The Divine Attributes in General

Chapter II — The Attributes of God

This Chapter studies the perfections of God which we know must be present in Him, and of Him, by reason of His metaphysical essence. These are the perfections that belong to God by natural necessity. Now, what belongs to a reality by natural necessity is an attribute or a property of that reality. And so we speak here of the proper perfections or the attributes of God. Still, the term attribute is used here in an analogous, and not in a literal, sense. For the literal meaning of attribute is a perfection that belongs to an essence, but is not one with that essence; it is not a substantial thing, but an accidental one in its being, however necessary be its connection with the essence or the substance to which it is ascribed. In God, however, the perfections called attributes are really one with the Divine Essence Itself and wholly inseparable from it; they are the identical supersubstance that God Himself is; they are in no wise accidents in God (there can be nothing accidental in Pure Actuality) ; they are God Himself. Keeping this in mind,—and realizing that, while we have good grounds in creatures for making a distinction in God between Himself and His perfections, and among the several perfections themselves, the distinction is, after all, a mental or logical one, and not a real distinction,—we discuss the Divine Attributes in two Articles, as follows:

• Article I. The Divine Attributes in General
• Article 2. The Divine Attributes in Special

Article 1. The Divine Attributes in General

a) Meaning of Divine Attributes
b) Classification of Divine Attributes

a) Meaning of Divine Attributes

By the Divine Attributes we mean those perfections that, in our limited understanding, must be predicated of God as though they were distinct qualities which, by natural necessity, follow from and characterize the Divine Essence Itself.

An attribute is something that must be attributed to a nature because that nature demands it. For example, the attribute of infallibility follows from the nature of the Church. For the Church is a divine institution, a work of God Himself, and, in its founding He declared that it was to speak in His name and to lead men to God. Now, such being its nature, how can it conceivably lead men astray? In other words, how can it be denied that this divinely founded and dowered institution is infallible? The fact of infallibility follows from and attends upon the nature of the Church. Precisely because the Church is the essential thing that it is, it must be infallible. Therefore, by a necessity of its nature (i. e., by natural necessity) the Church must be infallible. And so we say that infallibility is an attribute of the Church. Take another example. We say that the actual exercise of reason (that is, the function of thinking things out, of drawing conclusions, of recognizing that two and two make four) is an attribute of man. For, when man’s nature is fully constituted, and when no element of it is lacking, and when its operations are unthwarted by immaturity, unconsciousness, disease, man will, —because he is of the nature that he is,—inevitably use his reasoning power. Such a use follows by natural necessity upon the fully constituted and operative essence (i. e., the nature) of man. The act of reasoning, or the ability to exercise that act, is therefore an attribute of man. The examples show us plainly that in creatures an attribute is something that follows from, and attends upon, the rounded and operative essence of a reality, but is, in itself, an accidental thing, not to be identified with the essence to which it belongs. The Church, for example, is not its infallibility; the- Church has infallibility. Nor is man his power to reason; man has the power to reason. That man be rational (i. e., radically equipped to come to the use of reason) is of his essence, and man is defined as a rational animal; but man is not necessarily a reasoning animal; he may not come to the use of that for which he is radically or fundamentally equipped. The actual use of reason is something that a man has, not something that a man is. But it is something that he has by natural necessity, that is, it is something that necessarily follows, attends upon, and characterizes man’s nature, when this nature is fully developed and unthwarted in any way. Thus we see that an attribute, in proper sense, is something that is really distinct from the essence, nature, substance, to which it is ascribed. And here we notice again that attributes cannot be predicated of God in strict sense, but only in an analogical sense, for all that God has He is, since He is Pure and Simple Actuality. There is in God no real distinction except the real distinction of the Three Persons of which we have no right to speak in philosophy beyond the mention of the fact that philosophy finds in such distinction no contradiction of its own facts and principles.

Now, an attribute is not only something that belongs to, and attends upon, a rounded and fully constituted essence. It is also something that characterises that essence. It marks the essence as this essence and no other. It is proper to this essence, and to this essence alone. Therefore, an attribute is often called a property. The term property derives from the Latin proprius which means “one’s own.” Hence, the attribute of infallibility belongs to the Church alone among all institutions found on the earth; it marks it; it points it out; it is its sign and seal and “trade mark” and stamp of identification. So too the ability to use reason is a true property of man. There are other rational beings than man, for every spirit is rational, be it angel or devil, and God is rationality itself. But the term rational means possessed of (or, in case of God, identified with) understanding and will. It does not necessarily mean the power, and the limitation, involved in the process of thinking things out. God knows all things perfectly and eternally in His own essence; angels (and devils, who are fallen angels) know all they can know in an instantaneous grasp of mind, and have no need for the laborious mental process of working out an understandable truth by successive steps. No, man alone among rational beings has the need and the ability to use reason so, and this use is therefore an index of man, a characteristic and mark of identification; it belongs to man and to no other; it is a property of man. Attribute and property are synonymous terms, yet there is this shade of distinction between them: the term attribute suggests what must be attributed to a reality by natural necessity; the term property indicates the ground for this necessity of attribution inasmuch as that which must be attributed to a reality belongs to this reality as its very own and is ascribable, in the exact and strict sense of the attribution, to this one reality and to no other. From all this we learn that the properties (or attributes) of an essence are revealing things; they are the source of our accurate knowledge of essences. For “Handsome is as handsome does”; “Actions speak”; “as a thing is so it acts,— that is, so it shows itself in its operative properties”; “Agere sequitur esse—function follows essence”; “By their fruits you shall know them.”

To sum up. An attribute or a property is a perfection which necessarily belongs to an essence when that essence is fully constituted and unhampered; it is a mark and an indicator of that essence. In finite things, attributes or properties are, in themselves, non-substantial; they are of the order of accidents or accidentals; they mark and qualify substances. But in the one Pure and Simple Actuality attributes are phases of an undivided Infinite Essence, phases which the limited human mind must take to apprehend the Divine Essence at all, and phases which indicate no real distinction in God, but only a rational or logical distinction grounded upon the nature of the finite mind and upon its experience with creatural reality; a distinction, in short, which is logical with a foundation (an imperfect one) in reality.

We have already studied some of the Divine Attributes. In our investigation of the Divine Essence we had to approach the subject by way of certain fundamental perfections, and all perfections, in purest sense, are attributes of God, and properties of God too, since they are ascribable to Him infinitely and of His Essence and are not so ascribable to any other reality than God. So we learned about God’s unity and unicity, His simplicity, His infinity, His spirituality. These are attributes of God. These are properties of God. These are Divine Perfections. To our minds, these (though identified among themselves, and identified with all the other perfections we are yet to consider, and identified with the one Divine Essence Itself) are basic or fundamental perfections; in a figurative sense, they are constitutive of the Divine Essence. In our present study we are to consider certain other perfections which follow from the constitution of the one, simple, infinite Spirit.

b) Classification of Divine Attributes

The Divine Attributes are classified as absolute and relative; the absolute attributes are further classified as positive and negative. j. Absolute Divine Attributes are those which we consider in studying God in Himself, without bringing into our consideration any reference to creatures that depend on God. The term absolute is from the Latin absolutus which means “loosed from,” “freed from,” “unconditioned.” So when we consider God as “loosed from” all relations which creatures have to Him, and study Him in Himself alone, we are investigating the absolute perfections of God, that is, the absolute attributes. Such attributes are, for example, the infinity of God, His immutability or changelessness, His knowledge or wisdom. Absolute Divine Attributes are positive or negative.

(cr) Positive Divine Attributes are those which affirm a perfection as belonging by necessity to God, and identified with His Being and Essence. Such, for example, are the divine fife, the divine will, the divine understanding.

Negative Divine Attributes are those which deny imperfections in God. Such, for example, are the divine infinity which denies limitation, the divine simplicity which denies composition, the divine immutability which denies in God the slightest change or shadow of alteration.

2. Relative Divine Attributes are those which involve the relation of creatures to God. Thus the perfection called providence,—that is, the perfection whereby God looks out for His creatures, and notably His rational creatures on earth, seeing that all things work together for good,—is an attribute of God. Manifestly, this attribute implies creatures; it brings creatures “into the picture”; it is a relative attribute. It is to be noticed that relative attributes in God are those that bring creatures into relation with Him; it is inaccurate to say that these attributes bring God into relation to creatures. There is no real relation in God to creatures, but complete and perfect independence; but there is a real and essential relation to God on the part of creatures.

Summary of the Article

This brief Article h&s given us an accurate understanding of what is meant by the terms attribute and property in their strict and literal meaning as applicable to creatures, and in their analogical meaning as predicable of the Pure Actuality and Infinite Simple Essence of God. We have shown that attributes and properties are revealing things, and that their study leads to a knowledge of essences. Therefore, in our present study about God, we approach to Him by way of His perfections or attributes. We have classified the Divine Attributes as absolute and relative, and have seen that the absolute attributes are either positive or negative.