Participated Eternity in the Vision of God: A Study of the Opinion of Thomas Aquinas and his Commentators on the Duration of the Acts of Glory by Carl J. Peter. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 159 of realism. Morality remained very much an idea and reflected experience neither of God nor of people. However, now that discussion is so popular, many will find it interesting. St. Charle'8 Seminary Nagpur, India JEROME ToNER, 0. P. Participated Eternity in the Vision of God: A Study of the Opinion of Thomas Aquinas and his Commentators on the Duration of the Acts of Glory. By CARL J. PETER. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964. Pp. 808. If one had to summarize Peter's lengthy doctoral dissertation in one sentence, one might say that the duration of acts of glory was for Thomas Aquinas participated eternity but for Duns Scotus aevum. If one were allowed two sentences, one could add that Thomists tended to side with Aquinas and Franciscans with Scotus but three Jesuits (de Toledo, Bellarmine , Vazquez) considered the two to be saying the same thing: Aquinas's participated eternity was Scotus's aevum (see " Conclusion," pp. 253-68) . Of course, such a summary does not do justice to the nuances of doctrine within the thomistic or the scotist schools, nor to Peter's paleographical work (see "Appendices," pp. 281-88) or his careful textual exegesis (at times quite detailed) of at least thirty-nine theologians stretching from Aquinas (1223-1274) to John of St. Thomas (1589-1644). As an exegetical instance let us outline his study of Aquinas, which forms Part One of his book. (pp. 5-71) The question raised, he begins, concerns " the duration of the beatific acts in intellectual creatures." More exactly, does "the very permanence itself of the acts of glory" involve "a true supernaturality "? (p. 5) There are two ways of answering, the first of which consists in comparing various durations. God's is eternity (pp. 7-12), and spiritual creatures' in their natural existence and operations is aevum. (pp. 12-20) But these latter in their supernatural and beatific operations of contemplating and loving God also enjoy what Aquinas calls a "participated eternity " (pp. 20-24) -namely, "the duration of an act that completely exhausts the potency of its subject for immediate knowledge and love of God; that is, its subject is open to no greater perfection." (p. 32) It is " the measure of the acts of glory in intellectual creatures. This vision introduces man into an immediate union with God Himself and His duration. It implies a share in what is properly divine and consequently excludes the possibility of change. The glorified subject is simply not open to greater perfection, to more perfect knowledge and love of God, as it was in its natural state." (p. 33) 160 BOOK REVIEWS The second way of deciding whether the permanence of the beatific vision is supernatural is to investigate that vision as a psychology state, especially in the immutability of mind and will which it entails (pp. 3544 ), the cessation in it of hope (pp. 44-49), and the knowledge of contingent futures which a blessed attains. (pp. 49-67) From those three considerations the conclusion is again drawn (pp. 67-71) that spiritual existents in the beatific vision "pa1ticipate in God's eternity." They attain " grades of interminability or immutability " because " there change is found neither in act nor in potency." Although the operations of beatific knowledge and love are not " absolutely unlimited perfections," still '"through them the Blessed have the ultimate perfection of which their natures are capable. And if the latter be the case, there remains no potency in the nature for further perfection; and consequently, the acts in question have a duration characterized by the supreme degree of immobility possible in creatures and the closest approximation to that of God." (p. 68) They are, also, supernatural since they transcend the highest natural knowledge and love possible to angels and separated souls (namely, through God's image in their created natures; p. 69). They arise only through "God's communication of Himself in a finite mind and will, [and thereby] the creature participates in a perfection which is properly God's. By sharing in God's own beatitude, the creature is blessed by participation. By sharing God's nature, he is divinized or deified by participation . So too...