“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…”
Rom. 1:20
“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”
Heb. 11:3
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Order of Contents
Intro
Outline
Conclusions respecting Reality
Proof of God
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Intro
Travis Fentiman
April 2026
Allan B. Wolter (1913-2006) was an American, Franciscan, John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) scholar and professor of philosophy. He wrote a very valuable, medium-level, Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958). This work revives “the common doctrine of traditional true metaphysics,”† or the common teachings of Medieval scholasticism, while leaning Scotist.
† Summary, Preface, p. 5
Below are Wolter’s 69, and then 31 more, conclusions given throughout the book, which, while being greatly informative to the necessary structure of reality, form a proof (or rather, in some way, many proofs) for God, from the undeniable existence of transient being, or change. The conclusions are just that. If they are not immediately self-evident, see Wolter’s discussion behind them in the referenced pages.
If reality is unified,¹ as in its very singular name and our conception of it, it must be unified by universal principles. If so, such universal principles must be as necessary as the existence of reality. If some principles are universal, they are present to knowing subjects. To deny universal principles may be recognized, ultimately and quickly turns into self-contradiction and becomes manifestly contrary to fact. If universal principles may be recognized and delineated, as below, they may be expected to afford a high level of certainty, and, especially taken together, be very powerful in their explanation of reality and in their consequences.
¹ Even a plurality must be unified in multiple ways, or it could not be a singular plurality.
Hence the great value of what is below. Take the time to look it over, carefully consider each step, try to deny any conclusion you can. One consequence you will find from these necessary conclusions respecting reality is that God, in his manifold attributes, is and must be more real than our very perceived reality surrounding us.
The Proof
Don’t let the number of conclusions intimidate you: proving the simplest concepts of math and logic can take hundreds of steps (or more). One shouldn’t be surprised if the same be true regarding ultimate reality, or metaphysics.
Most of the work being done in the proof is in conclusions 2 and 68-69 respecting reality, and in conclusions 1-3 of the Proof of God. Much of the argument through the rest is patterned off of those. To illustrate conclusions 2, 16-17 and 24:
If anything is caused and comes into existence in changing reality around us, it does not have its reason for existence in itself; otherwise, if it did, it would always exist. This may be likened to a metal link hanging solitary in the air: nothing in the link itself can explain or provide the power for it hanging in the air.
Connect to the link several more links, or an infinite chain of them. Yet nothing in the infinite chain can justify its hanging in the air. Form the chain into a circle: it still, of its own nature, can’t cause itself to float in the air. Yet that nothing can come from nothing, in order to account for this phenomenon, is plain. Something is yet causing the chain to be suspended in the air and to exist.
That something must be (1) able to cause (so as to hold the chain in the air, or in being), and (2) cause all other things needing a cause, that is all things besides itself (or else it would be a part of the chain). Yet as it cannot be one more link in the chain, needing a further cause, it must be uncaused.
The very existence of a cause necessitates that a causer, which is uncaused, exists.
In the scenario above, with a few explanations and adjustments, one may replace the relevant terms with:
transient / permanent
temporal / eternal
changeable / unchangeable
dependent / independent
contingent / necessary
relative / absolute
composite / simple
finite / infinite
imperfect / perfect
Hence if something transient, temporal, changeable, etc. exists, so must something permanent, eternal, unchangeable, etc.; in fact, something infinitely necessary, absolute and perfect must exist. But it is undeniable by one’s own experience that something transient or changeable, etc. exists, or may exist (which possibility will reach the same conclusion). This we call God. As all perfections must be in God, infinitely, as Wolter will show, God must be personal.
All the terms of the above pairs are attributes (or properties) of being. As they are contradictory opposites with respect to being, all being may be divided amongst the opposite terms of each pair. Hence Wolter calls these pairs, “disjunctive attributes of being”. He will show that if being of the less perfect term of the pair exists, or can exist, some being of the opposite, more perfect term must exist (conclusions 68-69).
If these things get you thinking, I’ll help you: If one of the previous terms, or factors, is necessary in reality, and inherently implies numerous more factors, and this is inescapable, what is to be made of all this?
Reality is irreducibly complex to numerous factors; one cannot get around them.¹ The only way one can exist and have coherent experience or knowledge, and the only way finite reality can exist is through at least those numerous factors.
¹ This is a thematic conclusion in the book, Edward Feser, Aristotle’s Revenge: the Metaphysical Foundations of Physical & Biological Science (Editiones Scholasticae, 2019), though it is true whether or not the book had ever been written. That created reality must be irreducible to numerous factors is because creation must be finite, composite and changeable, as God could not make something that is not. See immediately below.
This is for numerous reasons, such as: God is not-finite, cannot create or reproduce Himself, and therefore whatever He may make, must be not Himself, and hence finite (and therein imperfect), dependent upon Him, it cannot not be utterly simple, and therein must be complex and composite, not self-existing or eternal, therein be capable of change, etc. See Wolter’s Proof of God, Corollaries: How Creatures Differ from God.
We do not get to choose what reality is, but, being dependent upon it, must accept it as it is. That is to say, as will be seen (Proof of God, 19-20 & 23-24), creation exists at God’s pleasure; therefore He determines what it is, not us. We can only ever be discoverers.
The outline and subsection headings of the proof below are not original.
Validity of the Proof:
From Objective Nature, not your Presuppositions
The validity and soundness of this proof has nothing to do with whether you are a Christian or not,¹ or your presuppositions. The realities it recognizes were valid before God ever sent Scriptural revelation to this world, and are recognizable and valid to those who do not have the Bible.²
¹ See many Scriptures teach that ‘Unbelievers can Know Things’. See also ‘On the Need & Validity of Natural Knowledge, contra Biblicism’ and ‘On Common Ground with Non-Christians’.
² See ‘Natural Theology’ and ‘Contra Biblicism’.
If nature is what it is in itself, which is contradictory to deny,¹ then a thing is what it is from its very nature, or intrinsic,² constituting principles (this determining what kind of thing it is and how it differs from other things), irrespective of your interpretation of it, or your presuppositions, etc.
¹ Even if you are the only mind in the world, or if a world outside you doesn’t exist.
² To further explore and understand this better, see ‘Natural Law’.
Ever since the rise of the revolutionary philosophical changes in the late-1600’s (with Descartes, Locke, Newton, Hume, the Mechanical Philosophy, etc.), where intrinsic principles and causes came to be ignored or denied, and only external (efficient) causes came to be emphasized or affirmed,¹ it became hard to prove God. If one only allows for external causes, then necessarily what a thing is, or how it is explained, especially given the large amount of contingency in the world, will be largely dependent on and determined simply by external factors and one’s presuppositions.
¹ See Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (St. Augstine’s Press, 2008), ch. 5, ‘Descent of the Modernists’, ‘From Form to Corpuscles, 1500’s-1700’s, & Contra a Mechanical Universe’ and ‘On Cartesianism & Against It’.
Yet before that philosophical revolution, with intrinsic causes intact, it was easy to prove God, because all things must in some way be related to each other by intrinsic, universal principles, including God. Yet that irreducible, universal, intrinsic constituting principles must exist, is ultimately undeniable.¹
¹ See for example Feser, “Aristotle’s Metaphysics” in Last Superstition, ch. 2, pp. 49-74 and his Scholastic Metaphysics (Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), ch. 1, pp. 34-51 and throughout. Note that affirming intrinsic principles and causes does not take us back to the Middle Ages before our technological advances, or hinder them, but greatly increases the toolkit we have to understand reality and advance science and technology.
It may be objected (or asserted): But you cannot know any of Wolter’s conclusions below apart from presupposing God.
If a person knows anything at all, numerous of the metaphysical conclusions below must hold, for without them, nothing could be known. God will be shown to be necessarily entailed by those conclusions. In this sense, it is true the conclusions do metaphysically presuppose God, just as everything does, and must.
Yet there are significant differences between the proof laid out here and the viewpoint from where the objector (or assertor) is coming from. This proof is linear, not circular, and can be, precisely because it starts with the intrinsic, objective nature of things. From this, what is created, God’s existence is shown to be necessary. This is not to deny other ways of knowing God.¹
¹ See ‘On the Innate Knowledge of God in Distinction from the Acquired Knowledge of God’. It is affirmed people may, and should recognize God from the things that are made (Rom. 1:19-20) apart from this proof, but if one wants one line of demonstrable reasons for this, here it is.
Everyone born into this world begins with such empirical foundations,¹ and things can be known (both temporally and epistemologically) before God is known.²
¹ See the many Scriptures at, ‘That One can Know Things Empirically’.
² See ‘That One can come to Know Things without Presupposing them, including God’ and Richard Baxter’s quotes at ‘On the First Known Thing’.
It is true, if one denies God (which premise is a bit different than the one in the objection), the necessary metaphysical preconditions for all existence, knowledge, morals, etc. are implicitly denied and destroyed. But why that is so, which is usually simply asserted, or not well explained, is here spelled out in detail in demonstrable, necessary form, if one works from the conclusion back to the beginning and considers Wolter’s Corollaries: How Creatures differ from God:
If there is nothing infinitely perfect, personal, eternal, absolute, necessary, unchangeable, independent and simple: nothing can be finite or imperfect, a person, temporary, relative, contingent, changeable, dependent or complex.
If you agree with that, Wolter is simply proving the contrapositive by modus tollens:¹ If anything finite, imperfect, temporary, composite, etc. exists, or may exist, God must exist.
¹ The summary form in symbolic logic (without going into modal logic) is: If not-P, then not-Q. If Q, then P. Q, therefore P.
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Variants of Schools
Wolter’s Scotism comes through in his proof in some places. One example is his speaking in Proof of God, conclusion 3 of “something… which can be called haecceity” (this-ness, from Latin). Other schools of philosophy may protest, considering this to hinder the proof’s soundness.
This-ness is a proposed answer to the very difficult philosophical problem of individuation:¹ why one thing is different from another, and how it may be known to be so. Wolter in his discussion in the Summary, pp. 24-28, tries to bring the schools of thought on individuation as close as possible, listing in conclusion four propositions that all the schools agree on, which remarkably cover the greater share of the issue’s substance. He writes, “If, after all these concessions, anyone wishes to adopt one or other of the very celebrated opinions adduced above, let him choose and defend it.” (p. 28)
¹ For resources: ‘On Individuation’.
When close philosophical schools, seeking to describe reality, take different categorical routes at forks in the road, there is a tendency for them to make further choices down the road that, in their qualifications, bring them back closer together, so far as they are seeking to describe the same reality, albeit with different terms and categories. Even when differences yet remain, both contrary paradigms can yet participate¹ in the truth and reflect reality to a high degree, despite whatever degree of inaccuracy may yet inhere in the paradigms.
¹ On participation generally, see ‘On the Communicable Attributes & Participation’.
If you strongly object to any such particular, do the world a service: Translate the issues into your preferred lingo and categories, reconcile the schools of thought and see if, and show how, in taking either route, the same conclusion, of force, is called for.
For whatever miniscule ambiguity or uncertainty may remain in the proof due to our necessary finitude, for we all necessarily only know in part (1 Cor. 13:9-13), yet, nonetheless, this proof of God, deriving from the necessary being, structure, forces and tendencies of nature itself, is more certain than you eating breakfast, or existing.¹
¹ See Wolter on ‘The Certainty of Metaphysical Necessity’.
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Help for Understanding
The person new to the subject may likely have some difficulty with (1) some of the proof’s terms, and (2) their abstractness.
As to (1) peculiar terms, it is necessary, in every field, to give not-so-familiar names for technical concepts necessarily unique in the field, whether that be in mathematics, medicine, physics or even in theology. Metaphysics is, and must be, as complex (in some respect) as reality is itself. See ‘On the Need for a Technical Language for, and Distinct to, Metaphysics’.
Some advice: Dig in and learn (especially in the pages referenced in Wolter) what terms like material cause, formal cause, act, potency (these being intrinsic principles), etc. mean.¹ Come back to the proof as able, and each time it will be clearer to you.
¹ For resources, see ‘On Particular Metaphysical Issues’.
As to (2) the abstractness of it all: Universal principles must necessarily be abstract, just as in math, physics, epistemology, and often in theology. Truth itself is abstract, not to mention God (insofar as He, of necessity, is not perceptible by our senses). The more familiar you become with the terms, and then the arguments, the less abstractness will be an issue. No one objects that the unfamiliar symbols and abstractness of a mathematical proof derogates from its evident certainty (when understood); in fact, the more a proof uses universal principles, the more abstract and certain it will be.
If one desires to start at an easier, less technical level, which will help in understanding this proof, see Travis Fentiman, “A Proof for God’s Existence” (2024).
If you don’t understand something, unless God has said it,¹ don’t believe it. Blind faith is sin;² and those who try to get persons to believe things apart from apprehending sufficient reasons for them,³ do the work of they know not whom (2 Thess. 2:3-4). Yet seek to get to a place where you can understand, so whether the thing be true or erroneous, you will know why.
¹ See ‘Scriptures that Implicit Faith & Obedience is to be Given to God’
² See ‘On Implicit, or Blind Faith & Obedience’ and ‘The Mere Will, Determination, Judgment or Saying So of Authorities is an Insufficient Ground of Faith & Obedience, & Authorities are Not to Act or Require Something without Sufficient Natural, Moral or Spiritual Reasons, Manifest to Consciences’. Note that blind faith always entails blind obedience, and vice versa: ‘Blind Obedience Always Entails Blind Faith’.
³ See ‘A Minimal Reason is Not a Sufficient Ground to a Yet Objecting Conscience’.
If something seems merely probable, one can approvingly affirm it as probable, that is conditionally, till more light may come along.¹ If it seems certain, yet that condition, till further light comes, always remains, even through all eternity (Prov. 4:18; 1 Cor. 13:9-13; 1 Pet. 1:16-21; Rev. 22:5).
¹ See ‘On Probabilism’.
Sometimes it can be helpful for understanding to skim over something in preparation for going through it more fully. When you sit down to read, read to understand (Prov. 2:2; 18:13; Jm. 1:19); and when you understand and see it, and cannot but be compelled to rejoice in its truth, soak in it. There is no need to rush on to something else; don’t. Take it in; take your time soaking. Keep coming back; soak more in the truth. You can spend much of your life, and the next, right here:
“God said… I Am that I Am.”
Ex. 3:14
“God, who… has in these last days spoken to us by His Son… who… upholding all things by the word of His power…”
Heb. 1:1-3
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Outline
Conclusions respecting Reality
Change & Dependency to Independent Being
1-8 Transient to Absolutely Permanent Being
9-15 Transient to Something Eternal & Unchangeable
16-27 Transient to a First Uncausable Efficient Cause
28-31 Caused to Something is Unconditioned & Independent
32-34 From Another to a Being from Itself
Characteristics of the Independent Being
35-39 Contingent to Necessary Being
40-47 Potential Being to Something is Pure Act
48-51 If Anything, the Uncausable is Substance
52-53 Relative to Absolute Being
54-58 Composite to the Ineffectible, Efficient Cause is Simple
An Infinite, Perfect Being
59-62 Imperfect Composite to Pure Perfections
63-67 Everything Finite is Caused, to an Infinite Being
68-69 Something is Infinite and has all Pure Perfections
Existence & Nature of the Infinite Being
Intro
1-3 Only One Infinite Being Exists, which is from Itself & Perfect
Corollaries: How Creatures Differ from God
Divine Life Internally
4-15 God is Intelligent
16 God is Personal & Loves Himself
God’s Operation Externally
17-18 God is Omnipotent
19-21 All things External to God are Contingent
22 God can do Miracles
23-27 Creation, Conservation, Concurrence, Providence
Conclusions respecting Reality
28-29 All Being is True & Good
30-31 Evil
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Conclusions respecting Reality
Part 1, Change & Dependency to Independent Being
Something Transient to Absolutely Permanent Being
[see pp. 32-36 of the Summary for background and arguments for conclusions 1-8]
Premise
“As we noted above, the existence or fact of something transient is so manifest and evident that no one can rationally doubt of it… Our own personal experience teaches us the reality of transient being…” pp. 32-33
Conclusion 1. If the transient exists, the relatively permanent exists.
2. If the relatively permanent exists the absolutely permanent exists.
“Whatever can begin to be or cease to be is in itself indifferent to existing and not existing, otherwise it would either always exist or never exist. Everything thus indifferent does not, as such, have in itself the total reason for its existence or for its permanence. Therefore if such thing really is and persists, the reason not only for its beginning to be, after not being, but also for its persisting or continuing to be must be looked for in something else. Such a reason for the existence of another thing is by definition called the cause…
But what of the reason that a being persists? Either it is something that depends on another with respect to its existence and permanence or it is not. If it is independent with respect to existence and permanence it has in itself the reason of both and so cannot not exist. If it is not independent then either:
a) there is a regress to infinity, or
b) there is a circle in dependent things, or
c) there will be a stand at some being that is simply first, namely first in being independent both as to existence and as to permanence in existence.
a) An infinite series of things existing simultaneously is impossible, because such a series would be simultaneously dependent and independent:
dependent because it would be indifferent to existing and would not have in itself a reason for existing;
independent because nothing would exist outside the series for it to depend on, otherwise it would not be an infinite series since [it would be] limited and brought to an end in the being on which it depends.
By such a series then cannot be explained why something exists. This argument is confirmed by an example. Who would say that a sufficient reason for the suspension of the whole of a chain could be found in the length itself of the chain even though it could not be found in any ring of the chain?
b) Similarly a circle of mutually dependent things involves a contradiction unless we suppose a sufficient cause outside the circle as such. Otherwise every individual cause would be the total cause of itself and so would be dependent and independent, caused and uncaused, at the same time, which is manifestly absurd.
c) If a) and b) are excluded, c) is what is left. So in every case there must be a being altogether independent as to its existence and its permanence.” pp. 34-35
3. If the transient exists, the absolutely permanent exists.
4. An actually infinite series of simultaneously existing dependent things is impossible. [see 2]
5. A circle of mutual dependent things cannot be independent in itself. [see 2]
6. If the transient exists, it is caused, imperfect and dependent [see 2].
It is caused because the transient does not have in itself a reason for its existence and permanence; it is dependent because it is caused; it is imperfect because it does not have its total perfection from itself but receives its perfection from another.
7. A permanent being actually exists [see 2], or there is among beings actually existing¹ something absolutely permanent.
¹ “…no one can rationally doubt that several things exist.” p. 11
8. Being is therefore divided into the transient and permanent. That the transient exists is continuously verified by experience; that the permanent exists follows from conclusion 7.
Scotus: “But in the case of disjunctive features [of being]… when the extreme that is less noble is posited of some being, the extreme that is more noble can be proved of some being – just as it follows that if some being is finite then some being is infinite, and if some being is contingent then some being is necessary. For in these cases the more imperfect extreme could not be present in some being in particular unless the more perfect extreme were present in some being on which the former would depend.” p. 21
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Transient to Something Eternal & Unchangeable
[See pp. 36-38 of the Summary for background to 9-15]
9. If there is something transient, there is something temporal.
10. If there is something temporal, something is eternal.
“Whatever has in itself the total reason for its being and remaining such (as a being altogether independent and absolutely permanent, whose existence was proved in the preceding article [conclusion 7]) is also in itself unchangeable, for the changeable, whether taken in a broad sense or a strict sense, is indifferent as between existing and not existing. But what is the total reason for its existing and remaining is not thus indifferent; therefore it is not changeable. But if it is a being in itself unchangeable, it is also an eternal being.” p. 37
11. If there is something changeable there is something unchangeable.
“If the changeable [being] is taken strictly [see p. 11], there must be a subject of the change that is relatively permanent; therefore there is something else that is absolutely and independently permanent (from conclusion 2…); therefore there is something that is in itself unchangeable.
If the changeable is taken in a broad sense then either it always existed thus or it did not; if it did not it is transient, and then too the unchangeable must exist. If the changeable always existed thus in fact, nevertheless it could not be altogether independent with respect to its persistence, for otherwise it would not be changeable in the broad sense. Therefore it would be dependent as to its persisting; therefore it would, like the relatively persistent, require a first independent thing existing simultaneously that is unchangeable also in the broad sense.” p. 37
12. An eternal being actually exists, or something actually existing is eternal.
13. An unchangeable being actually exists, or something actually existing is unchangeable.
14. Therefore being is divided into temporal and eternal (from conclusions 8, 9, and 10).
15. Therefore being is divided into unchangeable and changeable.
If changeable is taken broadly [see p. 11], this conclusion follows from conclusions 8, 9, and 13. If it is taken strictly the existence of the unchangeable follows from what was said above about constant elements of our experience [see p. 33]. The existence of the unchangeable follows from conclusion 13.
Transient to a First Uncausable Efficient Cause
[see pp. 38-46 of the Summary for background for 16-21]
16. In the same class of essentially ordered causes, the series cannot be infinite, for otherwise there would be an actually infinite series of simultaneously existing dependent things, which is impossible (from conclusion 4). Hence there cannot be an infinite series of essentially ordered efficient causes. The like must be said of final causes,¹ or of material or formal causes.²
¹ [Resources: ‘On Teleology’]
² [Resources: ‘On Hylemorphism’]
17. A circle of essentially ordered causes cannot exist as independent or uncaused in itself (conclusion 5). Since a circle of causes must always be understood of things simultaneously existing,¹ this conclusion extends to every circle of causes.
¹ “But just as the cause which gives being to something must exist in the moment when the transient thing begins to exist,² so too the reason that the transient thing persists in being must coexist as long as the transient thing continues to exist.” p. 34
² [This is confirmed in that only something actual can actualize something potential.]
18. A material cause does not behave as matter unless the formal cause forms it, and vice versa.
The point is plain from the definitions of these causes [see pp. 39-40], for unless that which is composed of both exists, matter and form cannot have an inflow on the thing caused [see pp. 38 & 40]. Here from follows another conclusion, namely:
19. If something has behaved as matter, something else has behaved as form, and vice versa.
20. What is not effected is not caused by a final cause.
The point is plain from the definitions of each [see pp. 39-40], for the final cause is that for the sake of which the efficient cause produces the effect; therefore it causes only by mediation of the efficient cause. This conclusion can thus be formulated in another way, namely that if something depends on a final cause it also depends on an efficient cause.
21. What is not effected is not mattered or formed, or, if something is caused by a material and formal cause, it is also caused by an efficient cause.
For matter and form are parts; therefore they are in themselves indifferently disposed to forming one thing. Therefore something in the order of efficient cause is required to effect this one thing.
22. If something is transient or changeable or temporal, something is effectible or able to be effected.
For nothing of this sort has in itself the total reason for its existence; therefore it is from another, namely from an efficient cause; therefore it is something that can be an effect or is effectible.
23. If something is effectible, something can effect. Cause and effect are correlatives¹ so that the possibility of one involves the possibility of the other.
¹ [Correlatives are things that are by definition depedent on each other; if there is one, there must be the other. Example: if there is a father, there must be, or has been, a son; if there is a son, there must be, or has been, a father.]
24. If some efficient cause can exist, some first efficient and uncausable thing can exist.
The proof is as follows: If there is an efficient cause it is either a first efficient cause (that is, not itself effectible) or not.
If it is not the first ineffectible efficient cause, there is either:
a) a circle of efficient causes such that the circle as a whole is altogether independent of anything outside it, but its individual members are effected by each other, or
b) there is an infinite series of efficient causes that are either i) essentially ordered or ii) accidentally ordered.¹
¹ “Causes are said to be accidentally ordered among themselves if one depends on the other in being, but not in actually causing; hence if the first cause of such a series ceases to exist, the others can still exist and still cause. Thus a father, when grandfather and great-grandfather are dead, can generate a son.” p. 44
But a) is impossible (from conclusion 17) and so is b) i) (from conclusion 16). But b) ii) would also be impossible unless there existed something outside the series on which the whole series depends. The proof is twofold:
First, that from the fact that the individual members are dependent, the series consists, as a totality, of dependent things, and so the series as a whole is dependent and thus requires some cause outside itself.
Second, from the fact that if the individual causes are not simultaneously existent, [then] they begin to be and cease to be; therefore they are transient. But if something is transient, there is also something absolutely permanent and independent both as to its existence and as to its permanence (from conclusion 3).
Such a being, to the extent it keeps the series in being, is also an efficient cause, otherwise it would not be altogether independent as to its permanence in being. For if it were merely a material or formal cause, it would depend on some other efficient cause so that it be formally a cause (from conclusions 18 and 21). If it were merely a final cause, it would also require an efficient cause in order to exercise its final causality (from conclusion 20).
There is a confirmation from the fact that to persist in being is formally an effect, at least in its beginning. Therefore if it is an efficient cause, it is in every case the first ineffectible efficient cause.
That this first efficient cause is simply uncausable is plain from conclusions 20 and 21.
25. What is ineffectible cannot be caused by a final or material or formal cause; therefore it is simply uncausable.
26. If an ineffectible being can exist, it must exist; for if it did not actually exist, it could not receive existence from a cause. So it could not in fact exist, but would be simply impossible.
27. A first uncausable efficient cause actually exists.
The point is plain from the fact that there is something transient, changeable and temporal (from conclusions 8, 14, 15); therefore there is an uncausable first efficient cause (from conclusions 24 to 26).
It follows next that there exists at least one efficient cause. Hence if something can be transient, changeable, etc. some ineffectible efficient cause must exist as the condition sine qua non [without which: nothing] of the possibility of something else.
Something is Caused to Something is Unconditioned & Independent
[see pp. 46-47 of the Summary]
28. If something is caused, it is also conditioned or dependent.
The point is plain from the definition of condition in the broad sense and the definition of caused [see pp. 38-39 & 47].
29. If something is ineffectible, it is also unconditioned or independent.
“Now a condition that is not the same as a cause cannot condition something by itself alone but only by a cause. What is conditioned by some non-efficient cause is also caused by an efficient cause. Therefore what is not an effect or effectible is in no way conditioned by any other being.” p. 47
30. If something is conditioned or dependent [and hence has an efficient cause], something is [ineffectible and hence] unconditioned and independent.
31. Being is divided into caused and uncaused, dependent and independent, conditioned and unconditioned.
This point follows from conclusions 8, 22 and 28 as to conditioned, and from conclusions 27 and 29 as to unconditioned.
Something is from Another to a Being from Itself
[see pp. 47-48 of the Summary]
32. If there is a being from another, there is also a being from itself; or, in another way, if something from another exists, its complete dependence should end or rest, either mediately or immediately, in a being that is completely independent or is from itself.
33. A being from itself actually exists.
34. Being is divided into being from itself and being from another.
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Part 2, Characteristics of the Independent Being
Something Contingent to Necessary Being
[see pp. 48-50 of the Summary]
35. Whatever exists from itself (is either ineffectible or independent) is a necessary being. This point follows from the definitions.
36. Whatever exists contingently [see p. 48] not only has in another the reason for its existence, but receives existence from a cause that causes contingently and not necessarily [see pp. 48-49].
37. Everything caused either immediately or mediately by a free cause is contingent, and conversely every contingent being is caused immediately or mediately by a free cause.
38. Every cause that causes contingently is either itself a free will or depends for its existence or its causing on a free cause.
39. If there is some contingent being, there is some necessary being.
If there is something contingent, such a thing is caused (from conclusion 36), and consequently is dependent (from conclusion 38). But a dependent being implies a being from itself (from conclusion 32), and therefore a being from itself necessarily exists (from conclusion 35).
Potential Being to Something is Pure Act
[see pp. 50-55 of the Summary]
40. Act and potency¹ divide being and every kind of being.
¹ [For a simple description of act and potency, see Fentiman, “A Proof for God”, 1. Preliminaries to the Proof. Besides Wolter, p. 50, fn. 17, see also ‘On Act, Potency & Change’.]
This Scholastic axiom must be understood of act and potency as disjunctive attributes of being, where its truth is sufficiently plain. The sense is: everything of which the definition of being holds (namely, what existence is not repugnant to) either actually exists or does not actually exist. This disjunctive is valid not only of being as a transcendental but also of categorical being, so that everything of which the definition of substance or any of the accidents is true, either actually exists or is in objective potency to existing.
41. Potency involves some imperfection if it is understood in the sense of subjective or objective potency (potential being) [see pp. 51-52] or of passive or obediential potency¹ [see pp. 52-53]; but not if it is understood as: the possible is opposed to the impossible.
¹ [See also ‘On Obediential Potency’.]
The point is plain from the definitions of these potencies; for all these potencies adduced before agree in that they express the capacity of receiving some real perfection, and so that which is said to be in this sort of potency is in itself perfectible and hence in some way imperfect.
Actual being [as such,] on the contrary, does not involve imperfection. The same must be said of the logically possible and of active potency¹ [that these do not involve imperfection].
¹ [The importance here is because the First Cause (i.e. God) has no passive potency, or capability to be acted upon or effected, but has all active potency, that is, to act upon others. This is not special pleading for God, but is plainly necessary for what a First Cause must be. See ‘On the Distinction Between Passive Power (Denied) & Active Power (Affirmed) About God’.]
42. Act and potency as constitutive principles involve imperfection insofar as they are mutually perfectible in themselves; for only the imperfect is perfectible.
43. Potential being considered in itself is not simply real, that is, does not really exist, save virtually in its causes.
But it differs conceptually from the absolutely nothing and from being of reason [that which only exists in a mind]; for the idea of a possible quiddity [what-ness or essence] involves the relation of non-repugnance to existence, while the others do not.
44. Therefore that which is a potential being cannot have the reason for its existence in itself but in its cause; so the potential is the causable.
45. If something is a potential being, something else is actual.
Potential being does not in fact exist; therefore if it can in fact exist, some being is required that can effect it; therefore (from conclusions 24 and 26) something actually exists, namely at least the first ineffectible efficient cause.
46. If something is in subjective, passive, objective, or obediential potency: it is causable.
The point is plain from the definitions, at least as concerns the real perfection to which something is in potency.
47. Therefore if something is uncausable, it is not in this sort of potency,¹ but is pure act (from negation of the previous conclusion).
¹ [The importance again, is that the First Cause (i.e. God) can have no passive potency to be acted on (which would be an imperfection), but, in the words of Wolter, has all logical potency, or active potency to cause others (which is no imperfection, but the height of perfection).]
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If there is Anything, the Uncausable is Susbtance
[see pp. 56-68 of the Summary]
48. If something accidental exists, something substantial exists.
Proof:
An accident depends essentially on its substrate. This dependence is of the same order as that which is found between formal cause and material cause. For substance is as it were the matter of accidents. Hence for any accident that actually exists there is required the simultaneous existence of another being, namely that in which the accident is. If this other is not something substantial but on the contrary an accident, then some third being is required. But there cannot be a regress to infinity, both because there would be at the same time an infinite number and because dependence in any essential order ends in some independent being in the same order.
Hence every effect demands an ultimate being that is not an effect; a thing in matter requires eventually a being not in matter, namely prime matter. Likewise a being in another or to which existing in another belongs, involves a being not in another, or to which existing in itself belongs.
If you object that some accident, namely quantity, can exist in itself, that is, supernaturally, the objection is not valid; for even in this case God, as first efficient cause, would be making up for the natural, material, secondary causality of the substance. And so, even on this supposition, at least one substance would exist, namely God himself.
49. If there is anything, substance exists.
If there is anything, it is either accident or substance. But if it is accident, substance too exists (from conclusion 48). Therefore in either case, if there is anything, there is substance.
50. Being is divided into substance and accident.
The existence of accidents must be proved from experience. And on this point one must note that, on the evidence of experience, many things exist that are not only beings but beings in another, as color, shape etc. It does not matter whether these are formally objective or subjective, for in either case they are real modifications of something. One must say the same about our internal acts, as thoughts, affections, volitions; for we experience these beings as empirical modifications of the ‘ego’. — From the fact of actual accident follows the fact of actual substance (from conclusion 48). Thus both accident and substance exist; therefore being is divided into substance and accident.
About knowledge of the formal idea of accident one must note that ‘in another’ or ‘in-anotherness’ is correlative, for it involves something in which it is. But to perceive some relation, there is need of knowledge of the terms of the relation in themselves. Our first knowledge of reality, therefore, seems to be knowledge of things as absolute objects and not in their relation to other beings. But when we say that accidents are immediately experienced as beings in another the sense is: this knowledge is not by way of reasoning out but, from phenomenological analysis of the givens of experience, we perceive through simple apprehension this relation of ‘in-anotherness’. Shape, for instance, is not only perceived in itself and as something absolute but also in its relation to extension and color, namely as the limit of a colored expanse. But in other cases it seems we do not immediately perceive the idea of ‘in-anotherness’, but rather we infer it by reasoning out. This happens, for example, with quantity. No wonder then that some, as Descartes, identified extension with material substance as such.
51. If something is altogether independent, it must be substance and not accident. Hence the uncausable, for instance, is substance.
This conclusion is sufficiently clear from what was said above in proof of conclusion 48.
Relative Being to Absolute Being
[see pp. 69-72 of the Summary]
52. If there is relative being, absolute being must exist.
For once the existence of a purely relative being has been admitted, some other beings must exist, namely subject, term and foundation [p. 69]. But all these are as it were the matter of relation and so are not formally the relation, nor formally ‘existing-to’; therefore they are absolute beings.
But even on the other opinion, this proposition can in some way be saved. For if relative being is formally a being of reason with a foundation in the thing, something truly real and therefore absolute is required, namely the foundation itself.
53. From the nature of relation, it is plain that relation cannot be found, nor be known, unless subject, term, and foundation are present and known respectively at the same time.
And in this sense can the Aristotelian-Scholastic dictum be understood: ‘relatives are simultaneous in nature and in understanding’.
Something Composite to: the Ineffectible, Efficient Cause is Simple
[see p. 72 of the Summary]
54. Every composite depends on its parts as on a material cause; for the parts are the principles of which the composite consists. Hence parts are the material principle of a composite.
Simple being is that which lacks parts. Composite being, on the other hand, is that which consists of parts united with each other. There is a physical composite if the thing consists of parts really distinct.
There is a metaphysical composite if the thing consists of formalities that are united in such a way with each other that they have the idea of parts, as genus and difference. Formalities that do not have the idea of parts do not impede simplicity in a being, as science [knowledge] and will in God.
55. Every composite is an effect.
This point follows from conclusion 21, because a composite is something that is matter-ed (see the preceding conclusion).
56. Every composite is composed ultimately of simple elements.
From conclusion 16, we cannot proceed infinitely with respect to material causes essentially ordered. Therefore we must reach some matter-ing that is not matter-ed, that is, to a material cause that is not materially caused. But this non-matter-ed material cause is nothing other than a part that is not composed in its turn of other parts, which is the conclusion proposed.
57. An independent or uncausable being, because it is not an effect, is not composite; therefore such a being is simple.
This follows from conclusion 55.
58. If there is something composite, there is something simple.
This follows from conclusion 56 with respect to a first being in the order of material causality. But from the existence of the composite we can also infer the existence of a first being in the order of efficient causality. For if something is composite it is also an effect (from conclusion 55), and dependent (from conclusion 28). Therefore some ineffectible efficient cause is required (from conclusions 23 to 27). But every ineffectible being is simple (from conclusion 57).
Part 3, An Infinite, Perfect Being
Imperfect Composites to Pure Perfections
[see pp. 73-74 of the Summary]
59. Every composite consists of act and potency. For parts have in their formal concept the idea of mutual perfectibility, and so are in potency to the whole.
60. Hence composition is a mixed perfection.
This follows from the preceding conclusion and also from the fact that a composite is caused and dependent on another; for being a dependent being involves some imperfection in the dependent being. Simplicity, on the contrary, involves no such imperfection.
61. Every mixed perfection can be reduced to one or several pure perfections that exist concretely in a limited degree.
The reason is that the imperfection by virtue of which some perfection is said to [be] mixed is nothing other than the lack of being-ness. Therefore in itself formally, imperfection is something negative and not positive; for it is the negation of some positive perfection. Therefore it always involves something else, namely a positive being-ness of which there is a limitation.
This positive being-ness in its formal concept either includes imperfection and hence is a mixed perfection, or does not include imperfection and hence is a pure perfection.
If it is a pure perfection the conclusion is gained.
If it is mixed, the same question will return: Is the positive perfection in which the imperfection of this mixed perfection inheres a pure perfection or a mixed one? So either there would be an infinite regress and so there would be no perfection, or a stand would be made in some pure perfection, which is the conclusion intended.
So, for example, reasoning, which is formally a mixed perfection, can be reduced to understanding, which is a pure perfection. Likewise, the extension of parts beyond parts can be reduced to simples that have a definitive presence in space, etc.
62. No pure perfection is incompatible with another pure perfection.
This is plain from the definition of pure perfection; for a pure perfection or a perfection simply is that whose formal idea does not involve limitation or imperfection. Therefore of itself such a perfection cannot limit the being-ness of the subject in which it is, and so neither can it exclude from its subject other perfections simply.
Everything Finite is Caused, to an Infinite Being
[see pp. 73-74 of the Summary]
63. Everything finite, therefore, is a caused being or a being from-another.
This follows from the two previous conclusions. For a being is finite because it is constituted either from mixed perfections or from pure perfections finite in number or degree. But from conclusion 61, all mixed perfections can be reduced to pure perfections in finite degree. But, from its own definition, no pure perfection contains in itself a reason for limiting itself intensively, nor does it have a reason for excluding other pure perfections from the being in which this perfection is (from conclusion 62).
Therefore if a full and sufficient reason for the actual limitation of a finite being cannot be found in the positive being-ness of the finite being itself, it must be in some other being, namely in the cause that gives the finite being its positive being-ness. In other words, no finite thing qua finite is from-itself, but everything of this sort is from-another.
64. Conversely, no being that is altogether independent and uncausable can be finite, either intensively or extensively.
65. If there is something finite, there is something infinite.
I prove it as follows: a finite being, because it is also a caused being, involves the existence of another being, namely an uncaused being (from conclusion 23 and following). But from conclusion 64, an uncaused being is both intensively and extensively infinite.
66. An infinite being actually exists.
This follows from the fact that there exists an uncausable being (conclusion 27) or a being from-itself (conclusion 33). But it can be proved immediately as follows: There is or can be something. Such a thing is either finite or infinite. But the finite involves another infinite being (from conclusion 65). Therefore in either case, if something can be, an infinite being can be. But if an infinite being can be it must be, both because it is uncausable and because, if it lacked actual existence, it would not be infinite.
67. Being is divided into finite and infinite.
The existence of finite being is plain from experience. But it can be inferred from other things already proved, for example from the fact that being is causable. For a caused being lacks the perfection of from-itselfness. The existence of the infinite follows from conclusions 65 and 66.
Something is Infinite and has all Pure Perfections in the Highest Degree
[see p. 75 of the Summary]
68. When being is divided through contradictory attributes opposite to each other with respect to being, one of the dividing attributes belongs to a perfection in being and the other to imperfection.
The reason is that one extreme of the disjunction formally involves the negation of the other. But both perfections cannot formally be perfections simply or pure perfections, because, from conclusion 62, pure perfections cannot formally exclude each other.
Likewise, both extremes cannot formally be imperfections or mixed perfections, otherwise no being could be infinite (against conclusion 65). But a true disjunctive should include under one or other extreme every actual or potential being. Therefore one extreme is a perfection (a pure perfection) and the other an imperfection (a mixed perfection).
69. From this follows a general law of disjunction, namely that in disjunct properties of being, when the extreme that is less noble is posited of any being, the other more noble extreme can be deduced about some other being (see Scotus, Oxon. 1, d. 39, q. un, n. 13).
The reason is that the one extreme involves imperfection and is therefore finite, while the other involves perfection simply, or pure perfection. But from conclusion 65, if something is finite, something else is infinite and has all pure perfections in the highest degree.
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Proof of God
Outline
Existence & Nature of the Infinite Being
Intro
1-3 Only One Infinite Being Exists, which is from Itself & Perfect
Corollaries: How Creatures Differ from God
Divine Life Internally
4-15 God is Intelligent
16 God is Personal & Loves Himself
God’s Operation Externally
17-18 God is Omnipotent
19-21 All things External to God are Contingent
22 God can do Miracles
23-27 Creation, Conservation, Concurrence, Providence
Conclusions respecting Reality
28-29 All Being is True & Good
30-31 Evil
Intro
We have already proved the existence of at least one being that is absolutely permanent (conclusion 7…), immutable (conclusion 13), uncaused, independent, unconditioned (conclusion 28), a being from-itself (conclusion 33), necessarily existent (conclusion 35), pure act (conclusion 47), substantial (conclusion 51), simple (conclusion 57), possessed of every pure perfection in the highest degree and so simply infinite (conclusion 66).
Now it is also necessary to prove that only one such thing exists and that there is and can be no other in addition to it. Such a being, by definition, we call God.
We can briefly recapitulate the essentials of the preceding proofs and complete them in the following demonstration of the existence of one God. Beginning from the necessary and evident proposition that ‘it is possible that something exists’,¹ we lay down three conclusions…
¹ “But it is possible that something exists, as is plain from experience.” p. 78
Part 1, Existence & Nature of the Infinite Being
Only One Infinite Being Exists, which is from Itself & Perfect
[see pp. 77-80 of the Summary]
1. Some being from-itself actually exists.
I prove this conclusion summarily as follows: if something can exist, this something is either a being from-itself, altogether independent, or a being from another and so dependent with respect to its continued existence.
If it is from another, there is required at the same time a cause conserving it in existence. If this cause is not a being from-itself, there is either: a) an infinite regress in conserving causes, or b) a circle in such causes, or c) there is an ultimate stand in some being simply first, namely in a first conserver that is not conserved by anything, because it is a being from-itself.
But an infinite regress in conserving causes is impossible, for such causes must be simultaneous [see conclusions 2 & 17]. The like must be said of a circle in conserving causes.
Therefore in either case, in order that something be able to exist, there is required as a condition sine qua non [without which: nothing] some other being that exists from-itself. But if a being from-itself did not actually exist, it could not exist.
Hence in brief, if it is possible that something exist, a being from-itself must exist. But it is possible that something exist, as is plain from experience. Therefore some being from-itself actually exists.
2. Every being from-itself must have every pure perfection in the highest degree and hence is both intensively and extensively perfect.
Every finite being is from-another, because no such thing has in its positive being-ness any sufficient reason as to why it lacks any pure perfection, and indeed in the highest degree. Therefore the reason for its limitation must be found in something else, namely in its cause.
Conversely, no being from-itself can be finite either intensively or extensively.
3. Only one infinite being can exist.
This conclusion involves two things: a) that existing-from-itself belongs to only one nature, because such a being is infinite; b) that a plurality of such from-itself natures is excluded. For Scholastics admit a double unity, namely [1] essential or quidditative [whatness] unity and [2] the unity of singularity.
The first excludes a multiplicity of species within the same genus, or the sort of multiplicity found, for example, in the genus of animal, which includes several species, as man, dog, horse, insect, amoeba, etc.
The second excludes a multiplicity of individuals within the same species, or the sort of multiplicity found, for example, in Peter and Paul, who differ as individuals within the same species of man [is excluded].
Proof of the two parts:
By the first is excluded the possibility of there being several infinite beings diverse in species in this way. To only one nature does it belong to be infinite,
for if several essentially diverse natures can exist, they would have to differ by reason of some essential perfection that was pure. The independence of a being from-itself or infinite being would exclude all reason for limitation. But on this supposition one or the other nature would lack some pure perfection, namely the perfection by which it would differ from another. But the consequent is false; therefore the antecedent is too.
Secondly, one must note that this infinite nature is also of itself individual and singular. The sense is that this nature qua [as] nature is such as to be unable to be multiplied in several individuals, and so no difference contracting this nature to this individual is required. But it is not to be wondered at that this is not immediately or directly perceived in this life.
For, as we said above in the chapter on individuation [pp. 24-29], all our concepts proper to God are derived from creatures, namely by affirming or denying the perfections found in creatures; and so nothing is found in such concepts, constructed or composed of common notions, that is prima facie repugnant to existing in several individuals. Hence the human mind can indeed ask: why cannot there be several infinite beings that differ only numerically?
Nevertheless, the same reason that excludes a multiplicity of infinite species in the same genus, also prohibits a plurality of infinitely perfect individuals, for if there were two beings completely identical in positive being-ness, they would not be two but one being.
But if anything does differ from a completely perfect or infinite being, it would be because it lacks some perfection that is found in the infinite being. Hence there can be a plurality of beings precisely because all beings beside the infinite being are finite.
We can therefore prove this infinite nature to be of itself individual and singular as follows:
Now it is an empty question to ask: What is the positive perfection whereby the infinite differs from the finite and why it cannot be found in several individuals? For as long as we have to form our distinct concepts by comparison with likenesses in other things, so that such concepts, precisely as distinct, are universal or composed of universal features (as, for example, an infinite being is composed positively of the feature of being and negatively of the feature of the finite), we cannot express the ultimate positive difference of a thing distinctly and in a positive way,¹ but only indirectly and in a negative way, for example when we say that one individual must differ from another by something positive that the other lacks.
¹ [See Wolter’s discussion of individuation, pp. 24-29]
So as long as we conceive the individuating reason that is ultimate in the order of singularity, properness, and unicity, it is in vain that through concepts universal, improper, and common alone we seek for a response in some individuating reason why this reason cannot multiply in many things.
That this question is indeed vain (“a meaningless question”) surely appears from consideration of this fact. Many individuals exist and are known, as is positively clear from immediate and intuitive experience. Hence individuals are really known in some way. Not indeed distinctly, as is plain from the notion of distinct knowledge (namely through definition or common concepts), along with the fact at the same time that no individual is perfectly known, because our perfect or distinct knowledge of any individual does not point out or explain why it is precisely this and not something else.¹
¹ “…something is not perfectly known unless its opposite is known…” p. 18
Hence the strength of the argument of ours adduced above must not be judged by the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of distinctly conceiving that by virtue of which an individual is precisely this and not something else like it, but [it] must rather be judged by the light of this whole fundamental principle, namely that no individual is conceived in its individuality perfectly and distinctly (that is, by common or universal notions).
Hence, besides what it has in common with other things, one being differs from another being by something positive such that one has what the other lacks.
We can therefore prove this infinite nature to be of itself individual and singular as follows:
1) Principal argument: if this nature were not of itself a this [something in itself singular], and hence were able to exist in several individuals, these individuals would have to differ by something positive, which can be called haecceity [this-ness].¹ Now this haecceity would be a pure perfection [because it does not reduce to anything else]. Therefore if several individuals existed, they could not be infinitely perfect, because each would lack the haecceity [a perfection] of the other. The consequent is false, therefore also the antecedent.
¹ [Call it what you will. Edward Feser, an Analytical Thomist, calls it a “feature”: “In general, for there to be more than one thing which is that which just is existence itself, there would have to be something that made it the case that this instance of that which just is existence itself differed from that instance. And each such instance would, then, not really be that which just is existence itself after all, but rather that that which just is existence itself PLUS whatever the differentiating feature is. So, there really is no sense to be made of there being more than one of something which just is existence itself. And in that case there is no way to make sense of there being more than one of something whose essence and existence are not really distinct. If there is such a thing, it will be unique.” Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Ignatius Press, 2017), ch. 4, pp. 121-22; see also p. 75]
2) Confirmation from Scotus (On the First Principle, ch. 4, concl. 11): A multiplicable species is of itself multiplicable infinitely; therefore if an infinite being could be multiplied, an infinite multitude of infinite beings would actually exist; for if an infinite being can exist, it must and does actually exist. The consequent is unacceptable and is admitted by no philosopher.
How Creatures Differ from God
Corollaries
1. Whatever besides God actually exists or can exist is: a) dependent on God as on the first cause, and b) [is] a finite or limited being. For these conclusions follow from the unicity of a being altogether independent and infinitely perfect; for if anything besides God were a being from-itself, it too would have to be infinitely perfect. But there cannot be two infinite beings.
2. No being that we now experience can be God, because everything we experience is transient, finite, etc., and so lacks the perfection that belongs to God.
3. Therefore the falsity of pantheism, whether material or [as an] idea, is manifestly plain; for God cannot be the world as such, since the world is changeable, composite, in potency, dependent etc. Nor can the world be part of God, for God, because of his simplicity, excludes all such composition.
4. Likewise the absurdity of divine evolution is plain. For every system that holds God to be in the process of evolution in the course of time must deny both the simplicity and unchangeableness of God. Hence ‘emergent evolution’ and many other like systems of modern thinkers are in error.
5. If all mixed perfections are reducible to a plurality of pure perfections existing in limited degree, and if an infinite being possesses all pure perfections, the consequent is that God in some way possesses every positive perfection that is found or can be found in creatures, and indeed possesses it in unlimited degree.
Accordingly God seems to differ from creatures by something positive not possessed by creatures. Creatures, by contrast, do not seem, in the ultimate analysis, to differ from God by any positive perfection precisely, but rather because they lack some perfection that God has. This notion is also expressed in the theory of participation, according to which creatures are finite or imperfect likenesses of God insofar as any perfection possessed by them is found in God either formally or virtually or eminently.
Part 2, Divine Life Internally
God is Intelligent & on Divine Knowledge
4. God is intelligent.
The proof is threefold:
1) Intellection is a pure perfection, therefore it belongs to God and does so in supreme degree (from conclusion 2…). Proof of the antecedent:
a) Every mixed perfection can be reduced to a pure perfection (from conclusion 61…); intellection cannot be reduced to any perfection that is not intellection, but [the alternative] is ignorance or irrationality.
b) A pure perfection is better than anything incompossible with it (from the definition of pure perfection); every being that lacks intellection is irrational, and being intelligent is better than being irrational or ignorant; therefore being intelligent is a pure perfection.
c) A confirmation is found in Aristotle, who taught that God, as pure act, is subsistent intellection.
2) Intellection can exist (as is plain from our own inner experience); but God, as supreme cause of everything outside himself, must have [in himself] the perfection of his effects either formally, or at least virtually. He does not have intellection merely virtually, because a being that is formally unknowing cannot be the sufficient reason of anything formally knowing, otherwise the effect would be more perfect than its cause; therefore he has intellection formally, which is [the] proposed conclusion.
3) The two preceding arguments are confirmed by this persuasive reason: once the existence of the external world and the validity of our spatial perceptions has been conceded, we must admit that there is some order and finality in the nature of things [which presupposes an intelligent efficient cause].
Divine knowledge can be considered in three ways: first on the part of the objects known; second formally; third in relation to the divine essence.
On the Objects of Divine Knowledge
5. God knows everything knowable.
This conclusion follows from God’s infinite perfection (conclusion 2). Therefore he knows everything actual, whether himself or outside himself, and everything possible, whether it actually exists in the course of time or never exists.
6. God does not know individuals through universal notions, but knows everything perfectly and as individual.
This conclusion too is plain from the infinite perfection of God’s knowledge. He does indeed know universals, but precisely as they are concepts in finite intellects.
7. God knows all individuals, not only as absolute beings and in themselves, but also knows them according to all the relations that one has to all the others.
This conclusion too is plain from the perfection of God’s knowledge.
8. God’s knowledge of other things outside himself depends neither on their existence, nor on their causality.
This conclusion is plain from the fact that God in no way depends on his creatures (from the principal argument), and also because God knows creatures before he produces them; for this both belongs to the perfection of knowledge as well as to human artifice, and the order and finality in the world demand that God is a knowing creator.
9. From the preceding conclusion other things follow, namely that God knows in a way different from creatures; for creatures depend for their knowing in some way on an existing object, but God does not.
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Divine Knowledge Formally
10. God’s knowledge of everything is certain and infallible; it cannot be deceived.
This conclusion also is plain from the infinite perfection of divine knowledge (conclusion 2).
Divine Knowledge & the Divine Essence
11. God’s knowledge is really the same as the divine essence.
Plain both from the physical simplicity of God and from the infinite perfection of the divine essence, which is perfectible neither accidentally nor substantially (conclusion 2). [A difference between the divine essence and its knowledge would be a difference between substance and accident.]
12. God’s knowledge does not consist in many acts, as knowledge does in us.
Plain from the preceding. Hence a multiplicity of known objects does not destroy the simplicity of divine knowledge.
13. In God, therefore, intellect and intellection are not really distinct.
For divine knowledge is not caused by the intellect as by a principle really distinct from its effect. This fact follows from the divine independence and simplicity (conclusion 2 of this part [on the Proof of God], or conclusions 28 and 57 of… [the conclusions respecting reality]).
14. What God can know he does actually know.
For God is pure act (conclusion 47…); therefore he cannot have any knowledge in potency and not yet in act.
15. God’s knowledge is unchangeable and eternal.
This conclusion follows from conclusion 14 or conclusion 11 just above. For if his essence is unchangeable, the knowledge really identical with it is unchangeable.
God is Personal & Loves Himself
Corollary: On a Personal God
We show, against those who conceive God to be an impersonal cosmic force, that God is a rational being and hence personal.
For a personal God is here understood as a rational supposit, that is, a singular substance simply complete, in its own right, and endowed with reason. God’s simply complete substantiality and singularity, and being in his own right, follow from our principal argument. In the present chapter God’s rationality is proved.
Hence everything requisite for a personal being is verified of God.
16. Therefore God is personal.
“A conclusion certain enough: God loves himself.” p. 100
Proof:
1) A perfect being’s love seems to be a pure perfection; therefore it belongs to God and indeed in supreme degree. The proof of the antecedent is:
a) If love of this sort were not a pure perfection formally, it could be reduced to one or other pure perfections that were not formally love. But I do not see how such love could be reduced to something that was [not] formally love.
b) To love seems to be better than not to love; therefore love seems to be a pure perfection, because it is better than what is incompatible with it (namely not to love). The proof of the antecedent here is: a distinction must be drawn between love of friendship (benevolence) and love of concupiscence.
The former is love of an object for its own sake, that is, because of the object’s intrinsic perfection, and this love does not seem to involve imperfection in the lover.
Love of concupiscence is love of an object and not for the object’s sake finally but because the object perfects the lover or is a good for the lover. But this love does involve imperfection because the object is wanted precisely because it perfects a lover that is in itself capable of perfection.
2) Blessedness seems to be a pure perfection, and therefore it belongs to God in supreme degree. But love seems to be either the principal element in blessedness, or at any rate intimately connected with the blessedness of an intellectual being.
That blessedness is a pure perfection is clear from the notion of it; for blessedness is nothing other than an intellectual being pleased, that follows upon possession of one’s proper perfection. But God knows himself as infinitely perfect; he seems, therefore, to be blessed; therefore blessedness seems to be a pure perfection.
That this blessedness is not simply intellection, but includes an act of will or love, seems to follow from the fact that there is in God some operation besides what is formally called intellection, for God is formally willing, at least in respect of creatures. (See the next chapter [Part 3] about the proof of free volition in God.) For if God freely creates things outside himself and so has volition, it seems that he also has some act of volition, namely love, toward himself.
3) God is the first cause of all love in us. Hence he has this perfection either formally or virtually. If you concede that the love is better than not to love, God cannot have love only virtually, because the more imperfect does not include the more perfect virtually. Therefore God has love formally.
As was said above about divine intellection, this divine love is not something really distinct from God’s essence. It extends, therefore, to everything that is really identified with the same essence. Hence it can be said that God loves his essence, his decrees, his knowledge, etc. This love is also eternal, unchangeable, non-contingent.
Part 3, God’s Operation Externally
God is Omnipotent
17. God is omnipotent.
Explanation: An active power that extends to everything that can be brought into being after not being, is said by definition to be omnipotent. Arabic and Scholastic philosophers distinguish between immediate and mediate¹ omnipotence.
¹ [Wolter will conclude for immediate omnipotence in the next conclusion, though the two are not necessarily exclusive of each other, i.e. an immediately omnipotent God may operate mediately (which is important for secondary causation).]
God is said to be immediately or intensively omnipotent if he can directly or immediately produce everything possible; by contrast he is said to be omnipotent mediately or extensively if he can produce everything possible at least indirectly, or through the creatures he has produced. So, for example, Avicenna says that God immediately produced only the first intelligence and produced through that intelligence all the other things outside himself.
Proof: That God is omnipotent follows from his infinite perfection, and from the fact that he is the first cause of every other secondary producer, whose existence and power of causing are received from God.
18. Whatever a finite cause can produce, God can directly produce.
This conclusion seems to be a corollary of the preceding one, for the reason there stated.
Hence Scotus and Ockham did not rightly say that the immediate omnipotence of God cannot be demonstrated by a philosopher, but [only] omnipotence either mediate or immediate. On this opinion of Scotus’ see what I wrote on this matter elsewhere (Wolter, ‘Theologism of Duns Scotus’, Franciscan Studies, 1947, 375-77).
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All Things External to God are Contingent
with Respect to Him
19. God contingently acts externally, or whatever God produces externally he produces contingently.
The sense is that the active power of God is either formally his free will itself, or a power under the command of his free will. Hence this conclusion 19 establishes the existence of free will in God. Proof:
1) Among beings there are some bad things or imperfect beings, as is plain from experience. Therefore God, who is cause of all other things outside himself, contingently causes.
The consequence is plain from the fact that what acts by necessity of nature, acts according to the limit of its power, and so as to every perfection that can be produced by it. Therefore if God, who is an infinitely perfect cause, were to cause necessarily, all secondary causes caused by him would be perfect in their kind and would cause perfectly. Therefore the whole order of causes would cause perfectly, or as much as it can. Therefore no being would lack any perfection that it is capable of having.
The consequent is false, therefore the antecedent is too, namely that God causes necessarily. If he does not cause necessarily, he causes contingently.
2) Proof from the perfect independence of God.
Every being that is altogether independent and in no way conditioned is such that it requires no other being in order to exist. But if God were necessarily to produce beings outside himself, he would require other beings as conditions sine qua non [wihout which: nothing]. Therefore he would not be altogether independent, which is false.
The major is plain from the definition of a being altogether independent; the minor is proved as follows: A term or thing produced is required for an act that is externally productive. But if production necessarily follows the essence of God, the essence of God cannot be without a productive act or without a produced thing. Hence a produced thing is a sine qua non of the essence of God.
3) From the existence of contingency.
If God were necessarily to act externally when creating and conserving secondary causes and giving concurrence to them, these causes would be necessary both in existing and in operating. For operating is nothing other than a mode of existing.
But the consequent is false, for there is something that contingently or freely causes, as is plain from our own inner experience; for we are conscious that we act freely or contingently. Therefore the antecedent is false too.
4) To cause freely is a pure perfection; therefore it belongs to God and in supreme degree.
If it were not a pure perfection it could be reduced to some perfection that was pure. But both causing and freedom in action are positive ideas and irreducible to anything that is not formally freedom or causing. Hence to cause freely is formally a pure perfection.
The following [three] conclusions therefore follow by way of corollary.
20. If God contingently acts externally, all beings produced by him, as he is first cause, are simply contingent.
Plain from conclusion 37…
21. Since all secondary causes are produced by God, they are simply contingent both as to their existence and as to their operating.
Therefore all physical laws are simply and radically contingent.
[Wolter’s language here allows for a relative or conditional necessity of physical laws amongst themselves. His arguments only necessarily pertain to a radical and simple contingency of physical laws with respect to God. This conclusion ties into the next one, that God can do miracles (as opposed to being incapable of such).]
God can do Miracles
22. God can therefore act miraculously; for the possibility of miracles is plain from the preceding conclusion.
A miracle, according to philosophers, is understood as “a perceptible work, done by God, unaccustomed, supernatural”.
A treatment of God as the final cause of everything else outside himself, and of God’s end in creating, I will give in natural philosophy [which is not in this Summary]. Look there.
On Creation, Conservation, Concurrence & Providence
“By reason of its effect, the power of God externally is distinguished into creation,
conservation, concurrence, and providence.” p. 103
23. The first external production of God must be creation.
Creation is the production of something from nothing both as to itself and as to its subject. It differs from formation, which is production from nothing as to itself, but not as to its subject. This conclusion is against the philosophers who reckoned that God was only the former of the world, but not its creator.
The conclusion is proved from the fact that all beings outside God are effects. Therefore if you say the matter from which God made things was present beforehand, I ask: What about the matter? It cannot exist from itself, because it lacks the properties of a being from-itself (from conclusion 2 of this [Proof of God]…); therefore from another, and therefore ultimately from God (from corollary 1…).
24. All created things are positively conserved in existence by God.
Conservation, as it is here understood, is defined as the action by which a being from-another remains in the existence it has received. It is double, namely:
a) Negative, or the action by which what can destroy the existence of the thing is removed or impeded. Penicillin, for example, which destroys bacteria, conserves the health of the body;
b) Positive is the act that consists in the positive inflow by which a thing is continually given existence. Hence it is a sort of continued creation.
Whatever does not have in itself a reason for its existence, positively requires, if it remains in existence, a cause of its remaining in existence. But there cannot be an infinite regress in conserving causes, because such causes need to exist simultaneously [see conclusion 17 respecting reality]; therefore the thing is conserved positively by God as first cause.
25. God concurs with all the operations of creatures.
Proof: A creature is totally from-another both in existing and in operating; therefore it requires a cause that conserves both its operative powers and the term or effect of its operation, which cause is ultimately God. But this is nothing other than to admit at least a mediate concurrence.¹
¹ [On mediate and immediate concurrence, see p. 104.]
Concurrence in general is the cooperation of one cause with another for producing a common effect. Divine concurrence is the operation whereby God’s inflow is present in the actions of creatures.
God’s concurrence can be either natural or supernatural. That concurrence is called natural that a created agent needs so as to be able to do the operations that naturally belong to it. Supernatural, on the other hand, is the concurrence needed for actions that exceed the powers of nature.
Concurrence is also divided into moral and physical. There is moral concurrence if God acts as moral cause, namely by persuasion, etc. Physical concurrence, by contrast, is if God’s concurrence is as an efficient cause simply.
26. In God there is providence.
Providence is the divine attribute by which God directs all things to the end. Now providence can be considered in two ways, namely as it is in the divine mind or as God is actually governing.
The former is defined by Boethius [d. 524] as “the divine reason in the supreme prince of all things, which disposes everything” (Consolation of Philosophy 4, pros. 6).
The latter is God’s will by which all things that come to be are fitly governed, and this is providence commonly speaking.
Proof:
1) Wisdom is a pure perfection, as is plain from analysis of its notion; therefore it belongs to God in supreme degree. Now it belongs to the wise man to order all things to the proper end [and God is much more than a wise man].
2) That God does not govern what he has created is the same as to say that God does not care for, [i.e.] implicitly spurns, what he has made. But this is repugnant to an intelligent creator and conserver.
3) These arguments are persuasively confirmed from analysis of the world (see the argument from finality [pp. 46, 84-85]); for the elements are directed by physical laws, living things by biological laws, men according to reason and the moral law. The author of these laws is ultimately none other than God himself, the creator and conserver of all things outside himself.
27. God’s providence extends to all creatures.
Proof: If there were a reason for including only the nobler beings and for excluding the lower ones, it would be from some improperness on the part of God or from some lack on the part of things.
Not from the first because, just as it was not unfitting for God to create inferior beings, neither is it unfitting for him to govern them;
Not from the second either, because the more things are inferior the less they have of activity, and so the less too they can provide for themselves.
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End of the Proof of God
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Conclusions respecting Reality
Remaining Attributes Convertible with Being
“After having proved the existence of God, we can establish the universal intelligibility and will-ability, or lovability, of things…” p. 106
[For important background, see pp. 106-7 of the Summary. Conclusion 28 (but not 29) is a distinctive of Scotism; see the referenced pages.]
All Being is True & Good
28. Every being is true, or being and true are convertible.
Omitting a rather long discussion, we can define ontological truth thus: It is the property or feature of a real being, qua being, whereby it is made intelligible; or, more briefly, it is the intelligibility of a thing.
The sense of this convertibility is that, although being and true do not signify the same thing, they do have the same extension, for whatever is a being is also one, and vice versa.
The conclusion is plain from the fact that God de facto knows every being, and does so comprehensively; but the inference from ‘is’ to ‘possible’ is a valid one; therefore every being is intelligible.
Some want to prove the [Scotistic] conclusion from the nature of the human intellect, whose proper and adequate object is being. But I doubt whether it can naturally be proved that being is the object of the intellect.
29. Every being is good, or being and good convert.
Just as ontological truth states the relation of being to the cognitive faculty, so goodness involves a relation to the appetitive faculty, or the will. Just as the former consists in the knowability of being, so the latter consists in being’s appetibility. Hence it is defined as the property of being whereby it is made appetible or willable or, more briefly, it is appetibility or willability.
The appetite, or will, tends to its object either because the object is perfect for it, namely insofar as it has the being-ness and perfection due to it (love of benevolence), or because the object confers perfection on another (love of concupiscence). As far as God is concerned, it is plain that he is altogether perfect and so supremely appetible both to himself and to another.
As far as creatures are concerned, one must say that they are truly loved or willed by God himself, otherwise they would not exist; therefore they are lovable or willable. Further, creatures are also good for other creatures; for example, substance upholds accidents, accidents give further perfection to substance, etc.
On Evil
30. Evil involves good, or evil exists in a good, for from what was said, evil is privation of good in something good.
Since every being, insofar as it is being, is good, it is plain that evil cannot be anything real or positive, nor can it exist in itself.¹ For it is the lack of good in something good. Insofar as it is opposed to the good for oneself, it is lack of due perfection, as blindness in a man or animal. Insofar as it is opposed to the good for another, it is the lack of relative appetibility, namely with respect to a certain appetite, as unripe fruit, poisonous plants.
¹ [A great share of Reformed Orthodoxy agreed; see ‘On the Negative & Positive Aspects of the Nature of Evil’.]
Evil cannot have a material or formal cause, namely constitutive principles. If the material cause is taken in the sense of the subject-in-which, good is this cause. Evil cannot exist in itself, but [only] in some good.
But can it have a final cause?
Physical evil [as distingushed from moral evil] can be intended as a means to some end, and licitly so, provided the end is good, or indifferent, or proportionate to the evil. Moral evil can be intended only illicitly and only by a finite will.
But no evil can be desired for its own sake or as an end, save under the appearance of good. For evil as such has no appetibility in itself or because of itself. But every evil can be permitted, that is, not impeded either by God or by man, given what needs to be given.
Evil does have an efficient cause, but only indirectly, namely in the producing of some good when the production is, for some reason, imperfect or defective, whether on the part of the efficient cause, or on the part of the matter, or even when a good is badly done, for example blindness from the [accidental] destruction of an eye [while seeking to accomplish some other good].
31. Evil corrupts the good that it harms.
Insofar as evil is a privation of goodness in a good, it corrupts the good. And when evil is measured according to the good of which it is the lack, the greater the good that is missed, the greater the corresponding evil. Hence the phrase: corruptio optimi pessima, or ‘the best is worst when corrupted’.
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Related Pages
On the Three General Ways God is Known: Way of Causality, Negation & Eminence
On the Innate Knowledge of God in Distinction from the Acquired Knowledge of God
Of God, his Attributes & Man’s Knowledge of God
On the Use of Reason in Theology
Metaphysics: Particular Issues
Medieval Theology & Philosophy
The Works of John Duns Scotus in English
On the Reception of Scotus in Church History
On Infinity & the Infinity of God
On Perfection, Divine Perfection & Perfect Being Theology
On Time, Eternity & God’s Eternity
On God’s Knowledge & Omniscience
On the Power & Omnipotence of God
On the Incomprehensibility of God
Thomism & Scholastic Philosophy
Medieval Church & Renaissance History
Aquinas through Church History
Where Reformed Orthodox Writers Agreed & Disagreed with Aquinas