Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. The Word causes things in so far as they exist in it. Therefore, if the things within the Word are life, the Word causes them through its life. Now, from the fact that the Word causes things through its goodness, all things are good. Hence, if it causes things through its life, all things would be living. This is false, and, consequently, the initial proposition is false.

2. Things exist in the Word as works exist in an artist. But as they are in an artist works are not life. They are not the life of the artist, who lived even before they existed in him, nor do they have any life themselves, for they are lifeless. Therefore, creatures in the Word are not life, either.

3. In Scripture, the causing of life is appropriated to the Holy Spirit rather than to the Word. This is clear from John (6:64): "It is the spirit that quickeneth," as well as from other passages. Now, as is clear from what we said previously, only the Son, and not the Holy Spirit, is called the Word. Consequently, it is not consistent to say that things existing in the Word are life.

4. Intellectual light is not the principle of life. But things in the Word are light. Hence, it seems that in the Word they are not life.

To the Contrary:

1'. We read the following in John (1:3): "What is made in Him was life."

2'. According to the Philosopher, the motion of the heavens is said to be "a kind of life for all naturally existing things." But the Word has a greater influence on creatures than the motion of the heavens has on nature. Therefore, as they exist in the Word, things should be called life.

REPLY:

As they exist in the Word, things can be considered in two ways: in their relation to the Word and in their relation to things existing in their own natures. In both ways, the likeness of a creature in the Word is life.

Now, we say that something lives in the proper sense if it has a principle of motion or of any activity whatsoever within it, for the primary reason why things are said to be alive is that they seem to have something within them moving them in some kind of motion. For this reason the word life is used of all things which have in them the principle of their own activity. Consequently, because certain things understand, feel, or will, they are said to be living--not merely because they move from place to place or because they increase in quantity. Hence, that act of existence which a thing has in so far as it moves itself to perform a certain action is properly called the life of the thing, because "the life of a living being is its act of existence," as is said in The Soul. In our case, however, no action that we move ourselves to perform is our act of existence. Hence, properly speaking, to understand is not our life, unless to live is taken to mean the end-term of an operation; but this is merely a sign of life. Similarly, a likeness as conceived within us is not our life. On the other hand, the intellection of the Word is His act of existence, and so is the likeness of things He possesses. Therefore, a likeness of a creature existing in the Word is also His life.

Similarly, this likeness of the creature is, in a way, the creature itself--that is, in the same way that the soul is said to be, in some fashion, all things. Consequently, because the likeness of a creature existing within the Word in some way produces the creature and moves it as it exists in its own nature, the creature, in a sense, moves itself, and brings itself into being; that is, in view of the fact that it is brought into being, and is moved by its likeness existing in the Word. Thus, the likeness of a creature in the Word is, in a certain sense, the very life of the creature itself.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. That a creature existing in the Word is called life does not pertain to the creature's own nature, but to its manner of existence in the Word. Since it does not exist in this manner in itself, it does not follow that it lives in itself, even though it is life in the Word--any more than it follows that the thing is immaterial in itself because it is immaterial in the Word. On the other hand, goodness, being, and other things of this sort belong to the creature's own nature. Hence, just as creatures are good when existing in the Word, so also are they good when existing in their own nature.

2. The likenesses of things in an artist cannot be called life in the strict sense, because they are neither the very act of existence of the living artist nor the artist's operation, as is true of God. It is true, however, as Augustine says, that "a cabinet existing in the mind of a cabinetmaker is living;" but this is because as it exists in his mind it possesses an intelligible act of existence, which belongs to the category of life.

3. Life is attributed to the Holy Spirit according as God is said to be the life of things, namely, as He is in all things and moves all things, with the result that all things seem to be moved, in some way, by an intrinsic principle. But life is appropriated to the Word according as things are in God. This is clear from what has been said.*

4. Just as the likenesses of things in the Word cause existence in things, so also they cause knowledge in things--that is, in so far as they are received into intelligences, thus causing them to be able to know things. Hence, just as these likenesses are called life because they are principles of existing, so are they also called light because they are principles of knowing.