Sect. 78The Divine Life in General—its Absolute PerfectionThe Divine Life in General—its Absolute Perfection
I. Faith and reason alike teach us that God is a living God, that His life is spiritual, personal, and pure—not mixed with other forms of life as the life of man is. But the attribute of life applies to God only analogically. Life, as we conceive it, is a mixed and not a simple perfection; it involves a transition from potentiality to actuality; the immanent activity proceeds from the substance, and remains in it to perfect it. Still it is not essential to immanent activity to commence in the substance and to subsist in it as in its subject; the immanence is greatest when the action is identical with the substance. Hence life is attributed to God analogically, but possessed by Him in the most proper and eminent manner.
II. Unlike creatures which possess life, God is Life. It is not imparted to Him from without, but He imparts it to all things, and is the fundamental life, the life of all that lives. In this respect He is eminently the supreme Spirit (“the God of the spirits of all flesh,” Num. 16:22), inasmuch as we conceive spirits as having independent life and as infusing life. Created pure spirits bear to God a relation somewhat similar to the relations of the body to the soul, their life-activity being caused, preserved, and moved by the Divine Life. Hence the dictum: “God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body” (Deus vita animæ sicut anima corporis).
The Old Testament speaks of the Living God, whereas the New Testament calls Him the Life. Cf. John 14:6; 1 John 5:20; John 1:4, and 5:26; Acts 17:22 sqq.; etc.
III. A proper and adequate expression of the specific character of the Divine Life as the highest form of spiritual life, is Wisdom. Holy Scripture very frequently thus designates the life of God, and uses the name of Wisdom as a proper name of God, even oftener than that of Being (ὁ ὧν) and Living. The appellation of Wisdom is most appropriate, because Wisdom designates the perfection of spiritual life as manifested in the acts of the intellect and of the will, and in external actions. Hence Wisdom implies the most perfect knowledge of the highest truth, and the most perfect love of the highest good, as also a just appreciation of all other things in reference to the Supreme Truth and Goodness, and, consequently, the capability of ordering and disposing all things in accordance with their highest ideal and last end. When speaking of creatures, we give the name of Wisdom, not to the sum-total of their living activities, but only to the highest of them; in God, on the contrary, in Whom there is no multiplicity or division, Wisdom expresses the full perfection of Life.
I. Faith and reason alike teach us that God is a living God, that His life is spiritual, personal, and pure—not mixed with other forms of life as the life of man is. But the attribute of life applies to God only analogically. Life, as we conceive it, is a mixed and not a simple perfection; it involves a transition from potentiality to actuality; the immanent activity proceeds from the substance, and remains in it to perfect it. Still it is not essential to immanent activity to commence in the substance and to subsist in it as in its subject; the immanence is greatest when the action is identical with the substance. Hence life is attributed to God analogically, but possessed by Him in the most proper and eminent manner.
II. Unlike creatures which possess life, God is Life. It is not imparted to Him from without, but He imparts it to all things, and is the fundamental life, the life of all that lives. In this respect He is eminently the supreme Spirit (“the God of the spirits of all flesh,” Num. 16:22), inasmuch as we conceive spirits as having independent life and as infusing life. Created pure spirits bear to God a relation somewhat similar to the relations of the body to the soul, their life-activity being caused, preserved, and moved by the Divine Life. Hence the dictum: “God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body” (Deus vita animæ sicut anima corporis).
The Old Testament speaks of the Living God, whereas the New Testament calls Him the Life. Cf. John 14:6; 1 John 5:20; John 1:4, and 5:26; Acts 17:22 sqq.; etc.
III. A proper and adequate expression of the specific character of the Divine Life as the highest form of spiritual life, is Wisdom. Holy Scripture very frequently thus designates the life of God, and uses the name of Wisdom as a proper name of God, even oftener than that of Being (ὁ ὧν) and Living. The appellation of Wisdom is most appropriate, because Wisdom designates the perfection of spiritual life as manifested in the acts of the intellect and of the will, and in external actions. Hence Wisdom implies the most perfect knowledge of the highest truth, and the most perfect love of the highest good, as also a just appreciation of all other things in reference to the Supreme Truth and Goodness, and, consequently, the capability of ordering and disposing all things in accordance with their highest ideal and last end. When speaking of creatures, we give the name of Wisdom, not to the sum-total of their living activities, but only to the highest of them; in God, on the contrary, in Whom there is no multiplicity or division, Wisdom expresses the full perfection of Life.
Seção 27% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.