is really a
communication between three divine persons, though that communication
remains within a single will and intellect, since each person possesses an
identical will and intellect.
God does act insofar as
he is in act by acting infinitely, and again within his own esse. An
infinite act ad extra is impossible because everything "outside" of
God is finite and so unable to receive such an act, nor can creation be the
only result of such an act. God's infinite act recognized in philosophy is
the act of willing and knowing himself, God rejoicing in himself. Theology
includes the procession of divine persons in this infinite act. Thus, when
a "diffusion of goodness into another" is mentioned, if this is taken to
mean the creation of beings outside of God, we must understand that God has
already acted insofar as he is in act by acting in himself.
Then Thomas mentions
that the production of a like is the "sign of the perfection of anything."
This does not mean that God must create in order to produce a sign of his
own perfection. God needs no signs of his perfection for himself, since he
knows himself infinitely. Furthermore, if God produces such signs for
creatures, we are assuming the fact of creation. Rather, remembering the
purpose of this chapter in the SCG, this principle reminds us that
creation, the production of similitudes of the divine by God, is fittingly
attributed to God who is most perfect. But God does not need to produce
likenesses of himself to be perfect and good.
This language of God's
manifestation as an outpouring of his goodness is similar to that found in
DV q.24, a.3, a passage that Kretzmann uses to point to the necessity
of creation because of God's need to manifest himself.
However, like our passage from SCG, the DV article only makes
sense if one presumes that there is someone to manifest God's goodness to,
meaning human beings. So given that human beings are created, God's
goodness ought to be manifested to them.
Nor does the importation
of the dictum bonum diffusivum sui in SCG, I, 37 lead to the
necessity of creation, a consequence which Norman Kretzmann claims to find
here. Rather, as we saw above, Thomas is placing the doctrine of the good
as self-diffusive under the general doctrine of the good as a perfective
end, thus making the diffusiveness of the good primarily a matter of final
causality. By removing the primacy of efficient causality in the good, he
eliminates the need to posit the necessity of creation. Kretzmann's
commentary (The Metaphysics of Theism) quotes SCG, I, 37, but
skips the section which places the good under final causality. He then
proceeds to claim that, since God is goodness essentially, a goodness
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that is "from its nature
and from its definition - diffusive of itself and of being,"
God must create out of necessity. Kretzmann omits the crucial passage of
the chapter on final causality, making Thomas say the opposite of what he
really is saying. Nor does Kretzmann's commentary on this chapter ever
mention Thomas' integration of final causality. Thus, Thomas' own solution
to the problem that Kretzmann brings up is ignored.
Kretzmann does deal with
Thomas' decision to place the doctrine of the good as self-diffusive under
the umbrella of final causality in his earlier article "A General Problem of
Creation." He argues that this move by Thomas is counterintuitive, and "has
nothing to recommend it as an interpretation," that the Neo-Platonist
doctrine of the good as self-diffusive is clearly talking about efficient
causality.
Kretzmann's interpretation of the Neoplatonists' understanding of the
doctrine is similar to Fran O'Rourke's view of how Dionysius uses it.
But Kretzmann's position has been disputed by other scholars. While a
thorough investigation of the Neoplatonists' approach to this issue is well
beyond the scope of this essay, it should be pointed out that Kretzmann's
claim, which accepts J. Peghaire's interpretation of the Platonists, has
been disputed by Klaus Kremer and Lawrence Dewan. Kremer insists that
Dionysius does not posit the necessary emanation of creation from God.
Dewan argues that Peghaire misinterpreted Plato and Thomas, that both see
the good as a matter of final causality, and therefore do not posit a
necessity on God's part to create.
Furthermore, Kretzmann's assumption that Thomas should not change a
Neoplatonic teaching that he chooses to adopt is odd. Thomas transformed
many doctrines that he inherited from the Platonists, Aristotle, and the
Church Fathers. One could argue that this trait is part of Thomas' genius.
Nor does Thomas transform the Platonic axiom into one that expressed only
the attractive side of goodness, as Kretzmann holds.
We saw above how Thomas uses the notion of the good as a final cause to
unfold the notion of the good as pouring itself forth in action in our
analysis above.
We will return to Kretzmann's position
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later in this section.
For now it can be said that our SCG text places the diffusiveness of
the good under the principle of the good as an end and therefore beyond the
realm of necessity.
Thomas approaches the
issue of creation directly later on in the same book of the SCG.
Chapter 72 establishes that God has a will, and this for a number of
reasons, the first of which is that will follows upon intellect.
So because God is intelligent, a fact proven through the intelligible order
of nature, God wills. This will is also one with God's essence, since there
is no composition in God.
In at least two works, the DN and the ST, Thomas argues as if
the very fact that God is a willing being is sufficient to show that
creation is a free divine action:
"Therefore because God
is good, he is not good as if participating goodness, but 'just as' the very
'essence of goodness,' and he is not the cause of things through some
created disposition, but 'through his very' own 'being is he the cause of
all existing things.' Nor does this exclude God from acting through
intellect and will, because his act-of-understanding and his act-of-willing
is his very act-of-being."
In this lectio of
the DN, Thomas has just posited the good as an end and the primacy of
the final cause among the four causes. Because of this primacy in
causality, the notion of causing belongs to the good above all. Then,
Thomas proceeds with the passage just given. God is cause and most of all
final cause of all things through his own goodness, his own essence.
Furthermore, God understands and wills, and these acts must be identical to
his act-of-being, his esse, since he is fully actual and simple.
This esse is also identical with his essence, so that intellect,
will, esse, and essentia are all one in God. God's actions
are also not really distinct from his esse. Thus, God's action must
be understood and willed. If to be is to act for God, and to be is to
understand, and to be is to will, then to act is to understand and to act is
to will. God eternally understands all possible things outside of himself,
all creatures, and it is by willing these ideas that he creates. Thus,
God's action, meaning his action ad extra, must be a willed action.
God does not will to love himself as if he could not will this, nor does the
Father choose to generate the Son and the Holy Spirit. These are necessary
attributes of his nature. And while it is also of his nature to create,
since nothing in God is outside his nature, is forced upon him, it is only
so in a qualified
Page 831
sense, in that creation
is willed and chosen, while his self-love must be willed and is beyond the
realm of choice.
One might object that
the unity of God's esse, intelligere, and velle seems
to lead to necessary causality. If God is simple, how can we distinguish
his having to will his own goodness and not having to will creation, which
is willed for the sake of his goodness? There is no easy answer to this,
but we can posit a distinction quoad nos in this case. Somehow,
God's willing himself by a kind of necessity and willing other things freely
does not destroy his simplicity. As to our own perspective of God's nature,
we can say that it is legitimate to posit such distinctions because we
already must posit a distinction between what God thinks and what he wills,
even though these acts must be one. God thinks every possible being from
eternity, yet not every possible being he knows in his mind is created.
Otherwise, there would be an infinite number of creatures participating his
goodness in an infinite number of ways, since God's mind is infinite, and
this is clearly false.
Let us return to our
passage from the DN. Thomas has posited the good as final cause and
the primacy of the final cause among the causes. God is cause of all
things, as final and efficient cause, and the primacy of the final cause
means that the efficient cause is ordered to it. This means that the
ultimate reason that God creates is for the sake of his own goodness.
This judgement is confirmed by the realization that God's action must be
intelligent and willed. This allows us to conclude that God wills to create
for the sake of his goodness. While Thomas points towards the freedom of
creation in this passage, the claim is not explicit, and it still might be
claimed that creation is necessary in that it must be willed for the sake of
God's goodness. The question is: is it an essential part of God's goodness
to pour his similitude out in creating? Is God not perfectly good without
this communication? Thomas answers that, to the contrary, God is infinitely
good regardless of whether he brings other things into existence. The first
reason is that God would be imperfect if he were to create to complete his
own goodness:
"Therefore he first says
that the beautiful 'is the principle of all things just as an effective
cause' giving being, 'and' just as a 'moving' cause and just as a
'containing' cause, that is conserving all. For these three things seem to
pertain to the nature of an efficient cause: that it give existence, that it
move, and that it
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conserve. But an agent
cause that acts out of a desire for an end, which is the nature of an
imperfect agent, does not yet possess what it desires. However, it is the
nature of a perfect agent that it act through love of that which it
possesses, and because of this he [Dionysius] adds that the beautiful, which
is God, is the effective, motive, and containing cause, 'out of the love of
its own beauty.' For since he has his proper beauty, he wills to multiply
this beauty, as is possible, namely, through the communication of his own
similitude."
Thomas posits the
interchangeability of the beautiful and the good shortly after this passage
in the DN.
The beautiful or the good are both efficient and final cause. But the
subordination of the former to the latter which was posited earlier is still
maintained, because an agent cause either acts for a desired end or out of
love for what it possesses, that is, for the sake of the good loved, out of
the love of an actualized final cause. So the good as efficient cause is a
cause because of the good that is the final cause. God either acts out of
the desire for the final cause or out of love for it. To act because of
desire is impossible for him, since this would introduce an act-potency
composition into the divinity. There would be an end that he does not
possess. Thus, God must act out of love for his own goodness. But again,
if he must create in order to truly love himself completely, then God's love
of himself without creation would somehow be incomplete. Infinite goodness
would then not be the completion of God's own love. An infinite object
would be unsatisfactory for an infinite act, which is contradictory. God
creates out of love of himself, a love that has already been infinitely and
eternally completed through the infinite goodness of God which leaves no
unfulfilled desire in him for anything else. This means that God creates
out of a purely gratuitous love, a sheer delight in creation that is a
complete gift.
". . . the divine love
does 'not' permit 'him to remain in himself without fruit,' that is, without
the production of creatures, but love 'moves him to operate' . . . For out
of the love of his own goodness it happens that he wills to diffuse and
communicate his own goodness to others, in so far as is possible, namely,
through the
Page 833
mode of similitude, that
his goodness may not only remain in him, but may flow out to others."
Creation is an act of
love, and to give this the character of necessity is actually to diminish
the immensity of that love. God possesses infinite goodness without
creation because he is goodness itself. "Now the will is not necessarily
directed to the means, if the end is possible without them . . ."
The end of God's will is his own goodness. If his goodness could not be
without the good of creating, if his goodness could not be without the good
of creation, then God's infinite goodness would be incomplete, would depend
on an act of creating which is not an infinite communication of goodness,
would depend on the existence of a finite good. God only has to will his
own infinite goodness. The willing of that good is an infinite, perfect
act. God is satisfied without creation, is perfect and good without
diffusing his similitude. Thus, when Thomas lists an objection in DP,
that God would deny his own goodness if he would not communicate it through
creation, an argument which Kretzmann supports,
Thomas answers: "But this would not follow if he were not to communicate his
goodness to anything: since it [God's goodness] would suffer nothing by not
being communicated."
God's own infinite goodness, already containing an infinite internal
communication, needs no finite goods. Rather than being a denial of his
goodness, the freedom of God to create shows the immensity of his goodness
and love. Understood in this context, it becomes clear that DP q. 3,
a. 15, ad 12 does not entail the denial of the axiom bonum diffusivum sui,
contra Kretzmann.
Perhaps a fitting
summary of Thomas' position is his brief response to another objection in
the same DP article: "The last end is not the communication of the
divine goodness, but that goodness itself for love of which God wills to
communicate it."
God always acts for an end, even when he acts necessarily. An infinite good
is the only necessary object of his will, and in fact, the only ultimate
object of his will, as only the infinite can be the ultimate end of the
Page 834
infinite. For the
finite communication of goodness to be the ultimate end is for the finite to
be the last end of the infinite. The good is above all an end, a final
cause. Thus, if the diffusion of goodness through communication ad extra
were not ordered under the final cause of God's own goodness, it would
be another final cause, in competition with God's own goodness, which is
absurd. The diffusion of the good cannot be an end in itself. It is only
an intermediate end as part of the ultimate end of God's perfect goodness.
God's goodness is already perfect without the creation of finite beings.
We have tried to show
that the freedom of the Creator God is the only position compatible with
Thomas' thought. Kretzmann is correct in pointing out a certain tension in
Thomas' texts, but a careful reading of these passages minimizes this
problem. Kretzmann's own reading of SCG, I, 37 is unfair. He gives
a similar treatment to ST, I, q. 19, a. 2 in The
Metaphysics of Theism. We considered this article of Thomas in the
section on the general doctrine of the good as self-diffusive, and showed
how it did not posit a necessity of the good's out-pouring. Kretzmann
quotes the article, but skips the first section that discusses the natural
inclination of things, a qualification that eliminates a necessitarian
flavor from the passage. Like his treatment of SCG, I, 37, Kretzmann
omits Thomas' solution to the very objection posited. Thomas' doctrine of
the freedom of the Creator God is not without its problems, but his answer
is satisfying, and the only one that fits into his overall system.
Let us summarize Thomas'
doctrine of the good as self-diffusive as it relates to the Creator God.
God creates freely because the good is self-diffusive as a primarily final
cause. The unity of his esse, intelligere, and velle
show that every divine action is willed, so that creation must involve the
will of God. God only wills his own goodness necessarily since it is
infinite, leaving no desire for another good in God. God creates out of a
total and completely free love, expressing his infinite love. This
diffusion of goodness ad extra is not an end in itself for God
because his own goodness is the only ultimate end, and this is true for
creatures as well.
All of this means that
the doctrine bonum diffusivum sui does not lead to the relationality
of God's esse. We have seen that God's actions with regards to
creation are freely chosen. While a detailed discussion of the
relationality of the divine being, asking whether God is really in relation
with us, is well beyond the scope of this essay, a close reading of Thomas'
texts on the good as self-diffusive reveal that one cannot use Thomas'
understanding of the good to argue for the divine being's relationality. In
fact, God's infinite and complete satisfaction in his own
Page 835
goodness runs counter to
the notion of a God really in relation with the world, where the world would
somehow affect an infinitely fulfilled God (since real relation by
definition involves being acted upon by another). How can eternal, infinite
goodness be affected by a finite good? As for the claim that the doctrine
of the Trinity solves the dilemma between a relational divine esse
and a free divine decision to create, we can avoid Clarke's temptation to
make a plurality of divine persons a quasi-philosophical doctrine by
pointing to the internal diffusion of God's love and goodness. Philosophy
can thus avoid predicating relationality of the divine esse.
Conclusion
Norris Clarke was
correct in maintaining that all created esse is relational, meaning
its very nature leads it to necessarily act upon and be acted upon by other
creatures. However, a detailed study of bonum diffusivum sui,
especially its relation to God as Creator, does not lead to the
relationality of God's being, to the position that God necessarily acts
beyond himself and is acted upon by other beings.
Thomas Aquinas' teaching
on the good as diffusive of itself is a rich and almost ignored aspect of
his metaphysics and philosophical theology. It is key to his understanding
of the act of creation, the interrelated nature of the universe, and theory
of operation. It also highlights the beauty of Thomas' thought and the
passion for God that lies behind it. Norris Clarke's creative work has
pointed to a rich application of bonum diffusivum sui to a
contemporary philosophical issue, the relationality of the human person.
Norman Kretzmann also recognized the importance of the doctrine, though his
textual analysis was inadequate. Yet both Clarke and Kretzmann remind us of
the importance of a retrieval of medieval and Thomistic thought for
contemporary philosophical and theological discussions.
Abstract
This essay considers
Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of the good as self-diffusive (bonum
diffusivum sui) in light of W. Norris Clarke's and Norman Kretzmann's
recent work on the subject. Clarke has argued that this teaching leads to
the relationality of all being, both created
Page 836
and divine. Kretzmann has maintained that Thomas' adoption of the
Neoplatonic doctrine bonum diffusivum sui should have led him to
posit the necessity of God's creative act. A close reading of Thomas'
writings on the good as self-diffusive confirm the first part of Clarke's
interpretation, showing the rich potential of Thomas' thought for the
contemporary project that seeks to emphasize the human person as a
being-in-relation. However, Thomas' subordination of the good as
self-diffusive to the notion of the good as final cause works against
Clarke's attempt to predicate the attribute "relationality" of the divine
being. At the same time, this move allows Thomas to maintain both the
self-diffusive character of God's goodness
and God's creative act as a free decision.
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