God's Incorporeity and Immutability

§3–4: Incorporeity and Immutability

god’s incorporeity Although incorporeity is already included in the divine attributes of invisibility and simplicity,1 the sources of revelation and the history of dogma compel us to treat it separately. God’s immateriality (conceived as the negation of quantum, ito€t6v)} can be traced through four stages, which we shall describe in the subjoined series of systematic theses. Thesis I: God is not a body. This proposition embodies an article of faith. Proof. None but adherents of the crudest form of Materialism would assert that God is corporeal. This teaching flatly contradicts the concept of absolute being {ens a se). For, as Gregory of Nazianzus argues,2 the Absolute cannot possibly be conceived as something dissoluble into parts and, therefore, perishable like matter. Moreover, sense is superior to matter, and spirit is superior to sense. St. Thomas concludes that if God were corporeal, He would not l Supra, pp. 8a iqq. 2 Or., 34. 29I be the first and greatest Being.3 Finally, the Absolute must be “actus purus” that is to say, immaterial, pure actuality, without any admixture of potentiality.4 Consequently God cannot be matter, nor of the nature of matter.5 Thesis II: God has no body. This is also of faith. Proof. The heresy opposed to this dogma was championed by the pagan Epicureans,6 by the so-called Audians of the fourth century (adherents of the monastic founder Audius), and somewhat later by certain Egyptian monks called Anthropomorphites,7 who were involved in the Origenistic controversy and imagined that, like man, the Godhead was a compound’ of soul and body. The Church has always looked upon this error as heretical. 8 * Si igitur Deus est corpus, non erit primum et maximum ens.* Contr. Gent. I, 20. (Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, p. 16). 4 The use of the word ” potentiality ” in this sense may sound harsh in English, but no other term is available. Fr. Rickaby translates Ch. XVI, No. 2 of the Summa Contra Gentiles thus: “Although in order of time that which is sometimes in potentiality, sometimes in actuality, is in potentiality before it is in actuality, yet, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality, because potentiality does not bring itself into actuality but is brought into actuality by something which is already in actuality. Everything therefore that is any way in potentiality has something else prior to it But God is the First Being and the First Cause, and therefore has not in Himself any admixture of potentiality.” To be in actuality, as Fr. Rickaby points out in a note (ibid.), is something akin to the modern conception of ” energy.” — (See also the article ” Actus Purus” in Vol. I of the Catholic Encyclopedia, pp. 125 sq.) 5 For the teaching of the Fathers on this point, see Petavius, De Deo, II, 1. eCfr. Cicero, De Nat. Deor., I, 17. 7 Cfr. J. J. Fox in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 559. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 293 a) The Bible teaches that God is absolutely invisible after the manner of pure spirits. Cfr. Job X, 4: “Hast thou eyes of flesh; or shalt thou see as man seeth ?” Upon this fact is based the impossibility of picturing God, so often insisted on in the Old Testament. It is only the material which can be pictured ; hence that which cannot be pictured must be absolutely immaterial, and therefore incorporeal. b) The argument from Tradition presents some difficulty. While there can be no doubt that the majority of the Fathers adhered strictly to this dogma, modern critics question the orthodoxy of such eminent writers as Melito of Sardes,8 Tertullian, and Epiphanius. The accusation against Melito is based upon a passage in Theodoretus,9 in which the Bishop of Sardes is charged with writing an essay in defence of the cor-” poreity of God. However, this seems to be a misunderstanding. Melito published a treatise, now lost, entitled ” Utpl tov Ivaio/mTov ®cov,” but it is safe to assume that it dealt solely with the Incarnation of the Logos. St. Epiphanius was suspected of heresy on account of the excessive indulgence which he showed to the Anthropomorphites ; but he expressly refuted their erroneous teaching.10 Here is St. Augustine’s account of the matter: ” Audianos, quos appellant, alii vocant Anthrapomorphitas, quoniam Deum sibi fingunt cogitatione 8 Died about 195. Cfr. Barden- 9 Cfr. Origen., Quaest. 2 in Gen. hewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 62 sq. 10 Epiph., Hoer., 70. Freiburg and St. Louis 1908. carnali in similitudinem imaginis corrupribilis ho minis, quod rusticitati eorum tribuit Epiphanius, parcens eis ne dicantur haeretici.” 11 Our greatest stumbling-block is Tertullian, whom modern writers on the history of philosophy class with such Materialists as Thales, Anaximenes, and Democritus. It is not an easy task to clear his skirts. On the one hand, Tertullian defends a crassly materialistic Traducianism,12 and asserts the soul to be material ; 18 nay, he even lays down the principle : ” Quis enim negabit, Deutn corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus sit? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua efhgie — For who will deny that God is a body, although God is a spirit? For spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form.” 14 On the other hand, we see him stoutly championing the orthodox doctrine, for he defends the indivisibility of God15 against Hermogenes, and rejects the suggestion of corporeal generation in God by retorting : * Nam et Deus spiritus est — For God, too, is a spirit.* 16 Tertullian in this matter is a psychological enigma, a man seemingly with two souls, a bundle of irreconcilable contradictions. It is perhaps fair to assume that, in defending the reality of the substance of the soul and of the Divine Essence against the Stoics and the Gnostics,17 he employed the term “corpus” (as the Stoics employed o-wfta), in the sense of concrete, real, compact, substantial being, as opposed to formless air, or nothing. ” Potuit propterea putari corpus Deum dicere,” in the words of St. Augustine,18 * quia non est ll Haeres., 50. i2Cfr. S. Augustin., De Anitna et eius Origine, c. 4. 18 Cfr. Tertull., De Came Christi, c. 11: * Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis; nihil est incorporate nisi quod non est,” 14 Contra Prax., c. 7. Cfr. De Resurrect. Carnis, c. 17 and De Anima, c. 5. is Adv. Hermogen., ad a. lQApol., ax. 17 Adv. Hermogen., 35. lSDe Haer., c. 86. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 295 nihil, non est inanitas.” At any rate, Tertullian’s indecision cannot reasonably be alleged as an argument either for or against the incorporeity of God. The dogma can be proved from Tradition without him.19 Thesis III: God is a pure Spirit. This is likewise de fide. Proof. The Vatican Council defines : “Deus … una singularis, simplex omnino et incommutabilis substantia spiritualis — God … is one, sole, absolutely simple and immutable spiritual substance.” 20 This truth flows as a cor-* ollary from our two preceding theses ; for if God neither is a body, nor has a body, He must be a pure spirit. It is furthermore clearly confirmed by the Saviour’s own words to the Samaritan woman, John IV, 20 sqq. After explaining that the Samaritans will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father, He continues: “But the hour cometh, and now is,21 when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth.22 … God is a spirit2B and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit, and in truth/’ 24 It is plain from the context that Christ here does not mean to oppose internal to external worship (as if internal worship were alone sufficient) ; but that, replying to 10 Cfr. G. Esser, Die Seelenlehre 22 h vyeifiart ical d\rj$elqL. Tertullians, Paderborn 1893. 28 irvcv/ia 6 Oe6s. 20 Cone. Vatic, Sess. Ill, c. 1. 24 John IV, 23 iq. 21 iccU 9V9 foriv. the query in the sense in which the woman had put it, He wishes to accentuate the spiritual character of the New Testament worship as opposed to the corporeal worship in the Old; for the internal, invisible, spiritual worship of the New, is the antithesis of the external, visible, ceremonial law of the Old Testament. Now this “spiritual” and “true” worship is due to (God) the Father, because He is a spirit. Surely, therefore, since the supernatural life by faith, hope, and charity is a purely immaterial and spiritual life, God Himself, being the object of such worship, must be a pure spirit, an immaterial being.* Thesis IV: God is the Absolute Spirit. This is also de fide. Proof. By * absolute spirit ” we understand an infinitely perfect, self-existing, metaphysically simple spiritual substance, in which cognition and truth, volition and goodness are identical. Now God, as we have shown, is “Absolute Intelligence,” that is, Subsisting Truth. He is furthermore Absolute Goodness and Sanctity — attributes which coincide with His love of Himself as the Supreme Good. Therefore, God is not only a spirit but the Absolute Spirit. He is . moreover the Creator of Angels and spiritual souls; as such He must be infinite in power and consequently absolute also in His spirituality. Again, the existence of the Holy Ghost in the Godhead postulates Infinite 2§Cfr. especially Franzelin, De III, 17: * ‘O M K<>pu>s rb wyevfU Deo Uno, thei. 35.— Cfr. 2 Cor. forty — The Lord it a Spirit.* THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 297 Spirituality, in as far as the nature of the Holy Spirit is none other than the Divine Essence. Lastly, it is only in an infinitely spiritual Being that a real Trinity of Persons is possible.26 Readings : — Heinrich, Dogtnat. Theol, Vol. Ill, § 172.— Kleutgen, De Ipso Deo, pp. 135 sqq. — Franzelin, De Deo Uno, thes. 35. — Oswald, Dogmatische Theologie, I, 2, § 6. — Lepicier, De Deo Uno, pp. 152 sqq., Paris 1902. — Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, pp. 15-16. 26 Cfr. on the whole subject J. und ihre modernen Gegner, pp. 34 Uhlmann, Die Personlichkeit Gottes sqq., Freiburg 1906. 20

god’s immutability i. Preliminary Observations. — Change (mutatio) means, generally speaking, a transition from one state to another. A change which affects the substance of a thing is called substantial;. one which affects only its accidents, accidental. Substantial change is either a transition from potentiality to actuality (generari, fieri), or, vice \versa, from actuality to potentiality (corrumpi). An accidental change is a transition from actuality to actuality (e. g., in cognition, volition), except where it is limited to mere privation (privatio, orcpiyaw), as when one loses his eye-sight. Accidental change generally means alteration or variation. Underlying every change especially if it be a substantial change, is passio (pati, irdaxeiv), taking the term in its widest bearing, viz., as motion {motus, ictvi/aw), i. e., a transition from a terminus a quo to a terminus ad quern. The concept of unchangeableness, or immutability, excludes every mode of transition, and, in its absolute sense, even the possibility of transition. Such is the unchangeableness of God. 2. The Dogma. — The first General Council (Nicsea, A. D. 325) anathematized the Arian 298

heresy that the Son of God is variabilis (oAAoiwtos) aut mutabilis (^titos). Later the dogma of divine immutability was expressly defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (A. D. 121 5) and by the Council of the Vatican (A. D. 1870). a) The Scriptural text chiefly relied upon in this matter is Ps. CI, 27 sq. : Ipsi [coeli] peribunt, tu autem permanes. Et omnes sicut vestimentum veterascent et sicut opertorium mutabis eos et mutabuntur: tu autem idem ipse es (wn n** ) et anni tui non deficient — The heavens … shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: and as ‘a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art always the self-same, and thy years shall not fail.” That the attribute here applies absolutely is plain from the fact that the Immutable is described as the cause of creatural changes without being Himself subject to change. The Godhead is incompatible with even the slightest shadow of alteration. Epistle of St. James, I, 17: “Apud quern non est transmutatio (^apaXXayrj) nec vicissitudinis obumbratio (t^ott^ d7roa#aaa/a) — The Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.” Holy Scripture points to aseity as the ontological cause of God’s immutability. Mai. Ill, 6 : “Ego enim Dominus et [propterea] non mutor — I am the Lord, 3oo IMMUTABILITY and I change not.” Nor is this immutability limited to the intrinsic essence of the Godhead; it extends to the free counsels of God, of which the Bible tells us : ” Consilium autem Domini in aeternum manet — The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever ; ” 1 and St. Paul speaks of the ’ ’ immutability of his counsel” {immobilitas conSHU Slii ™ afl€Td$€TOV T^S fiovXijs OVTOV^ b) Tradition assures us that belief in the unchangeableness of God was part and parcel of the Christian faith from the earliest days. We have the testimony of Origen,3 that it was believed by Jews and Christians alike,4 and Tertullian declares: * Deutn immutabilem et informabilem credi* necesse est — We must needs believe God to be unchangeable and incapable of being formed.* 6 There are a few difficult Scriptural texts with an anthropopathic tinge; but the Fathers explain them in consonance with this dogma. Thus St. Jerome says: ” Fur or em, oblivionem, tram, poenitudinem ita in Deo accipere debemus, quomodo pedes, mantis, oculos, aures et cetera membra, quae habere dicitur incorporalis et invisibilis Deus.” 6 St. Augustine explains the profound expression of the ” mobility of the Divine Wisdom,” 7 by saying that #cm/ox« does not mean mutation, but purest activity,8 combined with unchangeable repose.9 IPs. XXXII, ii. 2Heb. VI, 17. 8 Contr. Cels., I. 4 ” Iudaeorum Christianorumque doctrina.” 5 Adv. Prax.$ 27. eHieron., In Ps.t 45. . 7Cfr. Wisdom VII, 24: ”Omnibus enim mobilibus mobilior (irdtnis Kiriicetas KiprfriKdrepoy) est Sapientia — Wisdom is more active than all active things.” 8 Mobile b agile. 9De Civ. Dei, XII, 17. ” Novit THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 301 c) By developing certain arguments excogitated by the Fathers and the Schoolmen, theologians demonstrate the immutability of God from unaided human reason. It has its roots, they say, in the divine aseity, or autousia, which ex vi notionis precludes not pnly potentiality, but also any and every degree of perfectibility, such as is involved in a transition from potentiality to actuality.10 Hence a mutable God, a God subject to change, would not be God, but a mere creature.11 The Aristotelian argument of the Prime Mover has ever occupied a prominent place among the proofs for the existence of God, because, starting from the changes constantly taking place in the created universe, it leads directly to the Motor immobilis (to klvovv oKivqrov), Who moves all things, without Himself suffering any mutation.12 This is a notion rather difficult to grasp, but we meet it in the Book of Wisdom, VII, 27 : ” Et cum sit una [sapientia], omnia potest et in se permatiens omnia innovat — And being but one, she [Wisdom] can do all things, and remaining in herself the same, she reneweth all things.” 13 The immutability of God, therefore, is an absolutely incommunicable attribute — which is quite obvious when we consider that mutability is the most salient charquiescens agere et agens quiescere — He can act while He reposes, and repose while He acts.* loCfr. St. Bernard (Serm. 80 in C antic.) : * Omnis mutatio quaedam mortis imitatio est — Every change is in a sense an imitation of death.* nCfr. S. Ambros., De Fide, I, 9: * Arius dicit mutabilem Dei Filium; quo mo do ergo Deus, si mutabilis, cum ipse dixerit: Ego sum, ego sum et non mutorf — Arius says that the Son of God is mutable; but how, if God were mutable, could He have spoken: I am, I am and change not? * 12 On this argument, see Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, pp. 1112, note. 18 Cfr. the beautiful verse of Boethius: * Immotusque manens dat cuncta moveri.” Cfr. also St. Augustine, Confess. I, 6; and De Trinit., V, a. acteristic of creatures, and, consequently, really identical with contingency. The fundamental cause of the incommunicability of this divine attribute lies in the essences of God and the creatures respectively ; for creation which drew the universe from its original nothingness into the realm of existence, is the basis and fount of all other changes.14 If we attempt to define the immutability of God in its relation to His outward activity, and particularly to His absolute liberty, we are confronted by a natural mystery, which philosophy is able to elucidate to a certain extent, but cannot fully explain. There is in the first place this difficulty. If God performs some external act, such as, e. g., the creation of the universe, does He not, by virtue of that very act, pass from the state of noncreator to that of creator, and consequently undergo a change? To solve this problem we have to distinguish between willing an effect to be produced in time, and willing an effect intended to exist from all eternity. It is quite plain that a temporal effect, calculated to occur at a certain specified time, can be willed by God from all eternity with the same immutable will with which He produces an effect destined to exist from all eternity (such as, e. g., an eternal world, the possibility of which is defended by some theologians). God’s operation ad extra, we must remember, in the words of the Schoolmen, is an “actus immanens et virtualiter transients” which coincides with, and consequently is quite as immu^ table as, the divine Essence — although, of course, the effect itself is produced neither sooner nor later than iCfr. St. Augustine, De Natura Boni, c. I : * Omnia, quae fecit Deus, quia ex nihilo sunt, mutabilia sunt — All things which the Creator has made are changeable, because made out of nothing. Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., ia, qu. 9, art. 2; Lessius, De Perfect. Divin., Ill, 3. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 303 the eternal will of God has decreed. This gives us the key for the solution of another objection, viz., that the activity of God, being eternally immutable, must needs invest the effects which it produces with the color of eternity; so that the eternity of the world, so plainly denied in Holy Scripture, would really be but a logical deduction from the eternity of God. This is a sophism. God wills to posit either an eternal or a temporal effect. It is only in the first case that the external terminus of His action could be something eternal, as, e. g., an eternal world. In the latter case, the effect, though decreed from eternity, is realized only at the precise moment fixed by the immutable will of God.16 It is considerably more difficult to demonstrate the compatibility of the attributes of divine unchangeableness and absolute liberty. We have shown that the created universe is not necessarily eternal because its’ Creator is immutable ; but how shall we prove that God’s immutability does not imply necessary existence on the part of His creatures? This is truly, in the phrase of Billuart, the most intricate knot of all theology (“nodus totius theologiae intricatissimus”), a veritable sacred puzzle (” aenigma sacrum”)}* Let us first recapitulate the state of the question. It is an article of faith that God is absolutely free in His operation ad extra.11 Now, either we can conceive God without this free act, or we cannot so conceive Him. If we cannot, He is not free; if we can, He is mutable. — The kernel of this difficulty is to be found in the thoroughly anthropomorphic conception of divine freedom which man forms after the analogy of his own free will (liberutn arbitrium), without considering that the liberty of God 15 Cfr. Billuart, De Deo Uno, 16 Billuart., /. c, diss. 7, art. 4. diss. 3, art. 7. n Vide infra, Chapter 4, f x.

is something altogether different in kind. Human liberty consists in an active indifference by which the will is enabled either to act or not to act, or when it does act, to act either so or otherwise. The liberty of God, on the other hand, is not an active indifference with respect to several subjective acts. It is but the indifference peculiar to a single, absolutely simple, pure act, in relation to different objects. This divine act, being intrinsically necessary, immutable, and eternal, is extrinsically free, inasmuch as it implies a non-necessary, and therefore a free relation to the created universe. ” Voluntas Dei” says St. Thomas, ” uno et eodem actu vult se et alia, sed habitudo eius ad se est necessaria et naturalis, sed habitudo eius ad alia est secundum convenientiam quandam, non quidetn necessaria et naturalis, neque violenta aut innaturalis, sed voluntaria — The will of God, by one and the same act, wills itself and other things, but its habitude to itself is necessary and .natural, while its habitude to other things is after the manner of a certain fitness, which is not indeed necessary and natural, nor yet violent or innatural, but voluntary.” 18 Hence we can formulate our answer to the difficulty under consideration thus: The liberty of God is nothing else than the indifference of a most simple act towards different objects — an act which, despite its formal simplicity, is nevertheless virtually multiplex; that is to say, it is at the same time, though under 18 Contr. Gent., I, 82. The passage is unfortunately not translated by Father Rickaby in his excellent, though perhaps too much ” abridged ” translation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, published under the title Of God and His Creatures, London 1905. But Fr. Rickaby brings out the point tersely in a foot-note on page 61: “The one necessary actuality is God. Though creatures are means to God’s end, they are not necessary means to any necessary end . of His: therefore their existence is not necessarily willed by Him, albeit their possibility is necessarily discerned.” THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 305 different aspects, both necessary and free: necessary in itself, as a divine act, and free in its external relation to the created world. If this explanation is not wholly transparent, we must attribute it to the fact that the liberty of God is a mystery which transcends the categories of our mortal mind.19 Readings : — St. Thomas, S. Theol, ia, qu. 9. — Thomassin, De Deo, V, 6-10.— Lessius, De Perfect. Difo., 1. III.— Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. I, § 75 (Wilhelm-Scannell, Manual, pp. 188 sqq.).— Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. I, nn. 382 sqq.— L. Janssens, De Deo Uno, t. I, pp. 339 sqq., Friburgi 1900. — Lepicier, De Deo Uno, t. I, pp. 313 sqq., Parisiis 1902. 19 For further information on this subject, consult Billuart, /. c; Heinrich, Dogmat. Theologie, Vol. Ill, pp. 728 sqq., Mainz 1883; Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, pp. 56 sqq. — We may be permitted, because of the importance of the subject and the ” arguments ” based upon this difficulty by infidels, to quote a suggestion towards a solution from the last-mentioned work, p. 62, n.: “The difficulty has its foundation in this, that, within our experience, every new effect involves some antecedent change either in the agent or in the matter acted upon. The more powerful the agent, the less change is required, as when a strong man with little or no effort lifts a weight, which a weaker one would have to strain himself to raise from the ground. Hence we may faintly surmise how * in the limit ’ an almighty agent would act without being in the least altered by his action from the being that he would have been, had he remained at rest. Not that I take this suggestion to remove the whole difficulty.”