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 [1] ord… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.1 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Civic duty 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 … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.2 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Civic duty 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.… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.3 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul 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 o… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.4 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Anger, Care of the soul 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 ther… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.5 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Death Faith, although they are above Reason THE Divine Wisdom, that knows all things most fully, has deigned to reveal these her secrets to men, and in proof of them has displayed works beyond the competence of all natural powers, in the wonderful cure of diseases,… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.6 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Anger, Care of the soul Christian Faith THE natural dictates of reason must certainly be quite true: it is impossible to think of their being otherwise. Nor a gain is it permissible to believe that the tenets of faith are false, being so evidently confirmed by God. [13] Since theref… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.7 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Discipleship Faith [16] THE things of sense, from whence human reason takes its beginning of knowledge, retain in themselves some trace of imitation of God, inasmuch as they are, and are good; yet so imperfect is this trace that it proves wholly insufficient to declare th… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.8 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence THERE is then a twofold sort of truth in things divine for the wise man to study: one that can be attained by rational enquiry, another that transcends all the industry of reason. This truth of things divine I do not call twofold on the part of God, who is on… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.9 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Anger, Attribute cannot he proved, being a Self-evident Truth THIS opinion rests on the following grounds: [19] 1. Those truths are self-evident which are recognised at once, as soon as the terms in which they are expressed are known. Such a truth is the assertion that God ex… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.10 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Desire aforesaid Reasons THE above opinion arises partly from custom, men being accustomed from the beginning to hear and invoke the name of God. Custom, especially that which is from the beginning, takes the place of nature; hence notions wherewith the mind is imbu… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.11 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Desire is a Tenet of Faith alone and cannot be demonstrated THE falseness of this opinion is shown to us as well by the art of demonstration, which teaches us to argue causes from effects, as also by the order of the sciences, for if there be no knowable substance a… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.12 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Conatus WE will put first the reasons by which Aristotle proceeds to prove the existence of God from the consideration of motion as follows. Everything that is in motion is put and kept in motion by some other thing. It is evident to sense that there are beings in mo… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.13 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence of Negative Differentiation [30] AFTER showing that there is a First Being, whom we call God, we must enquire into the conditions of His existence. We must use the method of negative differentiation, particularly in the consideration of the divine substance. … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.14 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul THE beginning of anything and its ceasing to be is brought about by motion or change. But it has been shown that God is altogether unchangeable: He is therefore eternal, without beginning or end. [34] 2. Those things alone are measured by time which are in mo… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.15 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence EVERYTHING that has in its substance an admixture of potentiality, to the extent that it has potentiality is liable not to be: because what can be, can also not be. But God in Himself cannot not be, seeing that He is everlasting; therefore there is in God no … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.16 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence EVERY movement or change is the actualisation of something that was in potentiality, as such: but in this action of creation there is nothing pre-existent in potentiality to become the object of the action. 2. The extremes of movement or change fall under the… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.17 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Creation IN every compound there must be actuality and potentiality. For a plurality of things cannot become one thing, unless there be actuality and potentiality. For things that are not one absolutely, are not actually united except by being in a manner tied up toge… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.18 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Essence and existence, Ether and field SUCCESSION is proper to movement. But creation is not movement. Therefore there is in it no succession. 2. In every successive movement there is some medium between the extremes. But between being and not-being, which are the extremes in creation, there can b… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.19 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Creation, Essence and existence EVERY corporeal thing, being extended, is compound and has parts. But God is not compound: therefore He is not anything corporeal. 5. According to the order of objects is the order and distinction of powers: therefore above all sensible objects there is some … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.20 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Anger, Care of the soul IN everything that is not its own essence, quiddity, or nature, there must be some composition. For since in everything its own essence is contained, -- if in anything there were contained nothing but its essence, the whole of that thing would be its essence,… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.21 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Essence and existence, Ether and field IT has been shown above (Chap. [12]XV, n. 4) that there is an Existence which of itself necessarily is; and that is God. If this existence, which necessarily is, is contained in some essence not identical with it, then either it is dissonant and at variance w… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.22 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Education EVERYTHING that is in a thing accidentally has a cause for its being therein, seeing that it is beside the essence of the thing wherein it is. If then there is anything in God accidentally, this must be by some cause. Either therefore the cause of the acciden… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.23 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence addition of any Substantial Differentia [51] IT is impossible for anything actually to be, unless all things exist whereby its substantial being is characterised. An animal cannot actually be without being either a rational or an irrational animal. Hence the … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.24 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Essence and existence, Faith and reason EVERYTHING that is in any genus has something in it whereby the nature of the genus is characterised and reduced to species: for there is nothing in the genus that is not in some species of it. But this is impossible in God, as has been shown in the previous … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.25 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence things THINGS are not distinguished from one another in so far as they all have being, because in this they all agree. If therefore things do differ from one another, either being' itself must be specified by certain added differentias, so that different thin… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.26 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Anger, Care of the soul [23762] Against the Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 27. That God Is Not the Form of Any Body
Having shown that God is not the being of all things, it can likewise be shown that God is not the form of any thing.
For the divine being cannot be the being of any quid… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.27 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Essence and existence, Faith and reason AS all perfection and nobility is in a thing inasmuch as the thing is, so every defect is in a thing inasmuch as the thing in some manner is not. As then God has being in its totality, so not-being is totally removed from Him, because the measure in which a t… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.28 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence EFFECTS disproportionate to their causes do not agree with them in name and essence. And yet some likeness must be found between such effects and their causes: for it is of the nature of an agent to do something like itself. Thus also God gives to creatures a… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.29 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence WE may further consider what may be said or not said of God, or what may be said of Him only, what again may be said of God and at the same time also of other beings. Inasmuch as every perfection of the creature may be found in God, although in another and a … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.30 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul with the Simplicity of the Divine Being predicated of God and of other Beings THE perfections proper to other things in respect of their several forms must be attributed to God in respect of His productivity alone, which productivity is no other than His esse… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.31 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul synonymously [67] AN effect that does not receive a form specifically like the form whereby the agent acts, is incapable of receiving in synonymous predication the name taken from that form. [68] But, of the things whereof God is cause, the forms do not attai… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.32 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Education common Predicates to God and to Creatures involves nothing beyond a mere Identity of Name WHERE there is a mere accidental identity of name, there is no order or respect implied of one thing to another, but quite by accident one name is applied to several dif… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.33 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul analogously THUS then from the foregoing arguments the conclusion remains that things said alike of God and of other beings are not said either in quite the same sense, or in a totally different sense, but in an analogous sense, that is, in point of order or … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.34 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Education synonymous THOUGH the names predicated of God signify the same thing, still they are not synonymous, because they do not signify the same point of view. For just as divers realities are by divers forms assimilated to the one simple reality, which is God, so o… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.35 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence God are not void of meaning FOR all the absolute simplicity of God, not in vain does our understanding form propositions concerning Him, putting together and putting asunder. [75] For though our understanding arrives by way of divers concepts to the knowledge… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.36 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Attribute, Care of the soul the part of the Creative Process itself, with Answers to the same ARG. 1. It is the common opinion of all philosophers, and therefore it must be true, that nothing is made of nothing (Aristotle, Physics, B. I, Chapp. [204]VII, [205]VIII). Whatever is made, th… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.37 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Creation EVERY good thing, that is not its own goodness, is called good by participation. But what is called good by participation presupposes something else before itself, whence it has received the character of goodness. This process cannot go to infinity, as there … Summa Contra Gentiles 1.38 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence ESSENTIAL being, and essential goodness, and all other things that bear the name of essential,' contain no admixture of any foreign element; although a thing that is good may contain something else besides being and goodness, for there is nothing to prevent t… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.39 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence GOD in His goodness includes all goodnesses, and thus is the good of all good. 2. God is good by essence: all other beings by participation: therefore nothing can be called good except inasmuch as it bears some likeness to the divine goodness. He is therefore… Summa Contra Gentiles 1.40 Thomas Aquinas Medieval and Renaissance English Analogy of being, Care of the soul, Essence and existence 