"Yet still, in all the singing,
Thinks haply of her song,
Which in that life's first springing
Sang to her all night long."
Comforted by such memories, she kisses the mute and withered mementoes, and, as she folds them again reverently, lovingly away in their casket, she prays that
"When her dying couch about
The natural mists shall gather,
Some smiling angel close shall stand
In old Correggio's fashion,
And bear a lily in his hand
For death's annunciation."
Catholicity And Pantheism.
Number Seven.
The Finite.—Continued.
We pass to the next question: What is the end of the exterior action of God?
God is infinite intelligence. An agent who acts by understanding must always act for a reason, which is as the lever of the intelligence. This reason is called the end of the action. Therefore, the external act, being the act of an infinite intelligence, must have an end, an object, a reason. So far everything is evident; but a very difficult question here arises: What can the end of the exterior action be? In the first place, it cannot be an end necessarily to be attained; for the necessity of the end would imply also the necessity of the means, and the external act in that supposition would become necessary. But suppose the end not necessary. God, in that case, would be free to accept it; and in that supposition he would either act without a reason, or have another reason or object for accepting an end not necessary to be attained; which second reason would, in its turn, be either necessary or not necessary. If the former, the same inconvenience would exist which we have pointed out before; if the latter, it would require a third reason to account for the second; and so on ad infinitum. The answer to this difficulty consists in the following doctrine. The reason by which an agent acts may be twofold: one, efficient or determining; the other, qualifying the action without determining it. Ontologically speaking, every intelligent agent must act for a reason, but not always be determined to act by the reason. This is eminently true when the agent or efficient cause is the first and universal agent. In this case there would be a contradiction, if the first and universal agent were to act by a reason determining him to the act. For then the predicate would destroy the subject; that is, if the first and universal agent were to act by a determining reason, he would no longer be first, but second agent; no longer universal, but particular. Because in that case the final cause would move him, and thus he would neither be the first nor the cause of everything. This theory resolves the question of the end of the external act. There exists neither an intrinsic reason on the part of the agent to determine him to act outside himself, nor an exterior reason on the part of the term to impel him to act, as we have already demonstrated. Consequently, there can be no determining reason for the external act, and the act must determine itself. The efficient or determining reason of the external act is the choice of the act which is absolute master of itself; it lies in its liberty: and here applies with strict truth that saying, "Stat pro ratione voluntas." And necessarily so, since the first agent either determines himself without any efficient reason, or he is determined by the reason; and in that case he is no longer first, but second. But then God acts outside himself without any reason? Without any efficient and determining reason, independent of his own act, it is granted; without a sufficient reason to make the act rational, it is denied. If there be a reason which qualifies the act, it is sufficient and rational. Now, for instance, to create finite substances is to create substantial good; hence the act of creating them must be good, and therefore rational. And since every finite being, or its perfection, is good, inasmuch as it resembles the infinite goodness and perfection of God, it follows that, as St. Thomas says, the goodness of God is the end of the external act. Divina bonitas est finis omnium rerum.
The determination of the end of the exterior act, which is the goodness of God, as we have explained it, gives rise to another question, which has occupied the highest intellects among philosophers and theologians, and of which we must speak, to pave our way to lay down the whole plan of the exterior action of God, as proclaimed by the Catholic Church.