Whether God Is Truth?
Objection 1: It seems that God is not truth. For truth consists in the
intellect composing and dividing. But in God there is not composition
and division. Therefore in Him there is not truth.
Obj. 2: Further, truth, according to Augustine (De Vera Relig. xxxvi)
is a "likeness to the principle." But in God there is no likeness to
a principle. Therefore in God there is not truth.
Obj. 3: Further, whatever is said of God, is said of Him as of the
first cause of all things; thus the being of God is the cause of all
being; and His goodness the cause of all good. If therefore there is
truth in God, all truth will be from Him. But it is true that someone
sins. Therefore this will be from God; which is evidently false.
_On the contrary,_ Our Lord says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life" (John 14:6).
_I answer that,_ As said above (A. 1), truth is found in the
intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is; and in things
according as they have being conformable to an intellect. This is to
the greatest degree found in God. For His being is not only conformed
to His intellect, but it is the very act of His intellect; and His act
of understanding is the measure and cause of every other being and of
every other intellect, and He Himself is His own existence and act of
understanding. Whence it follows not only that truth is in Him, but
that He is truth itself, and the sovereign and first truth.
Reply Obj. 1: Although in the divine intellect there is neither
composition nor division, yet in His simple act of intelligence He
judges of all things and knows all things complex; and thus there is
truth in His intellect.
Reply Obj. 2: The truth of our intellect is according to its
conformity with its principle, that is to say, to the things from
which it receives knowledge. The truth also of things is according to
their conformity with their principle, namely, the divine intellect.
Now this cannot be said, properly speaking, of divine truth; unless
perhaps in so far as truth is appropriated to the Son, Who has a
principle. But if we speak of divine truth in its essence, we cannot
understand this unless the affirmative must be resolved into the
negative, as when one says: "the Father is of Himself, because He is
not from another." Similarly, the divine truth can be called a
"likeness to the principle," inasmuch as His existence is not
dissimilar to His intellect.
Reply Obj. 3: Not-being and privation have no truth of themselves,
but only in the apprehension of the intellect. Now all apprehension
of the intellect is from God. Hence all the truth that exists in the
statement--"that a person commits fornication is true"--is entirely
from God. But to argue, "Therefore that this person fornicates is
from God", is a fallacy of Accident.
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