod res mensuretur per intellectum Divinum; cum unumquodque mensuretur per suum primum principium.' In I Sentt. d. xix, Q. 5, a. 2, ad 2.
{4} 'Secundum hoc igitur vera at necessaria sunt aeterna, quia sunt in intellectu aeterno, qui est intellectus Divinus solus.' 1ae x, 3, ad 3.
{5} Necessaria sunt aeterna tantum in Mente Divina; sicut etiam veritates enuntiabilium fuerunt ab aeterno in Deo.' I Sentt. d. viii, Q. 2, a. 2, ad 5.
{6} 'Et definitiones et propositiones aliquae dicuntur invariabiles propter necessarium ordinam unius termini ad alium; sicut Socrates variabilis est; et similiter cursus ejus et motus. Et tamen hoc est invariabile, Si currit, movetur. Haec tamen invariabilitas non facit propositionem aeternam nisi secundum quod est in intellectu aeterno, scil. Divino.' Opusc. IX, (aliter VIII), Q. 18.
{7} 'Similiter de mutabilitate veritatis idem dicendum est quod de mutabilitate essendi; ut enim supra dictum est, simpliciter immutabile non est nisi Esse Divinum. unde simpliciter immutabilis veritas non est nisi una, scil. Divina.' In Sentt. d. xix, Q. 5, a. 3, in a.
{8} 'Pereunte re Vera, perit veritas quantum ad illud esse quod habet in re illa. Sed tamen potest remanere intentio veritatis secundum esse quod habet in alia re, vel secundum esse quod habet in anima. Quae omnia si auferantur, non remanebit veritas nisi in Deo.' In I Sentt. d. xix, Q. 5, a. 3, ad 6.
{9} 'Ratio circuli et duo et tria esse quinque, habent aeternitatem in mente Divina.' 1ae xvi, 7, ad 1m.