We have thus traced Thomas’s view of the faculty of knowledge, the primary constituent of beatitude in God, and in angels and men. There are other elements which not only supplement the faculty of knowledge, but even flow as of necessity from a full and true conception of that faculty and its perfect energizing. These needful, yet supplementary, factors are the faculties of will and love and natural appetite; though the last does not exist in God or angel or in “separated soul.” The composite creature man shares it with brutes: it is of enormous importance, since it may affect his spiritual progress in this life, and so determine his state after death. Let us observe these qualities in God, in the immaterial substances called angels, and in man.
In God there is volition as well as intelligence; for voluntas intellectum consequitur; and as God’s being (esse) is His knowing (intelligere), so likewise His being is His will (velle).[607] Essentially alike in God and man and angel are the constituents of spiritual beatitude and existence—knowing, willing, loving. From Creator down to man, knowledge differs in mode and in degree, yet is essentially the same. The like is true of will. As to love, because passion is of the body, love and every mode of turning from or to an object is passionless in God and the angels. Yet man through love, as well as through willing and through knowing, may prove his kinship with angels and with God.
God is love, says John’s Epistle. “It is necessary to place love in God,” says Thomas. “For the first movement of will and any appetitive faculty (appetitivae virtutis) is love (amor).” It is objected that love is a passion; and the passionless God cannot love. Answers Thomas, “Love and joy and delight are passions in so far as they signify acts (or actualities, actus) of the appetitus sensitivi; but they are not passions when they signify the actus of the appetitus intellectivi; and thus are they placed in God” (Pars prima, Qu. xx. Art. 1).
God loves all existences. Now all existences, in so far as they are, are good. For being itself (esse) is in a sense the good of any thing, and likewise its perfection. It has been shown that God’s will is the cause of all things; and thus it is proper that a thing should have being, or good, in so far as it is willed by God. God wills some good to every existent thing. And since to love is nothing else than to will good to something, it is evident that God loves all things that are, yet not in the way we love. For since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as by an object, our love by which we will good to anything is not the cause of its goodness; but its goodness calls forth the love by which we wish to preserve and add to the good it has; and for this we work. But God’s love imparts and creates goodness in things.
The divine love embraces all things in one and the same act of will; but inasmuch as His love creates goodness, there could be no greater goodness in one thing than in another unless He willed greater good to one than to the other: in this sense He may be said to love one creature more than another; and in this way He loves the better things more. Besides love, the order of the universe proves God’s justitia; an attribute which is to be ascribed to Him, as Dionysius says, in that He grants to all things what is appropriate, according to the dignity of the existence of each, and preserves the nature of each in its own order and virtue. Likewise misericordia is to be ascribed to God, not as if He were affected by pitying sadness, but in that He remedies the misery or defects of others.
Thus far as to will and love in God. Next, as to these qualities in Angels. Have angels will? (Pars prima, Qu. lix.). Thomas argues: All things proceed from the divine will, and all per appetitum incline toward good. In plants this is called natural appetite. Next above them come those creatures who perceive the particular good as of the senses; their inclination toward it is appetitus sensitivus. Still above them are such as know the ratio of the good universally, through their intelligence. Such are the angels; and in them inclination toward the good is will. Moreover, since they know the nature of the good, they are able to form a judgment as to it; and so they have free will: ubicumque est intellectus, est liberum arbitrium. And as their knowledge is above that of men, so in them free will exists more excellently.
The angels have only the appetitus intellectivus which is will; they are not irascible or concupiscent, since these belong to the appetitus sensitivus. Only metaphorically can furor and evil concupiscence be ascribed to demons, as anger is to God—propter similitudinem effectus. Consequently amor and gaudium do not exist as passions in angels. But in so far as these qualities signify solely an act of will, they are intellectual. In this sense, to love is to will good to anything, and to rejoice (gaudere) is to rest the will in a good obtained. Similarly, caritas and spes, in so far as they are virtues, lie not in appetite, but in will; and thus exist in angels. With man the virtues of temperance and fortitude may relate to things of sense; but not so with angels, who have no passions to be bridled by these virtues. Temperance is ascribed to them when they temper their will according to the will divine, and fortitude, when they firmly execute it (Qu. lix. Art. 4).
In a subsequent portion of Pars prima (Qu. cx.) Thomas has occasion to point out that, as in human affairs, the more particular power is governed by the more universal, so among the angels.
“The higher angels who preside over the lower have more universal knowledge. It is likewise clear that the virtus of a body is more particular than the virtus of a spiritual substance; for every corporeal form is form particularized (individuata) through matter, and limited to the here and now. But immaterial forms are unconditioned and intelligible. And as the lower angels, who have forms less universal, are ruled by the higher angels, so all corporeal things are ruled by angels. And this is maintained not only by the holy Doctors, but by all philosophers who have recognized incorporeal substances.”
Next Thomas considers the action of angels upon men, and shows that men may have their minds illumined by the lower orders of angels, who present to men intelligibilem veritatem sub similitudinibus sensibilium. God sends the angels to minister to corporeal creatures; in which mission their acts proceed from God as a cause (principio). They are His instruments. They are sent as custodians of men, to guide and move them to good. “To every man an angel is appointed for his guard: of which the reason is, that the guardianship (custodia) of the angels is an execution of divine providence in regard to men.” Every man, while as viator he walks life’s via non tuta, has his guardian angel. And the archangels have care of multitudes of men (Qu. cxiii.).