On The Power of God

DE POTENTIA DEI

BY

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS

FIRST BOOK

(QUESTIONS I-III)

LITERALLY TRANSLATED BY THE

ENGLISH DOMINICAN FATHERS

LONDON

BURNS OATES & WASHBOURNE LTD.

PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE

1932

NIHIL OBSTAT:

GEORGIUS D. SMITH, Ph.D., S.T.D.,

Censor deputatus.

IMPRIMATUR:

JOSEPH BUTT, Vicarius generalis.

WESTMONASTERII,

die 22a Februarii, 1932.

APPROBATIO ORDINIS

NIHIL OBSTAT:

AUGUSTINUS BARKER, O.P., S.T.B.

THOMAS GILBEY, O.P., S.T.L., Ph.D.

IMPRIMATUR:

BEDA JARRETT, O.P., S.T.L., M.A.,

Prior Provincialis Angliæ.

LONDINI

First Published in 1932

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

INTRODUCTION

IN the thirteenth century, the public disputation was not only a sort of ecclesiastical tournament arranged for an exceptional and solemn occasion, but also an integral part of a philosophical and theological course of studies. What are now called 'public circles' still take an important place in the curriculum of a Dominican house of studies; they are held every week, while the ordinary 'class circles' are even more frequent.

             A Master of Theology in the University of Paris was enjoined to provide public disputations frequently during the year. They were held more or less intermittently by other masters, but by St. Thomas with great frequency and regularity, and particularly during the three years of his first professorship at Paris, when he held them twice a week during term.

             With the exception of three or four, these ordinary disputations of St. Thomas were not isolated discussions, but formed a systematic series on the subject-matter of his teaching. It is necessary to notice the difference between these disputationes ordinariæ which are edited in the Quæstiones Disputatæ and the disputationes generales which are edited in the Quæstiones Quodlibetales. For in addition to the regular disputations of the teaching course, two solemn disputations were held every year, in Advent and Lent, at which questions of current interest were freely raised by the audience and resolved by the master. They were debates, to use the words of the Blessed Humbert of Romans, de quolibet ad voluntatem cujuslibet. The Quæstiones Quodlibetales are the record of these twice-a-year disputations held by St. Thomas. They are grouped into questions, but their order is superficial. Arising out of haphazard questions, the subjects debated are scattered, and the more defined unity of theme of the Quæstiones Disputatæ is lacking.

             Two mornings were normally set apart for a public disputation, and during them lectures in the faculty were suspended. On the first morning, a thesis, picked by the master and announced in advance, was attacked by an audience of masters, bachelors, students and interested visitors, and defended by the bachelor under the direction of the master. The master, strictly speaking, did not dispute, but controlled the discussion and magisterially resolved it. For on the next free morning, he himself reduced to order the difficulties that had been raised, countered them with brief arguments from reason and authority, and then embarked on a detailed exposition and proof of his thesis, afterwards meeting the objections that had been advanced against it.

             This magistralis determinatio was put into writing by a reporter or the master. The Quæstiones Disputatæ record, then, the ordinary debates which constituted such an important part of St. Thomas's course of teaching, not indeed as a Hansard report, but in the form in which he afterwards edited them. Each article represents a disputation. For the sake of convenience the articles in the four longest series of disputations have been grouped into questions.

             The Quæstiones Disputatæ fall into seven series, arranged in chronological order as follows: on Truth (two hundred and fifty-three disputations in all); on the Power of God (eighty-three disputations); on Evil (one hundred and one disputations); on the Incarnate Word (only five disputations, the course being interrupted by the assigning of St. Thomas from his attendance on the Papal curia at Viterbo to the University of Paris); on Spiritual Creatures (eleven disputations); and on the Virtues (thirty-six disputations).

             The disputations on Truth belong to the period of St. Thomas's first professorship at Paris, whence he was sent in 1259 to the papal court as theological lecturer and adviser, residing until 1269 in turn at Anagni, Orvieto, Rome and Viterbo. The two series of disputations on the Power of God and on Evil were written at this time, when he was about his fortieth year and at the full height of his powers. The discussions seem to have been held once a fortnight. According to Mandonnet, the thirty-two disputations in this volume would date from his stay at Anagni (1259-61); according to Grabmann, they would belong to his time at Rome as regent of studies at the Priory of Santa Sabina on the Aventine (1265-67).

             The disputations are not linked together with the same logical concatenation as are the articles of the Summa Theologica, which was written as a systematic summary of theology for the use of students. They contain an ampler and more leisurely treatment and furnish the material from which St. Thomas constructed great parts of his later synthesis. They are at once untidier and richer. A comparison of the treatment of the same question in the Summa Theologica and in the Quæstiones Disputatæ will be illustrative; for instance, the problem whether the power or act of creating can be communicated to a creature. In the former (Ia. xlv, 5) there are three objections, a counter-affirmation, an exposition and proof, and the replies to the objections. In the latter (III de Potentia, 4) there are sixteen objections, five counter-affirmations, a lengthy exposition leading to a fivefold proof, and the replies to the sixteen objections.

             St. Thomas is his own best commentator, and not the least value of this translation is the help it should afford in the study of the Summa Theologica.

             The translation has been made by Father Lawrence Shapcote, O.P., S.T.L., now residing in South Africa, who has also been the sole translator of the whole of the Summa Theologica, and of the Summa Contra Gentiles.

THOMAS GILBEY, O.P.

CONTENTS

QUESTION I. ON THE POWER OF GOD

ARTICLE

I.  IS THERE POWER IN GOD?

II.  IS GOD'S POWER INFINITE?

III. ARE THOSE THINGS POSSIBLE TO GOD WHICH ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO NATURE?

IV.  SHOULD WE JUDGE A THING TO BE POSSIBLE OR IMPOSSIBLE WITH REFERENCE TO LOWER OR TO HIGHER CAUSES?

V.  CAN GOD DO WHAT HE DOES NOT?

VI.  CAN GOD DO WHAT OTHERS CAN DO?

VII. IS GOD ALMIGHTY?

QUESTION II. OF GOD'S GENERATING POWER

I.  IS THERE A GENERATIVE POWER IN GOD?

II.  IS GENERATION ATTRIBUTED TO GOD ESSENTIALLY OR NOTIONALLY?

III. IN THE ACT OF GENERATION DOES THE GENERATIVE POWER COME INTO ACTION AT THE COMMAND OF THE WILL?

IV.  CAN THERE BE SEVERAL SONS IN GOD?

V.  IS THE GENERATIVE POWER INCLUDED IN OMNIPOTENCE?

VI.  ARE THE GENERATIVE AND CREATIVE POWERS THE SAME?

QUESTION III. OF CREATION

I.  CAN GOD CREATE A THING FROM NOTHING?

II.  IS CREATION A CHANGE?

III. IS CREATION SOMETHING REAL IN THE CREATURE, AND IF SO, WHAT IS IT?

IV.  IS THE CREATIVE POWER OR ACT COMMUNICABLE TO A CREATURE?

V.  CAN THERE BE ANYTHING THAT IS NOT CREATED BY GOD?

VI.  IS THERE BUT ONE PRINCIPLE OF CREATION?

VII. DOES GOD WORK IN OPERATIONS OF NATURE?

VIII. DOES GOD WORK IN NATURE BY CREATING?

IX.  IS THE RATIONAL SOUL BROUGHT INTO BEING BY CREATION OR IS IT TRANSMITTED THROUGH THE SEMEN?

X.  IS THE RATIONAL SOUL CREATED IN THE BODY?

XI.  IS THE SENSIBLE AND VEGETAL SOUL CREATED OR IS IT TRANSMITTED THROUGH THE SEMEN?

XII. IS THE SENSIBLE OR VEGETAL SOUL IN THE SEMEN FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE LATTER'S SEPARATION?

XIII. CAN THAT WHICH PROCEEDS FROM ANOTHER BE ETERNAL?

XIV. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THAT WHICH DIFFERS FROM GOD ESSENTIALLY TO HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

XV.  DID THINGS PROCEED FROM GOD OF NATURAL NECESSITY OR BY THE DECREE OF HIS WILL?

XVI. CAN A MULTITUDE OF THINGS PROCEED FROM ONE FIRST THING?

XVII. HAS THE WORLD ALWAYS EXISTED?

XVIII. WERE THE ANGELS CREATED BEFORE THE VISIBLE WORLD?

XIX. WAS IT POSSIBLE FOR THE ANGELS TO EXIST BEFORE THE VISIBLE WORLD?

ON THE POWER OF GOD