23. The Divine Nature
7. Introduction
As we said before, through revelation, God has made known his being and operations, his intimate life and the eternal designs of his will regarding the salvation of all mankind. This section will focus on the nature of God,1 that is, his being and operations. We will refer to them as the essence and attributes of God. Philosophically, the word essence means “what a thing is,” that which is common to all individuals of the same species. In the case of people, the essence is “humanity.” All the individuals of the same species are able to carry out the operations proper to that species; they act similarly in what is specifically proper to them. For example, all people act by means of their intellect and free will. It can be said, therefore, that things act according to what they are, that is, according to the characteristics of their essence. As philosophers traditionally put it, “Operation follows being, and the manner of operation follows the manner of being.” This is why the essence of a thing is called its nature insofar as it is the principle of its operations.
Therefore, the study of the divine nature means studying the essence and operations of God. The divine essence—what God is in himself (the Deity)—is not fathomable by the human intellect. Not even reason enlightened by faith can grasp the divine essence, although with faith, the starting point is much higher, for reason relies on the help of grace. Unaided reason can reach only an analogical knowledge of God’s perfections based on the perfections of his creatures. Through faith, however, we arrive at God himself because faith is a participation in God’s knowledge of himself. Still, this is not clear and evident knowledge of the divine essence, but just a mysterious image. The divine essence is too elevated for the human intellect to grasp it fully, even when aided by faith.
Combining the knowledge gained through faith with the power of natural reason, we have a remarkably high starting point, the help of grace, and the most adequate rational tool, which is the way of analogy. Theological knowledge of God is the fruit of this union—or rather, in this way, we build knowledge little by little, following a path illumined by faith up to the outer limits of our intellect. This is the method we will follow in our study of God: Given a certain truth, perfection, or work revealed by God about himself, we will use our reason to try to understand it better and accurately express his nature and perfections.
The divine attributes are the perfections proper to the nature of God. They are known through his works and revealed words. They can be expressed, up to a certain degree, through analogy. A distinction is usually made between entitative and operative attributes depending on whether they refer to perfections of the divine essence considered in itself or in its operations.
8. The Divine Essence
8a) Physical and Metaphysical Essence
The totality of the divine perfection in its mysterious unity constitutes the physical essence of God, which is incomprehensible and ineffable to us. The metaphysical essence of God is that perfection, which, from our revelation-based standpoint, is the foundation of all his other perfections. This is both what infinitely distinguishes God from all the creatures and what is absolutely specific to him. Theologians often call this exclusive property of God the “formal constitutive element of the Divinity.”
8b) The Metaphysical Essence of God
In the Book of Exodus, God revealed to Moses: “I am who I am.” When Moses queried what he was to say about the One who sent him to free the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt, God added: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14). With these words God revealed his proper name: Yahweh, i.e., “I am,” “he who is.” They give the starting point of Christian thinking: What does this proper name of God mean? What does it reveal about God himself?
The words of Exodus carry a religious message—not merely a philosophical one—although the consideration of such revelation gave birth to philosophical work of great importance. In Exodus, the greatest Christian thinkers have found the answer to the puzzle of the metaphysical essence of God. They concluded that God’s essence can be expressed by saying that God and Being are identical: God is the subsistent Being, whose essence is to be. In spite of general agreement on this point, different authors have at times understood the notion of Being differently. This partly explains the divergence of various theological developments.
The interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas stands out from the rest, having received the widest acceptance in the history of theology. The key to his work lies in the real distinction between essence (“what a thing is”) and act of being (“that by which it is”). Every real thing has its own essence and act of being. With this in mind, St. Thomas interprets the words of Exodus in the following way: God is “he who is,” the necessary being not requiring any cause of his existence. There is no distinction between essence and act of being in him—his essence is his act of being. God is his Being and can, therefore, be called self-subsistent Being (ipsum esse subsistens). Accordingly, the great majority of the followers of St. Thomas say that the metaphysical essence of God is aseity (the quality of being a se, “by himself”), a term that summarizes the perfection of his Being.
9. The Divine Attributes
After studying the notion of divine attributes and its division into entitative and operative attributes, we will examine each of them in particular. Before going into that, we must study the distinction between them.
All the attributes and perfections of God are properties of his essence. They are found in him in infinite degree and without any element of potentiality, because God is pure act and nothing potential or merely possible can be present in him. We may say that these perfections are present in God, but it is more accurate to say that these perfections are God himself.
The perfections are mysteriously identified with the divine essence, forming a wonderful unity. Now, since they are identical to the divine essence, they are also identical to one another. Nevertheless, it is possible to talk about their distinctions with respect to the essence and with respect to one another.
The notion of essence is distinct from the notion of goodness, truth, or any other perfection; each of them is the intellectual expression of a different reality. Actually, in creatures, goodness is different from truth, truth from beauty, etc. Therefore, their corresponding notions are different as well. However, God’s perfections are completely included in the unity of his essence. Therefore, the distinction can exist only in their notion—a purely rational distinction that would usually correspond to a distinction in reality, although there is none in this case.
The First Vatican Council gave a summary of the divine perfections:
The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church believes and professes that there is one true and living God, the creator and Lord of heaven and earth. He is all-powerful, eternal, unmeasurable, incomprehensible and limitless in intellect and will and in every perfection. Since he is one unique spiritual substance, entirely simple and unchangeable, he must be declared really and essentially distinct from the world, perfectly happy in himself and by his very nature, and inexpressibly exalted over all things that exist or can be conceived other than himself.2
9a) Summary of the Principal Entitative Attributes
(1) Simplicity
In God, there is no composition of any kind, physical or metaphysical; he is absolutely simple. There is no physical composition in him because he is not material. He is pure spirit, both as divine revelation teaches us (cf. Jn 4:24; Hos 11:9; Dt 4:15–19) and as reason can prove.3 There is no metaphysical composition in God either. In all creatures, the mind can discover a composition of act and potential at different levels: composition of matter and form, essence and act of being, nature and subject, and substance and accidents.
Theology demonstrates that none of these can be found in God, because they imply potentiality, and God is pure act of being. He is absolutely simple, thus utterly one and indivisible. Simplicity, therefore, means that the infinite divine perfections are identical with the divine essence, although we cannot understand how. Each of the perfections really exists infinitely in God. God’s perfections do not exist in composition, but in the absolute simplicity of identity with the divine essence.
(2) Goodness
Sacred Scripture states that “no one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:19), and we can clearly see that his goodness spreads without limits.
Creation is, as the Church teaches, the fruit and manifestation of this divine attribute. As the First Vatican Council stated, God created bonitate sua et omnipotente virtute: through his goodness and omnipotence.4
In Sacred Scripture, divine goodness is found united to mercy and compassion. The works of God are always good, and he shares his goodness with all creatures, since he is goodness itself. Philosophically speaking, good is that which all things desire, that which attracts the will because it possesses perfection, and perfection is anything that is in act. God is the Supreme Being and is, therefore, the Supreme Good. He is good by essence in the same way that he is Being by essence. Goodness in creatures is only a participation in the divine goodness. Therefore, we should affirm that God is goodness itself and the source of all goodness.
(3) Unicity
There is only one God because there can be only one infinitely good and perfect being. If there were two, they would differ in something, and that would already imply an imperfection in one or both. Based on the perpetual teaching of revelation, the Roman Catechism5 and theology6 use this simple reasoning to prove the uniqueness of God.
The sacred books are a witness of the one and unique God who addresses the people of Israel saying: “You shall worship no other god” (Ex 34:14); “the Lord is God; there is no other besides him” (Dt 4:35).
In history, the revealed monotheism of Israel and Christianity sharply stands out against the deformed conceptions that led to the polytheistic cults of other peoples. Polytheism is not the first stage of the naturally religious soul of man; rather, it is the consequence of an intelligence and will that are wounded by sin. They seek God without grace’s aid, thereby confusing man with creatures or his own desires.
Something similar can be said about the error of dualism: By seeking the root of evil in something different from the mystery of sin, it ends up believing in a sort of evil god that, if not evil itself, would at least be the cause of evil. Both errors illustrate the plight of the human soul when it tries to seek God without the help of grace.
(4) Immutability
In connection with the spiritual nature of God, Sacred Scripture talks about the immutability of his being and operations. No change is possible in God. He always remains the same, unlike creatures, which are changeable (cf. Mal 3:6; Ps 102:26–28; Is 51:8; Jas 1:13–18).
From a metaphysical point of view, the immutable does not undergo change; its reality is to never change. In this sense, the only absolutely immutable reality is Being itself because it could change only into non-being, which is nothing. God, who is Being itself, is immutable by essence. Whatever proceeds from his will partakes of this perfection: the love that he has for his creatures, the eternal law that governs the whole of creation, the natural law (which is man’s participation in the eternal law), and the revealed truths. All these realities are as immutable as their author.
Immutability should not be understood as absence of activity. On the contrary, it means infinite activity without the slightest degree of passivity. God is pure act, cause of all causes, and the Unmoved Mover. His immutability is infinite activity without, of course, undergoing change—that is, without passage from potency to act.
(5) Eternity
In some biblical passages, God is called the Eternal One (cf. Gn 21:33; Is 40:28), He who has no beginning or end, before or after.7 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God,” says the psalmist (Ps 90:2). St. Paul declares that God is the “King of ages” (1 Tm 1:17). In the inspired words of St. John, God is he “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rv 1:4; 1:8; 4:8).
According to Boethius, eternity may be defined as the “simultaneously whole and perfect possession of unending life,”8 which means a personal life in absolute present, not subject to time—with neither past nor future. Eternity is a kind of fullness of life, which can belong only to the immutable Being in whom there is no motion, no change, no passage from one stage to another. God lives without being subject to time. He is placed over and above history, although he continually acts in it and directs men to the fullness of salvation.
Everything in God is eternal: his plans, his decisions, his knowledge of all things, which are “open and laid bare to the eyes of him” (Heb 4:13).9 Hence, each moment—the smallest moment of time—is important for someone who is trying to orient his or her life toward God. No matter how small, it is always in the sight of God. Thus, Christian sanctity is but the sum total of thousands of moments of sanctity.
(6) Omnipresence
“Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jer 23:23–24). These and many other such inspired words in Sacred Scripture explicitly reveal the omnipresence of God. The words pronounced by St. Paul in the Areopagus allude to the same reality: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Omnipresence is an exclusive property of God, founded on his absolute causality. Our reason relates it to his infinity, immensity, and ubiquity. God does not have limits, since he is Being itself, and Absolute Being admits no limits. He fills everything; he is pure spirit, without the slightest trace of matter. He is neither local nor universal, nor does he occupy any span of time. In other words, God is absolutely transcendent in the sense usually given to that term in Christian doctrine—that is, distinct, excellent, far superior to whatever form of being we may imagine.10
The true notion of God, however—the one taught by the Church—points out his intimate presence in the being of things along with the divine transcendence. This presence is called the divine immanence. Catholic theology has named the divine omnipresence “presence by immensity,” and has explained this notion on the basis of creation. From that point of view, we can easily understand the radical dependence of the creature on God. God is the Absolute Cause of the being of all creatures, which he has brought forth from nothing.
This presence by immensity is studied by theology in three different levels:
i) By presence, insofar as everything is open before God’s eyes
ii) By power, since his power and providence extend to all creatures
iii) By essence, since God is in all things giving them being
This third level includes the other two and explains God’s intimate presence in things insofar as he is the first and Absolute Cause of being.
Aside from the universal presence of immensity, there can be other types of divine presence in rational creatures, in accord with their specific nature. One of these is the “intentional presence,” by which God is present in the intellect as the known object and in the will as the desired object. Another type is the “indwelling presence,” which essentially consists of the presence of the Most Blessed Trinity in the soul in grace, where he dwells as in a temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; Gal 4:6; Eph 2:19–22; Jn 14:17; 14:21–26).
9b) Summary of the Principal Operative Attributes
(1) The Divine Intelligence
In many ways and on many occasions, Sacred Scripture states that God limitlessly knows everything that refers to him and creatures (cf. Ex 3:14; Sir 1:2–3; Ps 50:11). His knowledge and wisdom are mysterious to man (cf. Rom 11:33), and reach into the depths of the heart of each person (cf. Jer 12:3; Rom 8:27; Rv 2:23). Being God, he knows future events (cf. Is 45:21).
Human reason by itself is also capable of proving the knowledge of God, as can be seen in the Fifth Way of St. Thomas. This proof leads to the existence of an intelligent being who governs all things, that is, an ordering intelligence that leads all things to their proper end.
God knows himself in an infinite manner. Since he is pure act of Being, he is utterly knowable: There is no matter in him, and immateriality is the root of knowledge. At the same time, he is infinitely cognizant, because there is no potentiality whatsoever in him. The proper object of his knowledge can be only something equal in excellence to his pure act so that it could actualize his intellect. However, there is no such object other than God himself. His own essence is the only proper object, the only intelligible thing capable of actualizing his divine intellect. Therefore, God knows himself in a perfect and immediate way. Moreover, since there is no composition in him—he is absolutely simple—his intellect and his essence are one and the same. In God, and only in God, to be is both to know and to be known at the same time.
God also knows all things outside of him because he is the First Cause of all beings. Before creating them, God knew them as possible participations of Being. Things somehow pre-existed in the divine intellect—not as really existing beings, but as intelligible beings—because God, in knowing himself, knows all the infinite possibilities of participation in being. Out of this infinite number of possible beings, some are created by his will and omnipotence, and others never exist. In this regard, theologians usually distinguish between God’s knowledge of vision (the divine knowledge of real things, whether past, present, or future) and his knowledge of simple intelligence (knowledge of merely possible beings).
God’s infinite knowledge must be credited with the knowledge of all real particular beings, since he is the Creator of them all as well as of all future realities. As the First Vatican Council taught, this includes contingent realities too, i.e., those that depend on the free activity of creatures.11 Regarding the relationship between the infallible knowledge of God and the freedom of man (an important question debated by theological schools in the course of history), we must mention that it is, in itself, a mystery far beyond the reach of human reason. God, who directs all things to their end in accord with their own nature, does not impede the freedom of man. On the contrary, he is its very basis.
(2) God as the Supreme Truth
The notion of truth implies two basic elements: a known thing and an intellect that knows. Truth is defined as the perfect agreement of both. This definition leads to two distinct manners of considering truth:
i) Ontological truth is the perfect agreement of each thing with an idea in the divine intellect according to which the thing has been created. Ontological truth is the actual being of the thing insofar as it is knowable.
ii) Logical truth is the agreement of the human intellect with the known thing.
We can also speak of a moral truth, which is the agreement between one’s words and the contents of one’s mind.
God is always the first truth in any of the above mentioned orders of truth.12 He is the first truth in the ontological order (Veritas Prima in essendo) because he is pure subsistent Being, and, since he is the first being, he is also the first truth. The truth of God is his wisdom, which creates and governs the world.
God is the first truth in the logical order (Veritas Prima in cognoscendo) because his knowledge is not the consequence of the agreement of the divine intellect with the being of things. Rather, it is the creative cause of reality. Created things are what God freely wanted them to be. His knowledge is previous, creative, and infallible.
Lastly, God is also the first truth in the moral order (Veritas Prima in dicendo) because, being God as he is, he can neither deceive nor be deceived.13 God is truthful when he reveals himself; the teaching that comes from him is a doctrine of truth (cf. Mal 2:6). He sent his Son to the world “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37).
God is truth itself; man can entirely rely on his fidelity. The beginning of sin and man’s fall was the lie of the tempter that induced man to doubt God’s word, benevolence, and fidelity.
(3) The Divine Will
Countless passages of the Old Testament tell us of God’s desires, the constant manifestation of his will, his law, and his designs. These are different ways of referring to God’s will, which, as it unfolds in his works, reveals his infinite love toward creatures. Still, it is in the New Testament where the revelation of the existence of God’s will—which must be loved and fulfilled by all mankind—reaches its highest point. Jesus Christ affirmed that his food is “to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 4:34), and that the one who will enter the kingdom of heaven is “he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 7:21). In the Lord’s Prayer, Christ taught his disciples to say: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10).
The Church teaches that the divine will is infinite,14 meaning that it acts with infinite love and with such an infinite freedom that nothing can curtail it. The Magisterium of the Church stresses that this will is made clear for everyone in the commandments and precepts of the law of God and the Church.15
Will is defined as the rational appetite that inclines the spiritual being toward the good known by the intellect. In other words, it is the tendency to attain a good known as such. The existence of a will necessarily implies the existence of a knowing intellect. Thus, human reason can discover the existence of the divine will because God is a personal being of an intellectual nature, and therefore, he must also have a will. “In every intellectual being there is will, just as in every sensible being there is animal appetite. And so there must be will in God, since there is intellect in him.”16
The exercise of the will—in any creature endowed with one—is directed to the attainment of the good, and this movement toward good is called love. God’s love is, first and necessarily, love for himself: He is the only infinite good toward which his will should be directed. This love is not selfish because selfishness would imply the existence of a good greater than God, not having its origin in him.
In loving himself, God infinitely and freely loves all creatures, and he manifests his love by distributing his goods among them. Creation—carried out with absolute freedom—Redemption with all the benefits coming from it, and all the other works of God reveal a generous and unfailing love prior to any corresponding love on the part of creatures.
The love of God is the cause of goodness in creatures; it is the cause of their perfections. From this, we can see that God’s love is orderly: He loves some creatures more than others because it is evident that he created some with more perfections than others.
Sacred Scripture shows that God’s love is gratuitous (cf. Dt 4:37; 7:8; 10:15). It is like the love of a father for his son (cf. Hos 11:1); it is stronger than the love of a mother for her children (cf. Is 49:14–15). God loves his people more than a spouse loves his beloved (cf. Is 62:4–5); this love will overcome even the worst infidelities (cf. Ez 16; Hos 11) and will give the most precious gift: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16). St. John says, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16).17
The end for which God acts can be none other than his own glory, as a dogma of faith on the work of creation affirms.18 Neither is the glory of God something egotistic; it is but the rightful honor and praise due, because he is the Supreme Good and the only truth.
The will of God is always fulfilled, even though in some cases, as in the case of man, it may seem not to be so. The reward or punishment resulting from man’s free actions are a manifestation of the divine will, which wants the good—and respects the freedom—of the rational creature.
(4) Divine Providence
Essentially, divine providence is the divine ordinance of each creature to its own end, i.e., the good proper to its nature. It is eternal in its conception and temporal in its execution. It includes:
i) the preservation of all creatures in being,
ii) the government of the entire creation according to the laws established by the creative decree, and
iii) the universality of divine action through secondary causes.
Providence reaches as far as divine causality: It extends to all creatures, to their specific as well as their individual principles.19
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 199–213.
2. DS 3001.
3. Cf. ST, I, q. 3, a. 1.
4. DS 3002; cf. CCC, 214.
5. Cf. Roman Catechism, 1.2.7; cf. CCC, 200–202.
6. Cf. ST, 1, q. 11, aa. 3–4.
7. Cf. CCC, 205, 212–213, 220.
8. Boethius, De Consolatione, 3.2; cf. ST, I, q. 10, a. 1.
9. Cf. DS 3003.
10. Cf. DS 3001.
11. Cf. DS 3003.
12. Cf. CCC, 215–217.
13. Cf. DS 3008.
14. Cf. DS 3001.
15. Cf. CCC, 890, 1785; Roman Catechism, 4.4.11.
16. ST, I, q. 19, a. 1.
17. Cf. CCC, 218–221.
18. Cf. DS 3025.
19. Cf. ST, I, q. 22, a. 2; CCC, 302–314.
As we said before, through revelation, God has made known his being and operations, his intimate life and the eternal designs of his will regarding the salvation of all mankind. This section will focus on the nature of God,1 that is, his being and operations. We will refer to them as the essence and attributes of God. Philosophically, the word essence means “what a thing is,” that which is common to all individuals of the same species. In the case of people, the essence is “humanity.” All the individuals of the same species are able to carry out the operations proper to that species; they act similarly in what is specifically proper to them. For example, all people act by means of their intellect and free will. It can be said, therefore, that things act according to what they are, that is, according to the characteristics of their essence. As philosophers traditionally put it, “Operation follows being, and the manner of operation follows the manner of being.” This is why the essence of a thing is called its nature insofar as it is the principle of its operations.
Therefore, the study of the divine nature means studying the essence and operations of God. The divine essence—what God is in himself (the Deity)—is not fathomable by the human intellect. Not even reason enlightened by faith can grasp the divine essence, although with faith, the starting point is much higher, for reason relies on the help of grace. Unaided reason can reach only an analogical knowledge of God’s perfections based on the perfections of his creatures. Through faith, however, we arrive at God himself because faith is a participation in God’s knowledge of himself. Still, this is not clear and evident knowledge of the divine essence, but just a mysterious image. The divine essence is too elevated for the human intellect to grasp it fully, even when aided by faith.
Combining the knowledge gained through faith with the power of natural reason, we have a remarkably high starting point, the help of grace, and the most adequate rational tool, which is the way of analogy. Theological knowledge of God is the fruit of this union—or rather, in this way, we build knowledge little by little, following a path illumined by faith up to the outer limits of our intellect. This is the method we will follow in our study of God: Given a certain truth, perfection, or work revealed by God about himself, we will use our reason to try to understand it better and accurately express his nature and perfections.
The divine attributes are the perfections proper to the nature of God. They are known through his works and revealed words. They can be expressed, up to a certain degree, through analogy. A distinction is usually made between entitative and operative attributes depending on whether they refer to perfections of the divine essence considered in itself or in its operations.
8. The Divine Essence
8a) Physical and Metaphysical Essence
The totality of the divine perfection in its mysterious unity constitutes the physical essence of God, which is incomprehensible and ineffable to us. The metaphysical essence of God is that perfection, which, from our revelation-based standpoint, is the foundation of all his other perfections. This is both what infinitely distinguishes God from all the creatures and what is absolutely specific to him. Theologians often call this exclusive property of God the “formal constitutive element of the Divinity.”
8b) The Metaphysical Essence of God
In the Book of Exodus, God revealed to Moses: “I am who I am.” When Moses queried what he was to say about the One who sent him to free the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt, God added: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14). With these words God revealed his proper name: Yahweh, i.e., “I am,” “he who is.” They give the starting point of Christian thinking: What does this proper name of God mean? What does it reveal about God himself?
The words of Exodus carry a religious message—not merely a philosophical one—although the consideration of such revelation gave birth to philosophical work of great importance. In Exodus, the greatest Christian thinkers have found the answer to the puzzle of the metaphysical essence of God. They concluded that God’s essence can be expressed by saying that God and Being are identical: God is the subsistent Being, whose essence is to be. In spite of general agreement on this point, different authors have at times understood the notion of Being differently. This partly explains the divergence of various theological developments.
The interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas stands out from the rest, having received the widest acceptance in the history of theology. The key to his work lies in the real distinction between essence (“what a thing is”) and act of being (“that by which it is”). Every real thing has its own essence and act of being. With this in mind, St. Thomas interprets the words of Exodus in the following way: God is “he who is,” the necessary being not requiring any cause of his existence. There is no distinction between essence and act of being in him—his essence is his act of being. God is his Being and can, therefore, be called self-subsistent Being (ipsum esse subsistens). Accordingly, the great majority of the followers of St. Thomas say that the metaphysical essence of God is aseity (the quality of being a se, “by himself”), a term that summarizes the perfection of his Being.
9. The Divine Attributes
After studying the notion of divine attributes and its division into entitative and operative attributes, we will examine each of them in particular. Before going into that, we must study the distinction between them.
All the attributes and perfections of God are properties of his essence. They are found in him in infinite degree and without any element of potentiality, because God is pure act and nothing potential or merely possible can be present in him. We may say that these perfections are present in God, but it is more accurate to say that these perfections are God himself.
The perfections are mysteriously identified with the divine essence, forming a wonderful unity. Now, since they are identical to the divine essence, they are also identical to one another. Nevertheless, it is possible to talk about their distinctions with respect to the essence and with respect to one another.
The notion of essence is distinct from the notion of goodness, truth, or any other perfection; each of them is the intellectual expression of a different reality. Actually, in creatures, goodness is different from truth, truth from beauty, etc. Therefore, their corresponding notions are different as well. However, God’s perfections are completely included in the unity of his essence. Therefore, the distinction can exist only in their notion—a purely rational distinction that would usually correspond to a distinction in reality, although there is none in this case.
The First Vatican Council gave a summary of the divine perfections:
The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church believes and professes that there is one true and living God, the creator and Lord of heaven and earth. He is all-powerful, eternal, unmeasurable, incomprehensible and limitless in intellect and will and in every perfection. Since he is one unique spiritual substance, entirely simple and unchangeable, he must be declared really and essentially distinct from the world, perfectly happy in himself and by his very nature, and inexpressibly exalted over all things that exist or can be conceived other than himself.2
9a) Summary of the Principal Entitative Attributes
(1) Simplicity
In God, there is no composition of any kind, physical or metaphysical; he is absolutely simple. There is no physical composition in him because he is not material. He is pure spirit, both as divine revelation teaches us (cf. Jn 4:24; Hos 11:9; Dt 4:15–19) and as reason can prove.3 There is no metaphysical composition in God either. In all creatures, the mind can discover a composition of act and potential at different levels: composition of matter and form, essence and act of being, nature and subject, and substance and accidents.
Theology demonstrates that none of these can be found in God, because they imply potentiality, and God is pure act of being. He is absolutely simple, thus utterly one and indivisible. Simplicity, therefore, means that the infinite divine perfections are identical with the divine essence, although we cannot understand how. Each of the perfections really exists infinitely in God. God’s perfections do not exist in composition, but in the absolute simplicity of identity with the divine essence.
(2) Goodness
Sacred Scripture states that “no one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:19), and we can clearly see that his goodness spreads without limits.
Creation is, as the Church teaches, the fruit and manifestation of this divine attribute. As the First Vatican Council stated, God created bonitate sua et omnipotente virtute: through his goodness and omnipotence.4
In Sacred Scripture, divine goodness is found united to mercy and compassion. The works of God are always good, and he shares his goodness with all creatures, since he is goodness itself. Philosophically speaking, good is that which all things desire, that which attracts the will because it possesses perfection, and perfection is anything that is in act. God is the Supreme Being and is, therefore, the Supreme Good. He is good by essence in the same way that he is Being by essence. Goodness in creatures is only a participation in the divine goodness. Therefore, we should affirm that God is goodness itself and the source of all goodness.
(3) Unicity
There is only one God because there can be only one infinitely good and perfect being. If there were two, they would differ in something, and that would already imply an imperfection in one or both. Based on the perpetual teaching of revelation, the Roman Catechism5 and theology6 use this simple reasoning to prove the uniqueness of God.
The sacred books are a witness of the one and unique God who addresses the people of Israel saying: “You shall worship no other god” (Ex 34:14); “the Lord is God; there is no other besides him” (Dt 4:35).
In history, the revealed monotheism of Israel and Christianity sharply stands out against the deformed conceptions that led to the polytheistic cults of other peoples. Polytheism is not the first stage of the naturally religious soul of man; rather, it is the consequence of an intelligence and will that are wounded by sin. They seek God without grace’s aid, thereby confusing man with creatures or his own desires.
Something similar can be said about the error of dualism: By seeking the root of evil in something different from the mystery of sin, it ends up believing in a sort of evil god that, if not evil itself, would at least be the cause of evil. Both errors illustrate the plight of the human soul when it tries to seek God without the help of grace.
(4) Immutability
In connection with the spiritual nature of God, Sacred Scripture talks about the immutability of his being and operations. No change is possible in God. He always remains the same, unlike creatures, which are changeable (cf. Mal 3:6; Ps 102:26–28; Is 51:8; Jas 1:13–18).
From a metaphysical point of view, the immutable does not undergo change; its reality is to never change. In this sense, the only absolutely immutable reality is Being itself because it could change only into non-being, which is nothing. God, who is Being itself, is immutable by essence. Whatever proceeds from his will partakes of this perfection: the love that he has for his creatures, the eternal law that governs the whole of creation, the natural law (which is man’s participation in the eternal law), and the revealed truths. All these realities are as immutable as their author.
Immutability should not be understood as absence of activity. On the contrary, it means infinite activity without the slightest degree of passivity. God is pure act, cause of all causes, and the Unmoved Mover. His immutability is infinite activity without, of course, undergoing change—that is, without passage from potency to act.
(5) Eternity
In some biblical passages, God is called the Eternal One (cf. Gn 21:33; Is 40:28), He who has no beginning or end, before or after.7 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God,” says the psalmist (Ps 90:2). St. Paul declares that God is the “King of ages” (1 Tm 1:17). In the inspired words of St. John, God is he “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rv 1:4; 1:8; 4:8).
According to Boethius, eternity may be defined as the “simultaneously whole and perfect possession of unending life,”8 which means a personal life in absolute present, not subject to time—with neither past nor future. Eternity is a kind of fullness of life, which can belong only to the immutable Being in whom there is no motion, no change, no passage from one stage to another. God lives without being subject to time. He is placed over and above history, although he continually acts in it and directs men to the fullness of salvation.
Everything in God is eternal: his plans, his decisions, his knowledge of all things, which are “open and laid bare to the eyes of him” (Heb 4:13).9 Hence, each moment—the smallest moment of time—is important for someone who is trying to orient his or her life toward God. No matter how small, it is always in the sight of God. Thus, Christian sanctity is but the sum total of thousands of moments of sanctity.
(6) Omnipresence
“Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jer 23:23–24). These and many other such inspired words in Sacred Scripture explicitly reveal the omnipresence of God. The words pronounced by St. Paul in the Areopagus allude to the same reality: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Omnipresence is an exclusive property of God, founded on his absolute causality. Our reason relates it to his infinity, immensity, and ubiquity. God does not have limits, since he is Being itself, and Absolute Being admits no limits. He fills everything; he is pure spirit, without the slightest trace of matter. He is neither local nor universal, nor does he occupy any span of time. In other words, God is absolutely transcendent in the sense usually given to that term in Christian doctrine—that is, distinct, excellent, far superior to whatever form of being we may imagine.10
The true notion of God, however—the one taught by the Church—points out his intimate presence in the being of things along with the divine transcendence. This presence is called the divine immanence. Catholic theology has named the divine omnipresence “presence by immensity,” and has explained this notion on the basis of creation. From that point of view, we can easily understand the radical dependence of the creature on God. God is the Absolute Cause of the being of all creatures, which he has brought forth from nothing.
This presence by immensity is studied by theology in three different levels:
i) By presence, insofar as everything is open before God’s eyes
ii) By power, since his power and providence extend to all creatures
iii) By essence, since God is in all things giving them being
This third level includes the other two and explains God’s intimate presence in things insofar as he is the first and Absolute Cause of being.
Aside from the universal presence of immensity, there can be other types of divine presence in rational creatures, in accord with their specific nature. One of these is the “intentional presence,” by which God is present in the intellect as the known object and in the will as the desired object. Another type is the “indwelling presence,” which essentially consists of the presence of the Most Blessed Trinity in the soul in grace, where he dwells as in a temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; Gal 4:6; Eph 2:19–22; Jn 14:17; 14:21–26).
9b) Summary of the Principal Operative Attributes
(1) The Divine Intelligence
In many ways and on many occasions, Sacred Scripture states that God limitlessly knows everything that refers to him and creatures (cf. Ex 3:14; Sir 1:2–3; Ps 50:11). His knowledge and wisdom are mysterious to man (cf. Rom 11:33), and reach into the depths of the heart of each person (cf. Jer 12:3; Rom 8:27; Rv 2:23). Being God, he knows future events (cf. Is 45:21).
Human reason by itself is also capable of proving the knowledge of God, as can be seen in the Fifth Way of St. Thomas. This proof leads to the existence of an intelligent being who governs all things, that is, an ordering intelligence that leads all things to their proper end.
God knows himself in an infinite manner. Since he is pure act of Being, he is utterly knowable: There is no matter in him, and immateriality is the root of knowledge. At the same time, he is infinitely cognizant, because there is no potentiality whatsoever in him. The proper object of his knowledge can be only something equal in excellence to his pure act so that it could actualize his intellect. However, there is no such object other than God himself. His own essence is the only proper object, the only intelligible thing capable of actualizing his divine intellect. Therefore, God knows himself in a perfect and immediate way. Moreover, since there is no composition in him—he is absolutely simple—his intellect and his essence are one and the same. In God, and only in God, to be is both to know and to be known at the same time.
God also knows all things outside of him because he is the First Cause of all beings. Before creating them, God knew them as possible participations of Being. Things somehow pre-existed in the divine intellect—not as really existing beings, but as intelligible beings—because God, in knowing himself, knows all the infinite possibilities of participation in being. Out of this infinite number of possible beings, some are created by his will and omnipotence, and others never exist. In this regard, theologians usually distinguish between God’s knowledge of vision (the divine knowledge of real things, whether past, present, or future) and his knowledge of simple intelligence (knowledge of merely possible beings).
God’s infinite knowledge must be credited with the knowledge of all real particular beings, since he is the Creator of them all as well as of all future realities. As the First Vatican Council taught, this includes contingent realities too, i.e., those that depend on the free activity of creatures.11 Regarding the relationship between the infallible knowledge of God and the freedom of man (an important question debated by theological schools in the course of history), we must mention that it is, in itself, a mystery far beyond the reach of human reason. God, who directs all things to their end in accord with their own nature, does not impede the freedom of man. On the contrary, he is its very basis.
(2) God as the Supreme Truth
The notion of truth implies two basic elements: a known thing and an intellect that knows. Truth is defined as the perfect agreement of both. This definition leads to two distinct manners of considering truth:
i) Ontological truth is the perfect agreement of each thing with an idea in the divine intellect according to which the thing has been created. Ontological truth is the actual being of the thing insofar as it is knowable.
ii) Logical truth is the agreement of the human intellect with the known thing.
We can also speak of a moral truth, which is the agreement between one’s words and the contents of one’s mind.
God is always the first truth in any of the above mentioned orders of truth.12 He is the first truth in the ontological order (Veritas Prima in essendo) because he is pure subsistent Being, and, since he is the first being, he is also the first truth. The truth of God is his wisdom, which creates and governs the world.
God is the first truth in the logical order (Veritas Prima in cognoscendo) because his knowledge is not the consequence of the agreement of the divine intellect with the being of things. Rather, it is the creative cause of reality. Created things are what God freely wanted them to be. His knowledge is previous, creative, and infallible.
Lastly, God is also the first truth in the moral order (Veritas Prima in dicendo) because, being God as he is, he can neither deceive nor be deceived.13 God is truthful when he reveals himself; the teaching that comes from him is a doctrine of truth (cf. Mal 2:6). He sent his Son to the world “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37).
God is truth itself; man can entirely rely on his fidelity. The beginning of sin and man’s fall was the lie of the tempter that induced man to doubt God’s word, benevolence, and fidelity.
(3) The Divine Will
Countless passages of the Old Testament tell us of God’s desires, the constant manifestation of his will, his law, and his designs. These are different ways of referring to God’s will, which, as it unfolds in his works, reveals his infinite love toward creatures. Still, it is in the New Testament where the revelation of the existence of God’s will—which must be loved and fulfilled by all mankind—reaches its highest point. Jesus Christ affirmed that his food is “to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 4:34), and that the one who will enter the kingdom of heaven is “he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 7:21). In the Lord’s Prayer, Christ taught his disciples to say: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10).
The Church teaches that the divine will is infinite,14 meaning that it acts with infinite love and with such an infinite freedom that nothing can curtail it. The Magisterium of the Church stresses that this will is made clear for everyone in the commandments and precepts of the law of God and the Church.15
Will is defined as the rational appetite that inclines the spiritual being toward the good known by the intellect. In other words, it is the tendency to attain a good known as such. The existence of a will necessarily implies the existence of a knowing intellect. Thus, human reason can discover the existence of the divine will because God is a personal being of an intellectual nature, and therefore, he must also have a will. “In every intellectual being there is will, just as in every sensible being there is animal appetite. And so there must be will in God, since there is intellect in him.”16
The exercise of the will—in any creature endowed with one—is directed to the attainment of the good, and this movement toward good is called love. God’s love is, first and necessarily, love for himself: He is the only infinite good toward which his will should be directed. This love is not selfish because selfishness would imply the existence of a good greater than God, not having its origin in him.
In loving himself, God infinitely and freely loves all creatures, and he manifests his love by distributing his goods among them. Creation—carried out with absolute freedom—Redemption with all the benefits coming from it, and all the other works of God reveal a generous and unfailing love prior to any corresponding love on the part of creatures.
The love of God is the cause of goodness in creatures; it is the cause of their perfections. From this, we can see that God’s love is orderly: He loves some creatures more than others because it is evident that he created some with more perfections than others.
Sacred Scripture shows that God’s love is gratuitous (cf. Dt 4:37; 7:8; 10:15). It is like the love of a father for his son (cf. Hos 11:1); it is stronger than the love of a mother for her children (cf. Is 49:14–15). God loves his people more than a spouse loves his beloved (cf. Is 62:4–5); this love will overcome even the worst infidelities (cf. Ez 16; Hos 11) and will give the most precious gift: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16). St. John says, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16).17
The end for which God acts can be none other than his own glory, as a dogma of faith on the work of creation affirms.18 Neither is the glory of God something egotistic; it is but the rightful honor and praise due, because he is the Supreme Good and the only truth.
The will of God is always fulfilled, even though in some cases, as in the case of man, it may seem not to be so. The reward or punishment resulting from man’s free actions are a manifestation of the divine will, which wants the good—and respects the freedom—of the rational creature.
(4) Divine Providence
Essentially, divine providence is the divine ordinance of each creature to its own end, i.e., the good proper to its nature. It is eternal in its conception and temporal in its execution. It includes:
i) the preservation of all creatures in being,
ii) the government of the entire creation according to the laws established by the creative decree, and
iii) the universality of divine action through secondary causes.
Providence reaches as far as divine causality: It extends to all creatures, to their specific as well as their individual principles.19
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 199–213.
2. DS 3001.
3. Cf. ST, I, q. 3, a. 1.
4. DS 3002; cf. CCC, 214.
5. Cf. Roman Catechism, 1.2.7; cf. CCC, 200–202.
6. Cf. ST, 1, q. 11, aa. 3–4.
7. Cf. CCC, 205, 212–213, 220.
8. Boethius, De Consolatione, 3.2; cf. ST, I, q. 10, a. 1.
9. Cf. DS 3003.
10. Cf. DS 3001.
11. Cf. DS 3003.
12. Cf. CCC, 215–217.
13. Cf. DS 3008.
14. Cf. DS 3001.
15. Cf. CCC, 890, 1785; Roman Catechism, 4.4.11.
16. ST, I, q. 19, a. 1.
17. Cf. CCC, 218–221.
18. Cf. DS 3025.
19. Cf. ST, I, q. 22, a. 2; CCC, 302–314.