ARTICLE X

IS GOD REALLY RELATED TO THE CREATURE SO THAT THIS RELATION BE SOMETHING IN GOD?

THE tenth point of inquiry is whether God be really related to the creature so that this relation be something in God: and seemingly the answer should be in the affirmative.

             1. There is a real relation in the mover to that which it moves: wherefore the Philosopher (Metaph. v) reckons the relation between mover and moved to be a species of the predicament relation. Now God is compared to the creature as mover to that which is moved. Therefore he is really related to the creature.

             2. It will be replied that he moves creatures without any change in himself; wherefore he is not really related to the thing moved. On the contrary, the presence of one of two relative opposites in a thing is not a reason for attributing the other to the same thing: thus a thing is not double because it is a half, nor is God Father because he is Son. Accordingly if mover and moved are mutually related, it does not follow that where there is the relation of mover there must be the relation of moved. Hence that God is not moved does not hinder him from having the relation of mover to moved.

             3. As the father gives being to the son so does the Creator give being to the creature. But the father is really related to the son. Therefore the Creator is also really related to the creature.

             4. Terms that are predicated of God properly and not metaphorically indicate the thing signified as being in God; and among terms of this kind Dionysius (Div. Nom. i) reckons Lord. Wherefore the thing signified by this word Lord is really in God. But it is a relation to the creature. Therefore, etc.

             5. Knowledge relates to the thing knowable (Metaph. v). Now God is compared to creatures as known to the thing known. Therefore in God there is a relation to creatures.

             6. The thing moved always bears a relation to its mover. Now the will is compared to the thing willed as the thing moved to its mover: because the appetible object is a mover that is not moved (Metaph. xii). Since then it is God's will that things exist, for he hath done all things whatsoever he would (Ps. cxiii, 11), it would seem that he is really related to the creature.

             7. If God is not related to creatures, the only reason would seem to be that he is not dependent on them and is far above them. But the heavenly bodies likewise are independent of elemental bodies and surpass them almost out of all proportion. Wherefore it would follow that there is no real relation in the higher bodies to the lower world.

             8. All names are taken from forms: and forms are something inherent to the things whereto they belong. Since then God is named from his relation to creatures, it would seem that these relations are something in God.

             9. Proportion--for instance that of double to half--is a real relation. Now seemingly there is a proportion in God to the creature: since there must be proportion between mover and the thing moved. Therefore it would seem that God is really related to creatures.

             10. Whereas understanding is an image of the thing (understood), and words are signs of things, according to the Philosopher (Peri Herm. i), these two are ordered differently in disciple and teacher. The teacher begins with the things whence he has gathered the knowledge in his intellect, and expresses that knowledge in words, while the disciple begins with the words through which he arrives at the ideas in the intellect of the teacher, and thence at the knowledge of things. Now whatsoever is said about these relations must first of all come to the knowledge of a teacher. Consequently with him these relative terms correspond to the ideas in his intellect and these ideas correspond to an objective reality: wherefore seemingly these relations are real.

             11. These relative terms which are predicated of God in time signify relations that are either predicamental (secundum esse) or transcendental (secundum dici). If their relativity is transcendental they posit nothing real in either extreme. But according to what has been said this is false, since they really exist in the creature as related to God. Therefore they signify predicamental relation, and consequently they posit something real in both extremes.

             12. It is in the nature of relatives that given one the other follows, and if one be removed the other is also removed. If then there is a real relation in the creature, there must be in God a real relation to the creature.

             On the contrary Augustine says (De Trin. v, 16): It is clear that whatsoever is said of God relatively is an accident in the thing to which God begins to be referred. Hence it would seem that these relations are attributed to God not by reason of something in him but on account of something outside him: so that they posit nothing real in him.

             Again, as the knowable thing is the measure of knowledge, so is God the measure of all things, as the Commentator says (Metaph. x). Now the knowable thing is not referred to knowledge by a real relation existing in it, but rather by the relation of knowledge to it, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. v). Therefore seemingly neither is God related to the creature by a real relation in him.

             Again, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ix): Likeness is not reciprocal between cause and effect, for an effect is said to be like its cause and not vice versa. Now the same would seem to apply to other relations as to that of likeness. Therefore seemingly neither is there reciprocity in the relations between God and the creature, and we cannot argue that because the creature is really related to God, therefore is God really related to the creature.

             I answer that the relations whereby we refer God to creatures are not really in God. To make this clear we must observe that since a real relation consists in the order of one thing to another, as already stated, a real relation is mutual in those things alone wherein on either side there is the same reason for mutual order: and this applies to all relations consequent to quantity. For since the notion of quantity is independent of all objects of sense, it is the same in all corporeal natures. And for the same reason that a quantitative thing A is really related to the quantitative thing B, B is really related to A. Now between one quantity, considered absolutely, and another there is the order deriving from measure and thing measured, under the name of whole and part and other such things that result from quantity.

             On the other hand in relations arising from action and passion or active and passive power there is not always order of movement on both sides. Because that which has the nature of being patient, moved or caused must always have an order to the agent or mover, seeing that the effect is always perfected by its cause and dependent thereon: so that it is ordered to it as the cause of its perfection. Now agents, whether movers or causes, sometimes have an order to their respective patients, whether moved or caused, inasmuch, to wit, as the good or perfection of the mover or agent is to be found in the effect, patient or thing moved.

             This is especially evident in univocal agents which by their action produce their like in species, and consequently perpetuate their species as far as this is possible. This is also evident in all other things which move, act or cause through themselves being moved; because by their very movement they are ordered to produce effects; and again in all those things where any good accrues to the cause from its effect. And there are some things to which others are ordered but not vice versa, because they are wholly foreign to that genus of actions or power from which that order arises: thus knowledge has a relation to the thing known, because the knower by an intelligible act has an order to the thing known which is outside the soul. Whereas the thing itself that is outside the soul is not touched by that act, inasmuch as the act of the intellect does not pass into exterior matter by changing it; so that the thing which is outside the soul is wholly outside the genus of intelligible things.

             For this reason the relation which arises from the act of the mind cannot be in that thing. The same applies to sense and the sensible object: for although the sensible object by its own action affects the organ of sense, and consequently bears a relation to it, just as other natural agents have a relation to the things on which they act, nevertheless it is not the alteration of the organ that perfects the act of perception, but the act of the sensitive power; to which act the sensible object outside the soul is altogether foreign. In like manner a man who stands to the right of a pillar bears a corresponding relation to the pillar by reason of his motive power whereby he is competent to be to the right or to the left, before or behind, above or below. Wherefore such-like relations in man or animal are real, but not in the thing which lacks that power. In like manner again money is external to the action whereby prices are fixed, which action is a convention between certain persons: and man is outside the genus of those actions whereby the artist produces his image. Hence there is not a real relation either in a man to his image, or in money to the price, but vice versa. Now God does not work by an intermediary action to be regarded as issuing from God and terminating in the creature: but his action is his substance and is wholly outside the genus of created being whereby the creature is related to him. Nor again does any good accrue to the creator from the production of the creature: wherefore his action is supremely liberal as Avicenna says (Metaph. viii, 7). It is also evident that he is not moved to act, and that without any change in himself he makes all changeable things. It follows then that there is no real relation in him to creatures, although creatures are really related to him, as effects to their cause.

             In this matter Rabbi Moses erred in many ways, for he wished to prove that there is no relation between God and the creature, because seeing that God is not a body he has no relation to time or place. Thus he considered only the relation which results from quantity and not that which arises from action and passion.

             Reply to the First Objection. The natural mover or agent moves and acts by an intermediary movement or action that is between the mover and the thing moved, between the agent and the patient: wherefore in this intermediary, at least agent and patient, mover and thing moved must come together. Wherefore the agent as such is not outside the genus of the patient as such: and consequently each has a real relation to the other, especially seeing that this intermediary action is a perfection proper to the agent so that the term of that action is a perfection of the agent. This does not apply to God, as stated above: and thus the comparison fails.

             Reply to the Second Objection. The fact that the mover is moved is not the cause of its relation of mover being a real relation, but a sign thereof. For the fact that it moves through being moved shows that from one point of view it belongs to the same genus as the thing moved; and again from the fact that by its movement it is moved to a certain end it follows that this end is its good.

             Reply to the Third Objection. The father, being an univocal agent gives the nature of his own genus to his son: but God does not thus give being to the creature: hence the comparison fails.

             Reply to the Fourth Objection. The denomination lord comprises three things in its signification: namely, first, power to compel subjects; secondly, arising from that power, relation to those subjects; thirdly, a relation in those subjects to their lord, since one relative implies the other. Accordingly the term lord retains its meaning in God as regards the first and third, but not the second. Hence Ambrose (De Fide i, 1) says that this name lord is a name of power, and Boethius says that dominion is the power of compelling slaves.

             Reply to the Fifth Objection. God's knowledge has not the same relation to things as ours has: since it is related to them as their cause and measure, inasmuch as things are true so far as by his knowledge God ordained them. On the other hand things are the cause and measure of our knowledge. Wherefore just as our knowledge bears a real relation to things and not vice versa, so are things really related to God's knowledge and not vice versa. Or we may reply that God understands other things by understanding himself, wherefore his knowledge is related directly not to things but to the divine essence.

             Reply to the Sixth Objection. The appetible object that moves the appetite is the end, and the means do not move the appetite save on account of the end. Now the end of the divine will is nothing else than the divine goodness. Hence it does not follow that other things bear the same relation to the divine will as the mover does to that which it moves.

             Reply to the Seventh Objection. The heavenly bodies are related to the lower bodies by real relations arising from quantity, inasmuch as on either side there is quantity of the same kind; and again by real relations arising from action and passion, because the action whereby being themselves moved they move other things is intermediary and is not their very substance, since by being a cause of lower things they obtain a certain good.

             Reply to the Eighth Objection. That from which a thing is denominated need not always be its natural form, and it suffices for it to be expressed, grammatically speaking, by way of a form: thus a man is denominated from an action, his apparel and the like which are not really forms.

             Reply to the Ninth Objection. If by proportion is meant a definite excess, then there is no proportion in God to the creature. But if proportion stands for relation alone, then there is relation between the Creator and the creature: in the latter really, but not in the former.

             Reply to the Tenth Objection. Although the teacher begins with things, the ideas of things are received by the teacher's mind otherwise than in nature, because that which is received into another follows the mode of the recipient: and it is plain that ideas are in the teacher's mind immaterially, but materially in nature.

             Reply to the Eleventh Objection. This distinction between predicamental and transcendental relatives does not prove the relations in question to be real. Certain predicamental relative terms do not signify a real relation, for instance, right and left as ascribed to a pillar: and some transcendental relative terms signify real relations, for instance, knowledge and sensation. Because relatives are said to be predicamental when terms are employed to signify the relations themselves, while they are said to be transcendental when the terms are employed to signify qualities or something of the kind primarily, from which relations arise. Nor as regards the question at issue does it matter whether they be real or logical relations.

             Reply to the Twelfth Objection. Although given one relative the other follows, this does not imply that both are posited in the same way: and it suffices that one be real and the other logical.