QUESTION IV.
Whether the trinity of persons is compatible with supreme immensity.
Consequently it is asked whether the trinity of persons is compatible with supreme immensity. And concerning this, two things are asked.
The first is whether the divine being is most infinite. The second is whether trinity and infinity can coexist.
ARTICLE I.
Whether the divine being is most infinite.
As to the first, we proceed as follows, and it is shown that the divine being is most infinite:
1. First, through the confession of faith in the Creed: "The Father is immense, the Son is immense, the Holy Spirit is immense, and yet there are not three immense, but one immense"; therefore there is one immensity in them; therefore it belongs to them by reason of the essence.
2. Likewise, Damascene: "It is to be believed that God is one, immortal, eternal, uncircumscribed"; if therefore these things belong only to what is infinite absolutely, the conclusion is clear, etc.
3. Likewise, Third Kings, chapter eight: If heaven and the heavens of heavens cannot contain you, how much more this house which I have built? If therefore the being of God can be contained by nothing and circumscribed by nothing, it must be acknowledged that it has entirely the character of the infinite.
4. Likewise, Damascene, book one, chapter four: "God is infinite and incomprehensible, and this alone is comprehensible about him, namely his infinity and incomprehensibility."
5. Likewise, Augustine, in the eleventh book of the City of God: "All infinity is in a certain ineffable way finite to God"; but everything to which infinite things are finite is absolutely infinite; if therefore the divine being is of this kind, then it has infinity in every way.
6. Likewise, by reason: it is a common conception of the mind that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, neither by himself nor by another; but something greater can be thought than anything finite; therefore truly and properly the divine being has the condition of the infinite.
7. Likewise, for anything finite, something can be understood to be made equal to it through doubling; but nothing can be made equal to the divine being, no matter how much it is understood to be doubled; therefore it is necessary that the divine being is infinite with every manner of infinity.
8. Likewise, every finite good can be multiplied by the addition of some other good; but the supreme good cannot be multiplied either in reality or in understanding by anything added; therefore it is not a finite good; and it is either finite or infinite; therefore, etc.
9. Likewise, the entity of God and eternity are the same; but eternity is infinite, because it lacks beginning and end; therefore the entity is also infinite; but if the entity is infinite, so is the being; therefore from the first, the divine being is altogether infinite, even according to itself.
10. Likewise, in God, power and being are the same on account of supreme simplicity; but the divine power is infinite, since he is omnipotent and has power over extremes infinitely distant, as is evident in production from nothing; therefore the divine being is absolutely infinite.
11. Furthermore, the power and knowledge of God is infinite, because one cannot posit so many possibles or knowables that He could not do or know more: therefore by equal reasoning, since God is never in so many creatures that He could not be in more: it is necessary that the divine being as being is infinite.
12. Furthermore, God is the most noble cause of things according to the account of effecting, exemplifying, and finalizing: but on account of His supreme nobility He is such an efficient cause that He is uneffected; such an exemplar cause that He is unexemplified: therefore He is such a finalizing cause that He is infinite: therefore just as the divine being is uneffected, so also is it infinite.
13. Furthermore, the principle of all limitation is matter or something material; but the divine being, since it is pure act, lacks every condition of matter: therefore it lacks all limitation and finitude: therefore it is infinite absolutely.
On the contrary: 1. The infinite is said privatively in respect to the finite, just as the unjust in respect to the just; but always a habit, if it is truly a habit, is nobler than a privation: therefore the condition of the finite is nobler than that of the infinite; but what is nobler must always be attributed to God: therefore etc.
2. Furthermore, in created things infinity comes from the side of matter, but finitude from the side of form; but "God is form without matter," as Boethius says: therefore it seems that He has nothing at all of the notion of infinity, but that He is most finite in Himself.
3. Furthermore, nothing is truly removed from something which essentially belongs to it; but God is the end completing and terminating the appetite of our mind: therefore in no way can the divine being be infinite, neither by the denial of end as it is a terminus, nor insofar as it is a complement.
4. Furthermore, "the finite and the infinite are properties of quantity"; but in God there is no true quantity to be posited, therefore neither true infinity: but if some quantity is posited, this is of power, which regards potency, not essence: therefore it is nothing to say that the essence is infinite.
5. Furthermore, the infinite and the immense are the same: but the immense is said by recession from measure and from mode: therefore the infinite and that which lacks mode, that is, the immoderate, are the same: but what lacks mode lacks species and beauty: therefore since this does not befit the divine being, the conclusion is clear etc.