Book I, Chapter 12

Chapter XI. 1 It shows what sort of thing that first principle is, namely that it is affirmative, and what it is that God is, or God is God.

Now that it has been found that the first complex principle is in God, or concerning him, it remains to inquire further what sort of thing it is, and what it is. First, then, we must ask what sort it is: whether affirmative, or rather negative. That it is not purely negative is plain, because a pure negation posits nothing; the first principle of complexes posits, and causes, all the true complexes that follow, as the last chapter showed; so it is not purely and totally negative. Nor is it a pregnant or implicative negative. Such a negative, by the power of the negation alone, posits nothing whatever; if it does perhaps posit something, it does so by the power of some prior affirmative which it carries within it. Therefore that affirmative, per se, is rather the first principle of complexes. For it is itself, per se, the cause of truth in others, whereas that negative is so only through it; therefore that affirmative is prior. But nothing of that kind is the first true complex and the cause of truth in others, if there is another truth prior to it, and another cause prior. Again, as the second chapter showed, everything that is of a certain sort per accidens is reduced to something prior which is such per se. Now such an implicative or pregnant negative posits and causes truth in others only per accidens; so it is reduced to something per se prior, by whose power it does this. That other, prior thing therefore both causes truth in others more and is prior as cause; so it is that, rather, which is the principle of complexes. Moreover, this other is a prior truth and the cause of the truth of this negative; so that negative is neither the first truth nor the first principle of complexes.

Again, according to the Philosopher, Posterior Analytics 1, 17 2: an affirmative demonstration is worthier, better and nobler, prior and stronger than a negative, and an affirmative proposition likewise than a negative proposition, as he says and proves there. For every negative is proved and known through an affirmative, not conversely. Again, as affirmative demonstration stands to negative, so does affirmative proposition to negative; but affirmative demonstration excels the negative in the aforesaid conditions; therefore an affirmative proposition likewise excels a negative. That an affirmative proves a negative and not conversely is plain from the book of the Prior Analytics, on all syllogisms. And that a negative is known through an affirmative and not conversely follows from this, and is likewise plain: because privation is known through habit and not conversely, as the Philosopher proves in De Anima 3, 25, and it is likewise plain in the Commentary. C1 Hence also Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 5: To be is better known than not to be; for to be is known through itself, but not to be through to be. Augustine agrees with these, City of God 12, 7, saying that darkness and silence are known, C2 not indeed in a form, but in the privation of form. Affirmation is, in a way, being and habit, or implies these; negation, however, is not-being and privation.

Again, every true negative has a truer affirmative that is prior to it and is its cause, as is plain from the Philosopher, Peri hermeneias 2, last chapter, who speaks thus: If what is good is both good and not evil, the former holds per se, namely that it is good, the latter per accidens, namely that it is not evil; for it is accidental to it not to be evil. In each thing, the statement that holds per se is the truer, and likewise the falser 3. Therefore "the good is good" is truer and prior than "the good is not evil." It is also the cause of it: because the good is good, therefore it is not evil, and not conversely; for not to be evil posits nothing at all, and consequently causes nothing. The first principle of complexes, therefore, is by no means to be judged negative, but firmly affirmative.

Now that it has been shown what sort of principle this is, it remains to investigate further what it is: whether, namely, it is that God is, or that God knows all truths, or that God wills all truths; for any one of these could be thought such a principle. For, as appears from the ninth of this, the will of God is the first and highest cause of all things, and so of all truths; therefore that God wills is the first principle of complexes. But I judge this not to be true. For that is not the first truth to which another truth is prior; but that God wills has another truth naturally prior to it, namely that God cognizes, since God naturally cognizes whatever is willed before he wills it. For every willing is necessarily of something known beforehand, as is sufficiently agreed among Philosophers and Theologians alike. And so it could appear that God's cognizing, or knowing, is the principle now sought. But this appearance deceives; for there is another truth naturally prior to this, namely that God is, that God is cognitive, that God is omnipotent, and the like, distinguishing and multiplying these in God and, according to

prior and posterior, ordering them: not at all essentially or really, but intellectually or imaginatively, as both Philosophers and Theologians are accustomed to speak, as was alleged above from Aristotle in De Mundo. And the same is plain from the same author in Metaphysics 12, in many places, A1 and from Averroes, Commentary 39, declaring the same more fully; to which the learned Plato, Avicenna, Algazel, and Avicebrol also bear witness in agreement, as the passages cited above prove. So too the Apostle speaks in Romans 1 when he says: The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made; and also his everlasting power and deity; and elsewhere in sacred Scripture very often. In the books too of Augustine On the Trinity, and in those of the other Saints and of all the Doctors, power, knowledge and will are distinguished in some way: for he can do and knows many things which he does not will. The same is plain of justice, grace and mercy, and many similar things, all well enough known.

That this principle may be found more easily, it must be known, according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 2, that although God is most known in himself and in the order of nature, the intellect of our soul nevertheless stands toward him as the eyes of night-ravens 4 toward the light of day, namely the Sun itself; and this is likewise from the muddiness of bodily matter overshadowing the eyes of the soul. So long, therefore, as the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things, man cannot understand God perfectly as he is, as he himself says to Moses when he entreated: You will not be able to see my face; for man will not see me, and live, Exodus 33. Hence, according to the Philosopher, Physics 1, and elsewhere: The way innate in us is from the things more known to us to the things more known in nature, which are more known simply; that is, from the posterior to the prior, and from things caused to causes. The names, therefore, by which we know God do not signify him per se, essentially and wholly absolutely, since they are transferred from creatures, and from effects better known to us, to him who is less known to us, though more known simply. And so the Philosopher says in De Mundo, last chapter: Though he is one, he is called by many names, from all the effects he brings about; for he is called Jupiter, Zima, son of Saturn, Enicus, lightning-bearer, rainy, thundering, stormy, serene, and

to speak in sum, heavenly and earthly, to be called after every nature and fortune, as being himself the cause of all; with which Hermes and Dionysius, recited above, also agree. Hence also Rabbi Moses, in the Guide of the Perplexed, 58 5: C1 All the names of the Creator found in the books are taken from works, except one name which is proper to him, namely the tetragrammaton; and for that reason it is called the separate name, because it signifies the wisdom of the Creator by a pure signification, in which there is no participation. If, therefore, as he says here, the name of the Lord, the tetragrammaton, or any other name, signified God purely, and were subjoined to a verb or predicate, the simplest or purest said of God, a proposition so affirming would be the first, simply, of all true complexes, and the first intrinsic principle of the whole genus of complexes. But if no created name, nor anything else other than the one Word of God, which is his perfect image, signifies him purely (which I judge more probable), suppose that this name, Deus, which is a tetragrammaton, of four letters, that is 6, be imposed on God from his pure essence, and signify him most purely, so far as he can be grasped by any creature. Then a proposition joining, most simply and most purely, a verb or a most pure predicate with this subject is the principle now sought, namely God is, or God is God.

That the most proper and purest name of God is imposed from his pure essence is plain from his own teaching to Moses, who wished to know his name, when he said: I am who am, Exodus 3. Treating this authority, Rabbi Moses, where first at 61, holds that this name is most fitting to God himself, and signifies Necessary Being; and above at 58 he says: That the name of God, the tetragrammaton, which is most proper to God, perhaps signifies in accordance with the notion of Necessary Being. Therefore a name taken from his pure essence seems to suit him most properly. It appears, then, that God is, or God is God, is the first principle of complexes, if the predicate and the verb signify most essentially and most properly, in correspondence, as the subject does.

Now there are two kinds of truths, higher and lower. Lower truths are all things said of creatables or creatures, and universally of anything whatever that is not God, or even of God by reference to another, as God is Lord of all, or Creator. Higher truths are those that rest in God alone, as: God is powerful, wise, and good. Of these, some are in a way naturally posterior, some prior. For God's willing is posterior to his cognizing, and his cognizing to his being; for being naturally precedes these and, universally, all such attributes. Though this is clear enough of itself, it can nevertheless be urged by a likeness. For being simply, in created things, naturally precedes all their being as determined to be such or such, as the fourth proposition of the Causes says 7: The first of created things is being, and nothing created is before it; so likewise it seems ‖E1 concerning the Creator of all. Again, from what was established above, the first principle of complexes is affirmative,

and what else could it affirm than being, the first of the first being, the purest of the purest, and the simplest of the simplest? For any other affirmation will be posterior to such. It seems, therefore, that God's being, or God's being God, is simply the first principle of complexes. For that truth is the principle of the rest which naturally precedes them. Hence also Anselm, On Truth 10: All things owe to the highest truth; but it owes nothing to anything, nor for any reason is it what it is, except that it is.

Here perhaps someone will object: That is not the first truth to which another truth is prior; but that God is has another truth prior to it, namely that God can be; for it follows of anything: this is, therefore this can be, and not conversely; therefore, by that well-known definition of the prior, that God can be is naturally prior to ‖A1 this being. But this subtlety errs in its matter 8. For it is prior that God is than that he can be, which seems marvelous, but is true. For everything possible, or able to be, is such by some prior power existing; but God is not able to be through any alien power, for he has no need of any such, nor of any other preceding power, since there is none such; so God is able, or possible, to be through a power proper to himself, actually inhering in him. Now power, possibility or potency is one divine attribute; therefore that to which it is attributed and in which it inheres, namely the pure essence of God, is naturally prior. So that God's being too appears naturally prior to God's being able to be, so far as priority can be assigned there. All this appears from the first of this.

The reason why the contrary appears the more likely is that it is so in all other things below God, from which, as was said above, we rise to the knowledge of God, judging that it is so in the Creator of all as it is in all creatures. For in all these, being able to be precedes actual being. The whole world was able to be before it was; and since non-being has no power, when the world was not, it was not possible for it to be by a power of its own, but only by a divine one. Hence Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 12: What is wholly nothing has nothing, and therefore has no power, and without power can do nothing at all; and the world, before it was made, was nothing; therefore, being nothing at all before it was, it could do nothing; therefore it could not be before it was. So before it was, it was both possible and impossible 9 that it should be: impossible, indeed, to him in whose power it was not that it should be; but possible to God, in whose power it was that it should be made. Therefore, because God was able to make the world before it was made, the world is; not because the world was able to be before.