DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. — These are properties that the human mind customarily attributes to God, according to our way of thinking. In reality, God is pure and most simple act, because he is subsistent Being itself, and as such is profoundly one, the absolute negation of every multiplicity; hence, before speaking of the individual d. a., it is necessary to resolve the problem of their value and their coexistence in God. The question of the value of the d. a. affects all our language concerning divine things, and therefore the whole of theodicy. Its solution is connected with the concept and function of analogy, which has been discussed separately under its threefold historical, philosophical, and theological aspect (v. ANALOGIA), demonstrating that, given creation, the perfections of creatures suggest to those who contemplate them various ideas of the perfection of the Creator; although these are not adequate, they correspond analogically, with greater or lesser approximation, to the infinite divine reality.
Our thought, therefore, and our language, through knowledge of created nature, truly—although imperfectly—attain to God, and consequently the d. a. formulated by us have a real value and are not empty and false concepts. Through the profound study of analogy, Christian theology overcomes ancient and modern agnosticism without compromising the ineffable transcendence of God. But from the affirmation of the objective value of the d. a. arises a serious difficulty concerning the absolute unity of God. The antinomy is obvious: God is essentially one, that is, undivided, indistinct, most simple; yet in God there are really multiple perfections. If one insists on the first part, the value of the d. a. disappears; if one insists on the second, one comes to deny or to cast doubt upon the unity and simplicity that are indispensable properties of the infinite being, that is, of God. These are the two extremist solutions: the first is found in ancient nominalism (Maimonides) and in the agnosticism of not a few philosophers closer to our own time (Kant, Hamilton, Mansel, Le Roy, and the modernists in general), while the second rests upon the school of Scotus. A middle solution is adopted by St. Thomas and the best Thomists. It rejects every real distinction among the d. a. (including Scotus’s formal-actual distinction, which seems more real than logical) and is not satisfied, like the nominalists, with a purely logical distinction, which would reduce the d. a. to empty synonyms; rather, it admits a distinction called one of reasoned reason, which formally exists in our thought but has a real foundation in the thing itself. In this way the various d. a., such as goodness, justice, and mercy, express concepts that are formally distinct in God; they nevertheless have their foundation in that divine reality which, in its transcendent simplicity, is infinitely rich and cannot be conceived or expressed by a finite intellect except through multiple concepts, in which it is imperfectly reflected, as in the multiplicity of created things. Without being destroyed, the d. a. are identified in the most simple and ineffable essence proper to God, which theologians call the «Godhead». Thus thought and love, goodness and justice, omnipotence and mercy—all the divine properties—by virtue of their identity with that mysterious essence, are realities such that one may indeed conceive one as distinct from the others, but objectively each includes them all.
This is as far as our intellect can probe with its naturally limited powers. Its task is less arduous in the rational examination of the individual d. a. But it is fitting to precede this examination with a rapid synthesis of the data of Revelation. For a simple didactic reason, the d. a. are customarily divided into two categories: one called that of the dynamic attributes, which concern God’s action (knowledge, will, power, providence, and predestination), and the other called that of the static attributes, which concern God in his manner of being (simplicity, perfection, goodness and holiness, infinity, immensity and ubiquity, immutability and eternity, unity, etc.). The dynamic attributes will be treated individually under their respective headings; here we shall deal only with the static attributes taken together.
I. SACRED SCRIPTURE
The essential properties of God are revealed, in the Old and New Testaments, through the divine names or by means of explicit concepts.Principal names: El, whence the majestic plural Elāhim, suggests the idea of power (perhaps from the root 'jl, “to be strong”). Adāmaj (perhaps from a root 'du, “to rule”) is equivalent to Lord who dominates and governs. Rā'eh (root 'rh, “to see”) is the Seer par excellence, from whom nothing is hidden and who is present everywhere. Eljān (root 'lh, “to ascend”) indicates the supreme being who transcends everything. Saddaj (of uncertain root) is more probably to be understood as the exalted being who suffices to himself and needs nothing. Qāḍāš is the Holy One, the Pure One; 'Ab is the universal Father.
But the name that unquestionably summarizes and intensifies all the others is that which God revealed to Moses as his own (Ex. 3, 12 ff.); this name is the celebrated tetragrammaton (composed of 4 letters): jh vh, Jahweh, imperfect 3rd pers., qal form of the verb huj or hjh, “to be,” that is, “He is.” This fragile word encloses the mystery of the nature of God (v. SCIENZA DIVINA), who is pure being, without limits and without conditions, and therefore simple, infinite, immense, immutable, eternal, and one. But the divine properties are expressed in formal concepts both in the Old and in the New Testament.
1. Simplicity and spirituality. – God is the subsistent Being (Ex. 3, 12 ff.), invisible (Ex. 19, 16-19; Iob 38, 1), who scrutinizes and weighs spirits (Prov. 16, 2 and 21, 2), who breathes into Adam’s body a spiritual soul that must return to him after death (Gen. 2, 7; Eccl. 12, 7); “God is Spirit, and those who adore him must adore him in spirit and truth” (Io. 4, 24; cf. Is. 31, 3; Sap. 1, 6; 6, 24; 9, 17). Nor do the biblical expressions present any difficulty when they depict God metaphorically, as a man who walks, speaks, etc. (v. ANTROPOMORFISMO).
2. Perfection and infinity. – Whatever beauty and greatness there is in the universe is a pale reflection of God’s transcendent perfection, because everything derives from him through creation: “If, captivated by the beauty of things, (men) have believed them to be divinities, let them know how much more beautiful than they is their Lord; for the Generator of beauty created all these things” (Sap. 13, to be read in full). In Ps. 145 and 147 these exclamations are found: “Great is the Lord and exceedingly worthy of praise, and of his greatness there is no end”; “Great is the Lord and supreme is his power, and his wisdom is without measure.” Cf. Eccl. 43, 29. S. Paolo especially extols the incomprehensibility of the infinite divine wisdom (Rom. 11, 33).
3. Immensity and ubiquity. – “Perhaps you will know the footsteps of God and succeed in understanding the perfection of the Almighty? He is higher than heaven: what will you do? He is deeper than hell: how will you know him? His measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea” (Iob 11, 7 ff.). Beautiful is the testimony of Ps. 138, 7-9: “Where could I withdraw from your spirit, and where flee from your presence? Even if I ascended to heaven, there you are; if I descended into hell, behold, you are there. If I seized the fringes of the dawn or dwelt at the farthest western point, there too your hand would accompany me and your right hand would receive me....” In Ier. 23, 24 there is a highly effective expression: “Do I perhaps not fill heaven and earth, says Jahweh?” S. Paolo, in his speech at the Areopagus in Athens, emphatically asserts: “In him (God) we live, move, and exist” (Act. 17, 28).
4. Immutability and eternity. – In Ps. 102: “In the beginning you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Yet they perish, while you remain; they all wear out like a garment... but you remain the same, and your years shall have no end.” In Iac. 1, 17 God is spoken of as the Father of the heavenly bodies, in whom “there is no change or shadow of alteration,” and S. Paolo (I Tim. 1, 17) hymns the “immortal King of the ages, invisible, the one God.”
5. The unity of God is the fundamental idea of the Old Testament and remains firm in the Gospel despite the revelation of the Trinity, which places three consubstantial terms within the one divine nature (v. TRINITARI).
II. FATHERS
While repeating and defending the biblical concepts concerning the divine properties, the Greek Fathers began that elaboration of the revealed data which would give rise to systematic theology. We recall the noble battle fought by s. Basil and the two Gregories, of Nyssa and of Nazianzus, against the Eunomians, in defense of the a. d. Also important is the doctrine of the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, who developed the germs of Revelation in the light of the principles of Greek philosophy, especially Platonic philosophy. They particularly emphasized the transcendence and hence the ineffability of God, the one μυνάς or ἐνάς, “immutable, impassible, immense, eternal” (Origene, Ιλτῇ ἄγγων, I, 1, 6; II, 1, 3; IV, 28, 29). From the biblical name Jahweh, the Latin Fathers deduced lofty concepts concerning the divine nature, pure being. S. Augustine epitomizes the whole tradition in admirable pages: «Deus vero multipliciter quidem dicitur magnus, bonus, sapiens, beatus, verus et quidquid aliud non indigne dici videtur; sed eadem magnitudo eius est, quae sapientia... et eadem bonitas quae sapientia et magnitudo et eadem veritas quae illa omnia, et non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum, aut sapientem aut verum aut bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse» (De Trinit., VI, 7, 8). Elsewhere (De Civitate Dei, VIII, 4 and 10) he presents God as the source of all perfections in the threefold order—physical, rational, and moral—and concludes epigrammatically that God is «causa constitua universitatis, et lux percipiendae veritatis et fons bibendae felicitatis».III. MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH
In the ancient symbols of faith, the unity of God and his creative omnipotence are affirmed, implying his personal distinction from the world and his transcendence. Throughout the centuries, the Church has gradually clarified the concept of divinity against the various attempts made by heretics to adulterate II. Thus, at the Third Council of Valence (855), God’s eternal foreknowledge is defended in relation to the mystery of predestination; at the Council of Sens (1140), against Abelard, the doctrine of divine freedom is confirmed; at the Council of Reims (1148), the principle of God’s absolute simplicity is reaffirmed, whereby He, being his own essence, is goodness itself, wisdom itself, eternity itself, and so forth. Against Manichaeism, revived in various forms in the thirteenth century, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) recalls and consolidates the traditional doctrine concerning God’s essential properties with this formula: «Firmiter credimus... quod unus est verus Deus, aeternus, immensus et incommutabilis, omnipotens et ineffabilis Pater, Filius et Spiritus Sanctus: tres quidem personae sed una essentia, substantia seu natura simplex omnino».In the last century, against the aberrations of rationalism and of spiritualistic and materialistic pantheism, the Vatican Council (1869–70) took up this formula and supplemented it with other appropriate clarifications.
IV. HUMAN REASON
Human reason, with its natural light, through the study of the perfections of the created order, rises not only to simple knowledge, but also to the dialectical demonstration of the d. a.1. God is most simple: the simple is opposed to the composite, and therefore that is most simple which excludes from itself every kind of composition, whether logical, physical, or metaphysical. This perfect, positive simplicity must not be confused with that negative simplicity which is the extreme limit of quantity, like the point, which always remains a quantitative element, despite having no dimensions. God cannot in any way be composite, because that which is composite: a) is posterior to the parts of which it is constituted and is, like them, limited; b) is always caused by an extrinsic agent, which must unite the parts into an organic whole; c) is subject to the law of disintegration. Now these characteristics are incompatible with the First Being and the First Cause. Therefore in God, pure actuality, there is absolute identity between essence and being, between nature and personality (v. TRINITARI), between nature and operation: he is being by essence, as divine Revelation suggests; he is his own operation, substantial thought and love, without the possibility of division within himself or composition with others. God can be neither a whole nor a part of a whole; hence the absurdity of pantheism.
2. God is most perfect: perfection (from the Latin perficere, “to make complete”) denotes completeness and richness, and excludes indigence, which Aristotle and the scholastics call potency (the capacity for acquisition and development). Since God is pure actuality and pure being (v. DIO), he is absolute fullness and richness, because no perfection can be conceived as existing outside him who is Being itself: the world with its wonders would be absurd if it were posited in and of itself, independently of God the creator. As God is the source of being, so he is also the abyss of all perfections; and since the good coincides with perfection and with being, God is goodness itself, without any shadow of evil, which is rather a privation of being (v. MALE), and he is holiness itself.
3. God is infinite in a positive and absolute sense: this is a logical consequence of his fullness of being and perfection, whereby he is pure actuality, limited by no potency and therefore incapable of being contained within the categories of finite being. Moreover, every limit or condition would impose an extrinsic subordination upon the First Cause, that is, an evident contradiction.
4. God is immense, because his absolute simplicity and infinity admit of no measure or limitation; indeed, they require that he not be circumscribed to a determinate place, but be everywhere (ubiquity). The divine presence in every place, however, must not be imagined in an extensive sense, but is effected through action, according to the nature of spirit, which is present wherever it acts. Now God, the universal cause, operates wherever there is even the least particle of being, of created reality, which needs the continual divine influx in order to preserve its existence. And since God is essentially his own action, wherever he operates he is present in his entirety.
5. God is immutable and eternal. Change is passage from one state to another and is therefore becoming, becoming what one was not. But God is infinite being, possessing everything in actuality; therefore he neither becomes nor comes to be, but exists absolutely and immutably. Since there is thus in him no reason for becoming and no succession, he is necessarily outside time, which follows becoming: he is eternal. Eternity is defined by Boethius: «Interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio», and as such it implies two essential properties: the absence of a beginning and an end (interminabilis), and the absence of every succession and every acquisition (tota simul et perfecta possessio). Time, with its swiftly passing moments, is always and entirely present to the Eternal, who has no before and after within himself, just as the indefinite points of a circumference, although successively following one another, are all equally present to the center of a circle. Eternity thus conceived sheds much light upon the mystery of God’s foreknowledge.
6. Finally, God is one, because he is infinite. Two coexisting infinites are mathematically absurd. Indeed, let us posit these hypotheses:
∞ = ∞ which, when added together, would give an infinity twice as great as infinity, which is meaningless.
∞ > ∞ one of the two, the lesser, would not be infinite.
Thus polytheism is refuted.
Conclusion. – Reason and Revelation admirably agree in formulating these concepts concerning the Divinity, of which they are otherwise aspects translated into human language. The d. a. have their ultimate formal reason in the divine essence conceived as Being itself subsistent, with which they are really and ineffably identified.