FIFTEENTH LECTURE
Before answering the fifth objection against free will, which argues from the divine foreknowledge of human actions, a number of metaphysical explanations, concerning the existence and nature of God, must be presupposed. We shall deal in this lecture with four points which are thus to be presupposed.
First point: -- The rational way of establishing the existence of God can be summarized as follows: Something has always existed. Any being whatsoever which has always existed existed either by itself or by another. If it existed by itself, that is to say, without being caused, its essence was the very act of existing, that is to say, it was the very to be subsisting by itself, or the pure Act, without any multiplicity, change, matter or potentiality; in other terms, it was what we call God.
If any being whatsoever which has always existed existed by another, it supposed something else by which it was grounded in being, and this something else in its turn existed either by itself or by another, in such a way that finally we must arrive at something existing by itself, that is to say, at God.
Second point: -- God can be known only through the similtude of proportionality (analogy) that exists between the Pure Act and things of which we have experience and which are proportioned to our knowledge. Thus we conceive and speak humanly, not divinely, of the divine, and know that our concepts apply truly to God, but that their mode or manner of apprehension does not apply to the mode or manner according to which God exists.
Third point: -- Thus the diverse perfections that we perceive in beings and that we attribute analogically to Being by itself exist in God without being in Him really distinct from one another. The foundation of their diversity in our mind is the eminent and superabundant riches of divine simplicity. In other terms, the distnction between divine perfections is a virtual distinction, that is to say, a merely ideal, not real distinction, but required by the very reality with which it deals.
Fourth point: -- Intelligence is in God, for He is supremely immaterial, and knowledge goes along with immateriality. And will also is in God, for in every subject where intelligence is, the will also is, that is to say, spiritual inclination toward the very reality which is in this subject as known by it. Intelligence and will are virtually distinct in God, and really identical with His essence and existence. The existence of God is His very act of knowing Himself and loving Himself.