Part 1

Selected questions and answers from St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica

ON THE EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE OF GOD



1) Whether it can be demonstrated that God exists?

The Apostle says: "The invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Romans 1:20). But this would not be unless the existence of God could be demonstrated through the things that are made; for the first thing we must know of anything is whether it exists.



2) Whether God is a body?

It is written in the Gospel of St. John (John 4:24): "God is a spirit."


3) Whether in God there are any accidents?

Every accident is in a subject. But God cannot be a subject, for "no simple form can be a subject", as Boethius says (De Trin.). Therefore in God there cannot be any accident.



4) Whether God enters into the composition of other things?

Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii): "There can be no touching Him," i.e. God, "nor any other union with Him by mingling part with part."



5) Whether God is good?

It is written (Lamentations 3:25): "The Lord is good to them that hope in Him, to the soul that seeketh Him."


6) Whether all things are good by the divine goodness?

All things are good, inasmuch as they have being. But they are not called beings through the divine being, but through their own being; therefore all things are not good by the divine goodness, but by their own goodness.




7) Whether every being is good?


Every being that is not God is God's creature. Now every creature of God is good (1 Timothy 4:4): and God is the greatest good. Therefore every being is good.


8) Whether God is perfect?

It is written: "Be you perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).



9) Whether any creature can be like God?

It is written: "Let us make man to our image and likeness" (Genesis 1:26), and: "When He shall appear we shall be like to Him" (1 John 3:2).


10) Whether God is infinite?

Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 4) that "God is infinite and eternal, and boundless."




11) Whether anything but God can be essentially infinite?

The infinite cannot have a beginning, as said in Phys. iii. But everything outside God is from God as from its first principle. Therefore besides God nothing can be infinite.



12) Whether God is in all things?

A thing is wherever it operates. But God operates in all things, according to Isaiah 26:12, "Lord . . . Thou hast wrought all our works in [Vulgate: 'for'] us." Therefore God is in all things.



13) Whether God is everywhere?

It is written, "I fill heaven and earth." (Jeremiah 23:24).


14) Whether God is everywhere by essence, presence and power?

A gloss on the Canticle of Canticles (5) says that, "God by a common mode is in all things by His presence, power and substance; still He is said to be present more familiarly in some by grace" [The quotation is from St. Gregory, (Hom. viii in Ezech.)].


15) Whether to be everywhere belongs to God alone?

Therefore to be everywhere primarily and absolutely belongs to God and is proper to Him: because whatever number of places be supposed to exist, God must be in all of them, not as to a part of Him, but as to His very self.



16) Whether God is altogether immutable?

It is written, "I am the Lord, and I change not" (Malachi 3:6).


17) Whether to be immutable belongs to God alone?

Augustine says (De Nat. Boni. i), "God alone is immutable; and whatever things He has made, being from nothing, are mutable."



18) Whether God is eternal?

Athanasius says in his Creed: "The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Ghost is eternal."




19) Whether to be eternal belongs to God alone?

Jerome says (Ep. ad Damasum. xv) that "God is the only one who has no beginning." Now whatever has a beginning, is not eternal. Therefore God is the only one eternal.



20) Whether eternity differs from time?

Eternity is simultaneously whole. But time has a "before" and an "after." Therefore time and eternity are not the same thing.


21) Whether God is one?

It is written "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" (Deuteronomy 6:4).




22) Whether any created intellect can see the essence of God?

It is written: "We shall see Him as He is" (1 John 2:2).



23) Whether the essence of God can be seen with the bodily eye?

Augustine says (De Vid. Deum, Ep. cxlvii): "No one has ever seen God either in this life, as He is, nor in the angelic life, as visible things are seen by corporeal vision."


24) Whether any created intellect by its natural powers can see the Divine essence?

It is written: "The grace of God is life everlasting" (Romans 6:23). But life everlasting consists in the vision of the Divine essence, according to the words: "This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God," etc. (John 17:3). Therefore to see the essence of God is possible to the created intellect by grace, and not by nature.




25) Whether those who see the essence of God comprehend Him?

It is written: "O most mighty, great, and powerful, the Lord of hosts is Thy Name. Great in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought" (Jeremiah 32:18-19). Therefore He cannot be comprehended.


26) Whether anyone in this life can see the essence of God?

It is written, "Man shall not see Me, and live" (Exodus 32:20), and a gloss upon this says, "In this mortal life God can be seen by certain images, but not by the likeness itself of His own nature."


27) Whether God can be known in this life by natural reason?

It is written (Romans 1:19), "That which is known of God," namely, what can be known of God by natural reason, "is manifest in them."



28) Whether by grace a higher knowledge of God can be obtained than by natural reason?

The Apostle says that "God hath revealed to us His spirit," what "none of the princes of this world knew" (1 Corinthians 2:10), namely, the philosophers, as the gloss expounds.


29) Whether any name can be applied to God in its literal sense?

Ambrose says (De Fide ii), "Some names there are which express evidently the property of the divinity, and some which express the clear truth of the divine majesty, but others there are which are applied to God metaphorically by way of similitude." Therefore not all names are applied to God in a metaphorical sense, but there are some which are said of Him in their literal sense.


30) Whether this name "God" is a name of the nature?

Ambrose says (De Fide i) that "God" is a name of the nature.


31) Whether this name, HE WHO IS, is the most proper name of God?

It is written that when Moses asked, "If they should say to me, What is His name? what shall I say to them?" The Lord answered him, "Thus shalt thou say to them, HE WHO IS hath sent me to you" (Exodus 3:13-14). Therefore this name HE WHO IS most properly belongs to God.