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23. On the Father and the Son
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QUESTIONS 22-23 49 22. THA T GOD IS NOT SUBJECT TO NEED Where there is no want, there is no need; and where there is no deficiency, there is no want. But there is no deficiency in God. Therefore there is no need. 23. ON THE FA THER AND THE SON Everything chaste is chaste by chastity, and everything eternal is eternal by eternity, and everything beautiful, beautiful by beauty, and everything good, good by goodness. As well, therefore, everything wise is wise by wisdom, and everything alike, alike by likeness. Now there are two ways in which a thing is said to be chaste by chastity: first, [when] the chaste thing produces chastity so that it is chaste by that chastity which it produces and for which it is the generative principle and cause of existence; or, second, when by participation in chastity everything is chaste which can at some time not be chaste. And furthermore, the other examples must be understood in this way. For it is the claim of either knowledge or belief that the soul acquires eternity, but it does so by participation in eternity. But God is not eternal in this fashion. He is eternal because he is the author of eternity itself. This may also be seen in the case of both beauty and goodness. Accordingly , when God is said to be wise, and when he is called wise by that wisdom which it is preposterous to believe that he ever lacked or could lack, he is called wise not by participation in wisdom, as is the soul, which can both be and not be wise. Rather, God is called wise because he has himself begotten that wisdom by which he is called wise. I 1 Cf. R 1.26 (PL 32.625): "I have said: ... because he has himself begotten that wisdom by which he is called wise.' We have handled this issue more ably in a later book, On the Trinity." Cf. DT 6.2.3 (PL 42.924-26). Also, compare this Q. with DGn1 16.57-58 (PL 34. 242), which dates from the same period. 50 ST. AUGUSTINE Again, those things which by participation are either chaste or eternal or beautiful or good or wise admit of the possibility of being neither chaste nor eternal nor beautiful nor good nor wise. But as for chastity, eternity, beauty, goodness, and wisdom themselves, they in no way admit either or perishing or, so to speak, of a temporal character, deformity, or malice. Therefore even those things which are alike by participation admit of unlikeness, but likeness itself cannot in any manner and to any degree be unlike. It therefore results that when the Son is called the likeness of the Father (because by participation in the Son whatever things are alike are alike either to one another or to God, for the Son is the first species by which, so to speak, all things are specified, and the form by which all things are formed), he can in no respect be unlike the Father. He is therefore the same as the Father, but with the result that he is the Son and the latter is the Father. That is, the Son is the likeness, the Father, that of whom he is the likeness; the Son is substance, and the Father is substance, from which results one substance. For if there is not one substance, likeness admits of a likeness-a possibility which the most exacting reason denies. 24. DO SIN AND RIGHT CONDUCT RESULT FROM A FREE CHOICE OF THE WILL?! Whatever happens by chance happens without design. Whatever happens without design does not happen due to Providence. If therefore some things in the world happen by chance, then not all the world is governed by Providence. If In R 1.25 (PL 32.625) Augustine makes a further comment on the issue whether sin and right conduct result from a free choice of the will. "It is unmistakably true that this is absofutely the case," he says. "But to be free to act rightly is a result of being set free by the grace of God." (See the article referred to in Q. 2, n. 2.) ...