Saturday, March 18, 2017

God, for Thomas Aquinas, Is Pure Bliss or Pure Actuality

From Fergus Kerr's book After Aquinas:

"God, for Thomas, is not even an agent with capacities to know and love. God is nothing other than ceaseless and total actualizations of being, knowing, and loving - utter bliss."

Thomists will recognize the language used by Kerr since Thomas Aquinas famously insists that God is actus purus or actus essendi et perfectus. Kerr includes another quote for reflection: Deus est beatitudo per essentiam suam.

Source Material: Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.

Also see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01125b.htm

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