top of page
Search

Whether God is Contained in a Genus?

Thank you for subscribing to Annotated Thomist...check back each day for a new section of St. Thomas' corpus, annotated and summarized. (FREE TRIAL FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS!!!)

AT is also available to donors of $10 or more on Patreon or SubscribeStar along with all of the other benefits (daily bonus videos, bonus articles, PDFs, etc.)

If you need more personalized help reading the Summa, I am available for 1-on-1 sessions, here.



The question is here asked whether God is in any genus. By "genus" is meant the "logical genus." "Logical genus" is that overarching category that contains many species. The highest genera are called the "categories" by Aristotle.


Thus, this question is asking whether God's essence (declared to be his existence in a.4) is composed of genus and species (i.e., logical composition)


In this article, St. Thomas gives three proofs.


First, from the nature of a genus. A genus is related to a species as perfectible and perfected. We may think of the relationship as analogous to the relationship of nature/suppositum, form/matter, and existence/essence that we have discussed beforehand. Now, the same argument can be leveled against God being in a genus as we have leveled against God having matter, i.e., it would add some potency to God.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to christianbwagner.com to keep reading this exclusive post.

36 views0 comments

Kommentare


bottom of page