DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. - These are properties that the human mind is accustomed to attribute to God, according to our way of thinking. In reality, God is pure and utterly simple act, because He is subsistent Being itself, and as such He is profoundly one, an absolute negation of all multiplicity; hence, before speaking of the individual divine attributes, it is necessary to resolve the problem of their value and of their coexistence in God. The question of the value of the attributes involves our entire language concerning divine things, and therefore the whole of theodicy. Its solution is bound up with the concept and function of analogy, which has been discussed separately under its threefold aspect — historical, philosophical and theological (v. ANALOGIA), demonstrating that, once creation is granted, the perfections of created beings suggest to those who contemplate them various ideas of the Creator's perfection, which, though not adequate, correspond analogically, with greater or lesser approximation, to the infinite divine reality.
Our thought, then, and our language, through the knowledge of created nature, truly attain to God, albeit imperfectly, and therefore the divine attributes we formulate have a real value and are not empty and false concepts. Through the in-depth 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 divine attributes arises a grave difficulty against the absolute unity of God. The antinomy is obvious: God is essentially one, that is, undivided, indistinct, utterly simple; yet in God there are really multiple perfections. If one insists on the first part, the value of the divine attributes vanishes; if one insists on the second part, one comes to deny or to call into doubt the unity and simplicity that are indispensable properties of the infinite being, that is, of God. These are two extremist solutions, of which 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 relies on the school of Scotus. An intermediate solution is adopted by St. Thomas and by the best Thomists. It rejects any real distinction of the divine attributes (including the formal-actual distinction of Scotus, which seems more real than logical) and is not content, as the nominalists are, with a purely logical distinction, which would reduce the divine attributes to empty synonyms; but it admits a distinction, called that of reasoned reason, which is formally in our thought but has a real foundation in the thing. In this way the various divine attributes, such as, for example, goodness, justice, mercy, express concepts formally distinct in God; yet they have a foundation in that divine reality which, in its transcendent simplicity, is infinitely rich and cannot be conceived and expressed by a finite intellect except through multiple concepts, in which it is imperfectly reflected as in the multiplicity of created things. Without destroying one another, the divine attributes are identified in the utterly simple and ineffable essence proper to God, which theologians call the "Deity." And so thought and love, goodness and justice, omnipotence and mercy, all the divine properties, by their identity with that mysterious essence, are realities such that the one can indeed be conceived as distinct from the others, but objectively includes them all.
Thus far our intellect can search with its naturally limited powers. Its task is less arduous in the rational examination of the individual divine attributes. But it is fitting to preface this examination with a rapid synthesis of the data of Revelation. For a simple didactic reason the divine attributes are usually divided into two categories, one called that of the dynamic attributes, which concern God's action (knowledge, will, power, providence and predestination), the other called that of the static attributes, which concern God in His mode of being (simplicity, perfection, goodness and holiness, infinity, immensity and ubiquity, immutability and eternity, unity, etc.). The dynamic attributes will be treated individually in their respective entries: here only the static attributes are dealt with all together.
I. SACRED SCRIPTURE
The essential properties of God are discerned, in the Old and New Testaments, through the divine names or by way 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 escapes and who is present everywhere. Eljān (root 'lh "to ascend") indicates the supreme being who transcends all things. Saddaj (of uncertain root) is most probably to be understood as the exalted being who is sufficient to himself and needs nothing. Qāḍāš is the Holy One, the Pure One; 'Ab is the universal Father.
But the name that sums up and intensifies all the others is undoubtedly the one that God revealed to Moses as his own (Ex. 3, 12 ff.); this name is the famous 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. ESSENZA DIVINA), who is pure being, without limits and without conditions, and therefore simple, infinite, immense, immutable, eternal, unique. But the divine properties are expressed in formal concepts in both the Old and the New Testament.
1. Simplicity and spirituality
God is the subsistent Being (Ex. 3, 12 ff.), invisible (Ex. 19, 16-19; Job 38, 1) who searches and weighs spirits (Prov. 16, 2 and 21, 2), who infuses 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 worship him must worship him in spirit and truth" (Jn. 4, 24; cf. Is. 31, 3; Wis. 1, 6; 6, 24; 9, 17). Nor do the biblical expressions cause difficulty, which present 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 the transcendent perfection of God, because everything derives from him through creation: "If (men), attracted by the beauty of things, have believed them to be divinities, let them know how much more beautiful than these is their Lord; for the Generator of beauty has created all these things" (Wis. 13, to be read in its entirety). In Ps. 145 and 147 one reads these exclamations: "Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end"; "Great is the Lord and his power is supreme and his wisdom is without measure". Cf. Eccl. 43, 29. St. Paul especially extols the incomprehensibility of the infinite divine wisdom (Rom. 11, 33).
3. Immensity and ubiquity
"Can you perhaps know the footsteps of God and arrive at understanding the perfection of the Almighty? He is higher than the heavens, 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" (Job 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, you are there; if I descended into hell, behold, there you are. If I took hold of the edges of the dawn or dwelt in the farthest west, even there your hand would accompany me and your right hand would receive me...". In Jer. 23, 24 one reads a very effective expression: "And do I not perhaps fill heaven and earth, says Jahweh?". St. Paul in the Areopagus discourse in Athens energetically asserts: "In him (God) we live, move and exist" (Acts 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 are decaying and you remain; they all wear out like a garment... but you remain the same and your years will have no end". In Jas. 1, 17 there is talk of God, Father of the stars, in whom "there is no mutation nor shadow of movement", and St. Paul (1 Tim. 1, 17) sings hymns to the "immortal King of the ages, invisible, only 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 in the one divine nature places three consubstantial terms (v. TRINITÀ).
II. FATHERS
While they repeat and defend the biblical concepts concerning the divine properties, the Greek Fathers begin that elaboration of the revealed data which will give rise to systematic theology. Let us recall the fine battle fought by St. Basil and by the two Gregories, of Nyssa and of Nazianzus, against the Eunomians, in defense of the divine attributes. Also important is the doctrine of the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, who develop the seeds of Revelation in the light of the principles of Greek philosophy, especially the Platonic. They emphasize in a particular way the transcendence and therefore the ineffability of God, the one μυνάς or ἐνάς "immutable, impassible, immense, eternal" (Origen, Ιλτῇ ἄγγων, I, 1, 6; II, 1, 3; IV, 28, 29). The Latin Fathers from the biblical name Jahweh deduce lofty concepts concerning the divine nature, pure being. St. Augustine summarizes in admirable pages the whole tradition: "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 the perfections of the threefold order: physical, rational and moral, and concludes epigrammatically that God is "causa constituta 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, which implies his personal distinction from the world and his transcendence. Through the centuries the Church gradually makes more precise the concept of the divinity against the various attempts made by heretics to adulterate it. Thus in the Third Council of Valence (855) the eternal foreknowledge of God is defended in relation to the mystery of predestination; in the Council of Sens (1140), against Abelard, the doctrine of divine freedom is confirmed; in the Council of Reims (1148) the principle of the absolute simplicity of God is reaffirmed, by which He, being his own essence, is the same goodness, the same wisdom, the same eternity, etc. Against the Manichaeism revived under various forms in the 13th century, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) recalls and consolidates the traditional doctrine concerning the essential properties of God 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, of spiritualistic and materialistic pantheism, the Vatican Council (1869-70) takes up this formula again and integrates it with other opportune precisions.
IV. HUMAN REASON
Human reason, by its natural light, through the study of the perfections of creation, rises not only to a simple knowledge, but also to the dialectical demonstration of the divine attributes.
1. God is absolutely simple: the simple is opposed to the composite, and therefore absolutely simple is that which excludes from itself any composition, whether logical, physical or metaphysical. This perfect, positive simplicity must not be confused with the negative simplicity that is the extreme limit of quantity, like the point, which always remains a quantitative element, even though it has no dimensions. God cannot be composite in any way, because a composite being: a) is posterior to the parts of which it results 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 repugnant to the first Being and the first Cause. Therefore in God, pure act, there is absolute identity between essence and being, between nature and personality (v. TRINITY), between nature and operation: he is being by essence, as the divine Revelation suggests, he is his own operation, substantial thought and love, without any possibility of division in himself or of composition with others. God can be neither a whole nor part of a whole; hence the absurdity of pantheism.
2. God is most perfect: perfection (from the Latin perficere, "to make in a complete manner") denotes completeness, richness, and excludes indigence, which Aristotle and the Scholastics call potency (capacity for acquisition, for development). God, being pure act and pure being (v. GOD), is absolute fullness and richness, because no perfection is conceivable as existing outside of him who is Being itself: the world with its wonders would be an absurdity if it were posited in itself and for itself, independent of God the creator. As God is the source of being, so too is he the abyss of all perfections, and since the good coincides with perfection and with being, God is also goodness itself, without any shadow of evil, which is rather a privation of being (v. EVIL), and he is holiness itself.
3. God is infinite in the positive and absolute sense: this is a logical consequence of his fullness of being and of perfection, whereby he is pure act, not limited by any potency and therefore uncontainable within the categories of finite being. Moreover, any limit or condition would impose an extrinsic subordination in the first Cause, that is, an open contradiction.
4. God is immense, because his absolute simplicity and his infinity admit no measure or limitation; indeed they require that he not be circumscribed to a determinate place, but be everywhere (ubiquity). The divine presence, however, in every place must not be imagined in an extensive sense, but is brought about by way of action, according to the nature of spirit, which is present there where it acts. Now God, the universal cause, acts wherever there is a particle of being, of created reality, which needs the continuous divine influx in order to preserve its existence. And since God is essentially his own action, there where he acts he is present with his whole self.
5. God is immutable and eternal. Mutation is a passage from one state to another and therefore is becoming, is making oneself what one was not. But God is infinite being, who has everything in act, and therefore he neither becomes nor is made, but is in an absolute, immutable manner. Since there is thus in him no reason for becoming, no succession, he is necessarily outside of time, which follows upon 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 of an end (interminabilis) and the absence of any succession, of any acquisition (tota simul et perfecta possessio). Time with its vertiginous moments is always and wholly present to the Eternal, who has in himself no before and after, just as the indefinite points of a circumference, though successively pursuing one another, are all equally present to the center of a circle. Eternity thus conceived throws much light on the mystery of God's foreknowledge.
6. Finally, God is one, because he is infinite. Two coexisting infinities are mathematically an absurdity. Indeed, let these be the hypotheses:
∞ = ∞ which, added together, would give an infinite double the infinite, which makes no sense.
∞ > ∞ one of the two, the lesser, would not be infinite.
And thus polytheism is refuted.
Conclusion. – Reason and Revelation agree wonderfully in the formulation of these concepts concerning the Divinity, of which they are otherwise aspects translated into human language. The divine attributes have their ultimate formal reason in the divine essence conceived as Being itself subsistent, with which they really and ineffably identify themselves.
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