Of God and His Creatures
An Annotated Translation
(With some Abridgement)
of the
SVMMA CONTRA GENTILES
Of SAINT
THOMAS AQUINAS
By
JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.,
M.A. Lond: B.Sc. Oxon., Author of "Aquinas Ethicus" &c. &c.
BURNS & OATES B. HERDER
ORCHARD STREET 17 SOUTH BROADWAY
LONDON W ST LOUIS MO
PIAE MEMORIAE
LEONIS XIII
SACERDOTIS MAGNI
QUI IN VITA SUA SUFFULSIT DOMUM
ET IN DIEBUS SUIS CORROBORAVIT TEMPLUM
Preface
SOME years ago, a priest of singularly long and varied experience urged me to write "a book about God." He said that wrong and imperfect notions of God lay at the root of all our religious difficulties. Professor Lewis Campbell says the same thing in his own way in his work, Religion in Greek Literature, where he declares that the age needs "a new definition of God." Thinking the need over, I turned to the Summa contra Gentiles. I was led to it by the Encyclical of Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, urging the study of St Thomas. A further motive, quite unexpected, was supplied by the University of Oxford in 1902 placing the Summa Contra Gentiles on the list of subjects which a candidate may at his option offer in the Final Honour School of Literae Humaniores, — a very unlikely book to be offered so long as it remains simply as St Thomas wrote it. Lastly I remembered that I had in 1892 published under the name of Aquinas Ethicus a translation of the principal portions of the second part of St Thomas's Summa Theologica: thus I might be reckoned some thing of an expert in the difficult art of finding English equivalents for scholastic Latin.
There are two ways of behaving towards St Thomas's writings, analogous to two several treatments of a church still standing, in which the saint might have worshipped. One way is to hand the edifice over to some Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments: they will keep it locked to the vulgar, while admitting some occasional connoisseur: they will do their utmost to preserve every stone identically the same that the mediaeval builder laid. And the Opera Omnia of St Thomas, handsomely bound, may fill a library shelf, whence a volume is occasionally taken down for the sole purpose of knowing what St Thomas said and no more. Another thirteenth-century church may stand, a parish church still, in daily use; an ancient monument, and something besides; a present-day house of prayer, meeting the needs of a twentieth-century congregation; and for that purpose refitted, repainted, restored, repaired and modernised; having had that done to it which its mediaeval architects would have done, had they lived in our time. Nothing is more remarkable in our old English churches than the sturdy self-confidence, and the good taste also lasting for some centuries, with which each successive age has superimposed its own style upon the architecture of its predecessors. If St Thomas's works are to serve modern uses, they must pass from their old Latinity into modern speech: their conclusions must be tested by all the subtlety of present-day science, physical, psychological, historical; maintained, wherever maintainable, but altered, where tenable no longer. Thus only can St Thomas keep his place as a living teacher of mankind.
For the history of the Contra Gentiles I refer the reader to the folio edition printed at the Propaganda Press in 1878 cura et studio Petri Antonii Uccellii, pp. xiii-xxxlx. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came to the University of Paris in 1245, and there for three years heard the lectures of Albertus Magnus, taking his Bachelor's degree in 1248. He returned to the University in 1253, took his Master's degree in 1257, and thereupon lectured in theology for two or three years, leaving the University in 1259 or 1260. He wrote the Summa contra Gentiles in Italy, under the pontificate of Urban IV (1261-1264), at the request of St Raymund of Pennafort. He went for the third time to the University of Paris in 1269, finally returning to Italy in 1271. Though the Summa contra Gentiles was written in Italy, there is reason to believe that the substance of it was got together during the Saint's second residence at Paris, and formed the staple of his lectures in the University. The more celebrated Summa Theologica was a later work.
The Summa contra Gentiles is in the unique position of a classic whereof the author's manuscript is still in great part extant. It is now in the Vatican Library. The manuscript consists of strips of parchment, of various shades of colour, contained in an old parchment cover to which they were originally stitched. The writing is in double columns, minute and difficult to decipher, abounding in abbreviations, often passing into a kind of shorthand. Through many passages a line is drawn in sign of erasure: but these remain not less legible than the rest, and are printed as foot notes in the Propaganda edition: they do not appear in the present translation. To my mind, these erasures furnish the best proof of the authenticity of the autograph, which is questioned by S. E. Fretté, editor of Divi Thomae Opera Omnia (Vivès, Paris, 1874), vol. XII, preface iv-vi. An inscription on the cover states that the manuscript is the autograph of St Thomas, and that it was brought from Naples to the Dominican convent at Bergamo in 1354: whence its name of the Bergamo autograph.' Many leaves were lost in the sack of the convent by the armies of the first French Revolution; and the whole of Book IV is missing.
The frequent erasures of the Saint himself lend some countenance to the omissions of his translator. Re-reading his manuscript in the twentieth century, St Thomas would have been not less ready than he showed himself in the thirteenth century to fulfil the Horatian precept, saepe stylum vertas.
J. R.
Pope's Hall, Oxford, Michaelmas 1905
Nihil obstat: T. M. TAAFFE S.J., Censor deputatus
Imprimatur: GULIELMUS PRAEPOSITUS JOHNSON, Vicarius Generalis
Westmonasterii, die 12 Septembris 1905
BOOK I
CHAPTER I--The Function of the Wise Man
My mouth shall discuss truth, and my lips shall detest the ungodly (Prov. vii, 7).
ACCORDING to established popular usage, which the Philosopher considers should be our guide in the naming of things, they are called wise' who put things in their right order and control them well. Now, in all things that are to be controlled and put in order to an end, the measure of control and order must be taken from the end in view; and the proper end of everything is something good. Hence we see in the arts that art A governs and, as it were, lords it over art B, when the proper end of art B belongs to A. Thus the art of medicine lords it over the art of the apothecary, because health, the object of medicine, is the end of all drugs that the apothecary's art compounds. These arts that lord it over others are called master-building,' or masterful arts'; and the master-builders' who practise them arrogate to themselves the name of wise men.' But because these persons deal with the ends in view of certain particular things, without attaining to the general end of all things, they are called wise in this or that particular thing,' as it is said, As a wise architect I have laid the foundation' (1 Cor. iii, 10); while the name of wise' without qualification is reserved for him alone who deals with the last end of the universe, which is also the first beginning of the order of the universe. Hence, according to the Philosopher, it is proper to the wise man to consider the highest causes.
Now the last end of everything is that which is intended by the prime author or mover thereof. The prime author and mover of the universe is intelligence, as will be shown later (B. II, Chap. XXIII, XXIV). Therefore the last end of the universe must be the good of the intelligence, and that is truth. Truth then must be the final end of the whole universe; and about the consideration of that end wisdom must primarily be concerned. And therefore the Divine Wisdom, clothed in flesh, testifies that He came into the world for the manifestation of truth: For this was I born, and unto this I came into the World, to give testimony to the truth (John xvii, 37). The Philosopher also rules that the first philosophy is the science of truth, not of any and every truth, but of that truth which is the origin of all truth, and appertains to the first principle of the being of all things; hence its truth is the principle of all truth, for things are in truth as they are in being.
It is one and the same function to embrace either of two contraries and to repel the other. Hence, as it is the function of the wise man to discuss truth, particularly of the first beginning, so it is his also to impugn the contrary error. Suitably therefore is the double function of the wise man displayed in the words above quoted from the Sapiential Book, namely, to study, and upon study to speak out the truth of God, which of all other is most properly called truth, and this is referred to in the words, My mouth shall discuss truth, and to impugn error contrary to truth, as referred to in the words, And my lips shall detest the ungodly.
For directe read recte.
The idea is in Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1, opening.
Read Circa ejus finis considerationem.
CHAPTER II--Of the Author's Purpose
OF all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is the more perfect, the more sublime, the more useful, and the more agreeable. The more perfect, because in so far as a man gives himself up to the pursuit of wisdom, to that extent he enjoys already some portion of true happiness. Blessed is the man that shall dwell in wisdom (Ecclus xiv, 22). The more sublime, because thereby man comes closest to the likeness of God, who hath made all things in wisdom (Ps. ciii, 24). The more useful, because by this same wisdom we arrive at the realm of immortality. The desire of wisdom shall lead to an everlasting kingdom (Wisd. vi, 21). The more agreeable, because her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any weariness, but gladness and joy (Wisd. viii, 16).
But on two accounts it is difficult to proceed against each particular error: first, because the sacrilegious utterances of our various erring opponents are not so well known to us as to enable us to find reasons, drawn from their own words, for the confutation of their errors: for such was the method of the ancient doctors in confuting the errors of the Gentiles, whose tenets they were readily able to know, having either been Gentiles themselves, or at least having lived among Gentiles and been instructed in their doctrines. Secondly, because some of them, as Mohammedans and Pagans, do not agree with us in recognising the authority of any scripture, available for their conviction, as we can argue against the Jews from the Old Testament, and against heretics from the New. But these receive neither: hence it is necessary to have recourse to natural reason, which all are obliged to assent to. But in the things of God natural reason is often at a loss.
CHAPTER III--That the Truths which we confess concerning God fall under
two Modes or Categories
BECAUSE not every truth admits of the same mode of manifestation, and "a well-educated man will expect exactness in every class of subject, according as the nature of the thing admits," as is very well remarked by the Philosopher (Eth. Nicom. I, 1094b), we must first show what mode of proof is possible for the truth that we have now before us. The truths that we confess concerning God fall under two modes. Some things true of God are beyond all the competence of human reason, as that God is Three and One. Other things there are to which even human reason can attain, as the existence and unity of God, which philosophers have proved to a demonstration under the guidance of the light of natural reason. That there are points of absolute intelligibility in God altogether beyond the compass of human reason, most manifestly appears. For since the leading principle of all knowledge of any given subject-matter is an understanding of the thing's innermost being, or substance — according to the doctrine of the Philosopher, that the essence is the principle of demonstration — it follows that the mode of our knowledge of the substance must be the mode of knowledge of whatever we know about the substance. Hence if the human understanding comprehends the substance of anything, as of a stone or triangle, none of the points of intelligibility about that thing will exceed the capacity of human reason. But this is not our case with regard to God. The human understanding cannot go so far of its natural power as to grasp His substance, since under the conditions of the present life the knowledge of our understanding commences with sense; and therefore objects beyond sense cannot be grasped by human understanding except so far as knowledge is gathered of them through the senses. But things of sense cannot lead our understanding to read in them the essence of the Divine Substance, inasmuch as they are effects inadequate to the power that caused them. Nevertheless our understanding is thereby led to some knowledge of God, namely, of His existence and of other attributes that must necessarily be attributed to the First Cause. There are, therefore, some points of intelligibility in God, accessible to human reason, and other points that altogether transcend the power of human reason. [5]
The same thing may be understood from consideration of degrees of intelligibility. Of two minds, one of which has a keener insight into truth than the other, the higher mind understands much that the other cannot grasp at all, as is clear in the plain man' (in rustico), who can in no way grasp the subtle theories of philosophy. Now the intellect of an angel excels that of a man more than the intellect of the ablest philosopher excels that of the plainest of plain men (rudissimi idiotae). The angel has a higher standpoint in creation than man as a basis of his knowledge of God, inasmuch as the substance of the angel, whereby he is led to know God by a process of natural knowledge, is nobler and more excellent than the things of sense, and even than the soul itself, whereby the human mind rises to the knowledge of God. But the Divine Mind exceeds the angelic much more than the angelic the human. For the Divine Mind of its own comprehensiveness covers the whole extent of its substance, and therefore perfectly understands its own essence, and knows all that is knowable about itself; but an angel of his natural knowledge does not know the essence of God, because the angel's own substance, whereby it is led to a knowledge of God, is an effect inadequate to the power of the cause that created it. Hence not all things that God understands in Himself can be grasped by the natural knowledge of an angel; nor is human reason competent to take in all that an angel understands of his own natural ability. As therefore it would be the height of madness in a plain man' to declare a philosopher's propositions false, because he could not understand them, so and much more would a man show exceeding folly if he suspected of falsehood a divine revelation given by the ministry of angels, on the mere ground that it was beyond the investigation of reason. [7]
The same thing manifestly appears from the incapacity which we daily experience in the observation of nature. We are ignorant of very many properties of the things of sense; and of the properties that our senses do apprehend, in most cases we cannot perfectly discover the reason. Much more is it beyond the competence of human reason to investigate all the points of intelligibility in that supreme excellent and transcendent substance of God. Consonant with this is the saying of the Philosopher, that "as the eyes of bats are to the light of the sun, so is the intelligence of our soul to the things most manifest by nature" (Aristotle, Metaphysics I, min. l).
To this truth Holy Scripture also bears testimony. For it is said: Perchance thou wilt seize upon the traces of God, and fully discover the Almighty (Job xi, 7). And, Lo, God is great, and surpassing our knowledge (Job xxxvi, 26). And, We know in part (I Cor. xiii, 9). Not everything, therefore, that is said of God, even though it be beyond the power of reason to investigate, is at once to be rejected as false.
Kant's distinction between understanding and reason is not to be looked for in St Thomas, nor in his translator. St Thomas frequently uses the two terms indiscriminately: when he does distinguish them, it is inasmuch as understanding is intuitive, reason discursive. Understanding thus is the higher faculty. Understanding, not reason, is ascribed to God and the angels.
This argument will sound superfluous to most modern ears, content as men now are to register and argue phenomena, without regard to essences and substances, or altogether disbelieving in such things in themselves.' We have thousands of practical electricians; but who knows the essence of electricity? Even if molecular science shall ever conduct us to an accepted theory of the ultimate constituents of matter, we can scarcely hope thence to deduce the phenomena even of a pebble or one grain of sand. They are likely to prove complex beyond human calculation. The only essences that we know, and can use as a basis of deduction, are those which answer to certain abstract conceptions, as triangle,' fortitude,' 'sovereignty.' Starting with implicit confidence in the dicta of Aristotle, and lightly landing in conclusions by a priori methods, mediaeval philosophers generally had no idea of the vast complexity of nature and of their own ignorance of physics. We know more physics than they did, and we know our own ignorance better. We stand stupefied and bewildered before the intricacy and vastness of nature. And if nature is so far unknowable to us, how must God transcend our knowledge? This St Thomas recognises (B. IV, Chap. I). Not the mystery and unknowableness of God needs to be brought home to the modern mind, but the fact that anything can be known with certainty about God at all.
Measured objectively, that is the higher degree of intelligibility, which it takes a higher intelligence to understand. It contains more matter of understanding.
What the man might more reasonably suspect would be the fact of the thing having been divinely revealed by the ministry of angels. There is the whole difficulty of faith, not in the thing revealed, e.g., transubstantiation, but in the fact of revelation.
CHAPTER IV--That it is an advantage for the Truths of God, known by
Natural Reason, to be proposed to men to be believed on faith
IF a truth of this nature were left to the sole enquiry of reason, three disadvantages would follow. One is that the knowledge of God would be confined to few. The discovery of truth is the fruit of studious enquiry. From this very many are hindered. Some are hindered by a constitutional unfitness, their natures being ill-disposed to the acquisition of knowledge. They could never arrive by study to the highest grade of human knowledge, which consists in the knowledge of God. Others are hindered by the needs of business and the ties of the management of property. There must be in human society some men devoted to temporal affairs. These could not possibly spend time enough in the learned lessons of speculative enquiry to arrive at the highest point of human enquiry, the knowledge of God. Some again are hindered by sloth. The knowledge of the truths that reason can investigate concerning God presupposes much previous knowledge. Indeed almost the entire study of philosophy is directed to the knowledge of God. Hence, of all parts of philosophy, that part stands over to be learnt last, which consists of metaphysics dealing with points of Divinity. Thus, only with great labour of study is it possible to arrive at the searching out of the aforesaid truth; and this labour few are willing to undergo for sheer love of knowledge.
Another disadvantage is that such as did arrive at the knowledge or discovery of the aforesaid truth would take a long time over it, on account of the profundity of such truth, and the many prerequisites to the study, and also because in youth and early manhood, the soul, tossed to and fro on the waves of passion, is not fit for the study of such high truth: only in settled age does the soul become prudent and scientific, as the Philosopher says. Thus, if the only way open to the knowledge of God were the way of reason, the human race would dwell long in thick darkness of ignorance: as the knowledge of God, the best instrument for making men perfect and good, would accrue only to a few, and to those few after a considerable lapse of time.
A third disadvantage is that, owing to the infirmity of our judgement and the perturbing force of imagination, there is some admixture of error in most of the investigations of human reason. This would be a reason to many for continuing to doubt even of the most accurate demonstrations, not perceiving the force of the demonstration, and seeing the divers judgements of divers persons who have the name of being wise men. Besides, in the midst of much demonstrated truth there is sometimes an element of error, not demonstrated but asserted on the strength of some plausible and sophistic reasoning that is taken for a demonstration. And therefore it was necessary for the real truth concerning divine things to be presented to men with fixed certainty by way of faith. Wholesome therefore is the arrangement of divine clemency, whereby things even that reason can investigate are commanded to be held on faith, so that all might easily be partakers of the knowledge of God, and that without doubt and error. [9]
Hence it is said: Now ye walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their own notions, having the understanding darkened (Eph. iv, 17, 18); and, I will make all thy sons taught of the Lord (Isa. liv, 1, 5).
Metaphysica, quae circa divina versatur, answers pretty well to what is now called natural theology. In the order of sciences, then, natural theology comes last in philosophy, and presupposes a knowledge of all the rest. Ethics therefore do not presuppose natural theology, but are presupposed by it. It follows that ethical conclusions should be first reached by ethical reasonings, not by theological. This point is further explained in my Ethics and Natural Law, pp. 123-125.
It is true, absolutely speaking, that, without revelation, mankind might take their theology on trust from philosophers, relying for their spirituality upon philosophic experts, as upon legal experts for the maintenance of their proprietary rights. But then we should expect of the Providence of God a greater concord of religious views among philosophers than at present obtains. Philosophy, were she our sole guide, should not be permitted to say and unsay.
CHAPTER V--That it is an advantage for things that cannot he searched
out by Reason to be proposed as Tenets of Faith
SOME may possibly think that points which reason is unable to investigate ought not to be proposed to man to believe, since Divine Wisdom provides for every being according to the measure of its nature; and therefore we must show the necessity of things even that transcend reason being proposed by God to man for his belief.
1. One proof is this. No one strives with any earnestness of desire after anything, unless it be known to him beforehand. Since, then, as will be traced out in the following pages (B. III, Chap. CXLVIII), Divine Providence directs men to a higher good than human frailty can experience in the present life, the mental faculties ought to be evoked and led onward to something higher than our reason can attain at present, learning thereby to desire something and earnestly to tend to something that transcends the entire state of the present life. And such is the special function of the Christian religion, which stands alone in its promise of spiritual and eternal goods, whereas the Old Law, carrying temporal promises, proposed few tenets that transcended the enquiry of human reason. [10]
2. Also another advantage is thence derived, to wit, the repression of presumption, which is the mother of error. For there are some so presumptuous of their own genius as to think that they can measure with their understanding the whole nature of the Godhead, thinking all that to be true which seems true to them, and that to be false which does not seem true to them. In order then that the human mind might be delivered from this presumption, and attain to a modest style of enquiry after truth, it was necessary for certain things to be proposed to man from God that altogether exceeded his understanding.
3. There is also another evident advantage in this, that any knowledge, however imperfect, of the noblest objects confers a very high perfection on the soul. And therefore, though human reason cannot fully grasp truths above reason, nevertheless it is much perfected by holding such truths after some fashion at least by faith. And therefore it is said: Many things beyond the understanding of man are shown to thee (Ecclus iii, 23). And, The things that are of God, none knoweth but the Spirit of God: but to us God hath revealed them through his Spirit (1 Cor. ii, 10, 11).