According To The Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas
Our own soul may furnish an analogy. While it is in its substance entirely present in the whole body and in each part, it is nevertheless more specially and fully and perfectly united to the head, the seat of all the senses, than to the rest of the organism. This is easily explained. In order to perform the functions of the many faculties with which it is endowed, the soul needs a variety of organs, all of which are not met with throughout all the body, but are found united only in the head. In all truth, we can say that, although "the soul is present entirely and substantially in the whole body, and in each part, it is, however, by its power, more chiefly and excellently present in the brain," as St. Bernard has said.
It can now be understood how, notwithstanding His perfectly indivisible simplicity, God can be here more than there; and how His presence as an efficient cause, though formally and specifically the same everywhere, can, when considered in its extension, vary, so to say, infinitely according to the very measure of the Divine activity. In this sense His presence is more complete, more excellent, and more perfect where the results of His activity are more multiplied and of a higher nature, while it decreases in the same measure as the effects of His Divine power are more remote from the perfection of the cause which produced them. This accounts for the saying, that some beings are near to God while others are far from Him. Here it is question not of a material or local relation, but of a likeness or unlikeness of nature or of grace. Thus, the angels—brightest mirrors of the Divinity, mundissima Divinitatis specula, as St. Dionysius calls them—dwell, as it were, in the very vestibule of the adorable Trinity, because, being the most perfect of creatures, they are nearer to God. Material beings, on the contrary, are relegated to the lowest grade of creation, and thus are further away from God because of the unlikeness of their nature to His. Man, being made of both spirit and matter, holds the middle place between these two classes of beings. Although less united to God than the pure spirits, he having a soul, is incomparably nearer to Him than are irrational creatures who have not the power to lift themselves up to their Creator by knowledge and love. This is why it is said that man was created to the image and likeness of God, whereas only a vestige of the Divinity is to be found in animals, plants, and inorganic beings.
Still further below the material world is the place occupied by the sinner, because of his moral unlikeness to God. Of him alone does Holy Writ speak when it says that the Lord is far from the wicked. St. Augustine, speaking of his sinful life, says of his own previous state of sinfulness: "I was then far off in the region of unlikeness." Such words have become current in Christian speech. Talking about a person, who, for a long time has been neglectful of his religious duties, and who wallows in sin, we say: "He lives far from God." But let him begin to show better dispositions, and then we say: "He is drawing nearer to God." These expressions are most appropriate; for, according to St. Prosper: "It is not in passing over space that we come nearer to God or go farther from Him, but it is by similarity or dissimilarity to Him."
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| St. Prosper: "It is not in passing over space that we come nearer to God or go farther from Him, but it is by similarity or dissimilarity to Him." |
Our own soul may furnish an analogy. While it is in its substance entirely present in the whole body and in each part, it is nevertheless more specially and fully and perfectly united to the head, the seat of all the senses, than to the rest of the organism. This is easily explained. In order to perform the functions of the many faculties with which it is endowed, the soul needs a variety of organs, all of which are not met with throughout all the body, but are found united only in the head. In all truth, we can say that, although "the soul is present entirely and substantially in the whole body, and in each part, it is, however, by its power, more chiefly and excellently present in the brain," as St. Bernard has said.
It can now be understood how, notwithstanding His perfectly indivisible simplicity, God can be here more than there; and how His presence as an efficient cause, though formally and specifically the same everywhere, can, when considered in its extension, vary, so to say, infinitely according to the very measure of the Divine activity. In this sense His presence is more complete, more excellent, and more perfect where the results of His activity are more multiplied and of a higher nature, while it decreases in the same measure as the effects of His Divine power are more remote from the perfection of the cause which produced them. This accounts for the saying, that some beings are near to God while others are far from Him. Here it is question not of a material or local relation, but of a likeness or unlikeness of nature or of grace. Thus, the angels—brightest mirrors of the Divinity, mundissima Divinitatis specula, as St. Dionysius calls them—dwell, as it were, in the very vestibule of the adorable Trinity, because, being the most perfect of creatures, they are nearer to God. Material beings, on the contrary, are relegated to the lowest grade of creation, and thus are further away from God because of the unlikeness of their nature to His. Man, being made of both spirit and matter, holds the middle place between these two classes of beings. Although less united to God than the pure spirits, he having a soul, is incomparably nearer to Him than are irrational creatures who have not the power to lift themselves up to their Creator by knowledge and love. This is why it is said that man was created to the image and likeness of God, whereas only a vestige of the Divinity is to be found in animals, plants, and inorganic beings.
Still further below the material world is the place occupied by the sinner, because of his moral unlikeness to God. Of him alone does Holy Writ speak when it says that the Lord is far from the wicked. St. Augustine, speaking of his sinful life, says of his own previous state of sinfulness: "I was then far off in the region of unlikeness." Such words have become current in Christian speech. Talking about a person, who, for a long time has been neglectful of his religious duties, and who wallows in sin, we say: "He lives far from God." But let him begin to show better dispositions, and then we say: "He is drawing nearer to God." These expressions are most appropriate; for, according to St. Prosper: "It is not in passing over space that we come nearer to God or go farther from Him, but it is by similarity or dissimilarity to Him."
