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045 - Xlv That God's Act Of Intelligence Is His Essence · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter forty five of Suma Contragentilees, first Book on God
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  Speaker 1: by Saint Thomas aquinas translated by the Fathers of the
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  Speaker 1: English Dominican Province. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter forty five that God's act of intelligence is his essence.
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  Speaker 1: From the fact that God is intelligent, it follows that
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  Speaker 1: his act of intelligence is his essence. For intelligence is
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  Speaker 1: the act of an intelligent being existing within that being
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  Speaker 1: and not passing on to something outside of it, as
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  Speaker 1: heeding passes into the thing he did. For the intelligible
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  Speaker 1: suffers nothing through being understood, but the one who understands
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  Speaker 1: is perfected. Now, whatever is in God is the divine essence.
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  Speaker 1: Therefore God's active intelligence is the divine essence, the divine existence,
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  Speaker 1: and God himself, since God is his essence and his existence. Further,
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  Speaker 1: the act of intelligence is compared to the intellect, as
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  Speaker 1: existence to essence. But God's existence is his essence as
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  Speaker 1: proved above. Therefore, God's act of intelligence is his intellect. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the divine intellect is God's essence, otherwise it would be
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  Speaker 1: accidental to God. Therefore, the divine act of intelligence must
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  Speaker 1: needs be his essence. Moreover, second act is more perfect
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  Speaker 1: than first act, even as consideration is more perfect than knowledge. Now,
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  Speaker 1: God's knowledge or intellect is his very essence, if he
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  Speaker 1: is intelligent, as shown above, since no perfection belongs to
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  Speaker 1: him by participation, but by essence, as already proved. If
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  Speaker 1: therefore his act of consideration be not his essence, something
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  Speaker 1: will be more noble and perfect than his essence, and
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  Speaker 1: thus he will not be in the summit of perfection
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  Speaker 1: and goodness, and consequently he will not be First. Again,
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  Speaker 1: intelligence is the act of the intelligent. If then God,
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  Speaker 1: being intelligent, is not his act of intelligence, he must
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  Speaker 1: be compared to it as potentiality to act, and so
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  Speaker 1: there will be potentiality and act in God, which is impossible,
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  Speaker 1: as we have proved above. Again, every substance is for
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  Speaker 1: the sake of its operation. If therefore God's operation is
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  Speaker 1: other than the divine substance, his end will be other
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  Speaker 1: than himself, and thus God will not be his own goodness,
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  Speaker 1: since the good of a thing is its end. If, however,
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  Speaker 1: God's act of intelligence is his existence, his active intelligence
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  Speaker 1: must be simple, eternal, unchangeable, existing only in act. And
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  Speaker 1: all those things which have been proved about the divine existence. Wherefore,
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  Speaker 1: God is not in potentiality to intelligence, nor does he
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  Speaker 1: begin to understand a thing anew, nor is his act
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  Speaker 1: of intelligence subject to any change or composition whatsoever. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter forty five, read by Michael Shane, Craig, Lambert Elsie,