Whether in God There Are Any Accidents?
Objection 1: It seems that there are accidents in God. For substance
cannot be an accident, as Aristotle says (Phys. i). Therefore that
which is an accident in one, cannot, in another, be a substance. Thus
it is proved that heat cannot be the substantial form of fire, because
it is an accident in other things. But wisdom, virtue, and the like,
which are accidents in us, are attributes of God. Therefore in God
there are accidents.
Obj. 2: Further, in every genus there is a first principle. But
there are many genera of accidents. If, therefore, the primal
members of these genera are not in God, there will be many primal
beings other than God--which is absurd.
_On the contrary,_ Every accident is in a subject. But God cannot be a
subject, for "no simple form can be a subject", as Boethius says (De
Trin.). Therefore in God there cannot be any accident.
_I answer that,_ From all we have said, it is clear there can be no
accident in God. First, because a subject is compared to its accidents
as potentiality to actuality; for a subject is in some sense made
actual by its accidents. But there can be no potentiality in God, as
was shown (Q. 2, A. 3). Secondly, because God is His own
existence; and as Boethius says (Hebdom.), although every essence may
have something superadded to it, this cannot apply to absolute being:
thus a heated substance can have something extraneous to heat added to
it, as whiteness, nevertheless absolute heat can have nothing else
than heat. Thirdly, because what is essential is prior to what is
accidental. Whence as God is absolute primal being, there can be in
Him nothing accidental. Neither can He have any essential accidents
(as the capability of laughing is an essential accident of man),
because such accidents are caused by the constituent principles of the
subject. Now there can be nothing caused in God, since He is the first
cause. Hence it follows that there is no accident in God.
Reply Obj. 1: Virtue and wisdom are not predicated of God and
of us univocally. Hence it does not follow that there are accidents in
God as there are in us.
Reply Obj. 2: Since substance is prior to its accidents, the
principles of accidents are reducible to the principles of the
substance as to that which is prior; although God is not first as if
contained in the genus of substance; yet He is first in respect to all
being, outside of every genus.
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