Whether God Rested on the Seventh Day from All His Work?
Objection 1: It would seem that God did not rest on the seventh day
from all His work. For it is said (John 5:17), "My Father worketh until
now, and I work." God, then, did not rest on the seventh day from all
His work.
Obj. 2: Further, rest is opposed to movement, or to labor, which
movement causes. But, as God produced His work without movement and
without labor, He cannot be said to have rested on the seventh day
from His work.
Obj. 3: Further, should it be said that God rested on the seventh day
by causing man to rest; against this it may be argued that rest is
set down in contradistinction to His work; now the words "God
created" or "made" this thing or the other cannot be explained to
mean that He made man create or make these things. Therefore the
resting of God cannot be explained as His making man to rest.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (Gen. 2:2): "God rested on the seventh
day from all the work which He had done."
_I answer that,_ Rest is, properly speaking, opposed to movement, and
consequently to the labor that arises from movement. But although
movement, strictly speaking, is a quality of bodies, yet the word is
applied also to spiritual things, and in a twofold sense. On the one
hand, every operation may be called a movement, and thus the Divine
goodness is said to move and go forth to its object, in communicating
itself to that object, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii). On the other
hand, the desire that tends to an object outside itself, is said to
move towards it. Hence rest is taken in two senses, in one sense
meaning a cessation from work, in the other, the satisfying of desire.
Now, in either sense God is said to have rested on the seventh day.
First, because He ceased from creating new creatures on that day, for,
as said above (A. 1, ad 3), He made nothing afterwards that had not
existed previously, in some degree, in the first works; secondly,
because He Himself had no need of the things that He had made, but was
happy in the fruition of Himself. Hence, when all things were made He
is not said to have rested "in" His works, as though needing them for
His own happiness, but to have rested "from" them, as in fact resting
in Himself, as He suffices for Himself and fulfils His own desire. And
even though from all eternity He rested in Himself, yet the rest in
Himself, which He took after He had finished His works, is that rest
which belongs to the seventh day. And this, says Augustine, is the
meaning of God's resting from His works on that day (Gen. ad lit. iv).
Reply Obj. 1: God indeed "worketh until now" by preserving and
providing for the creatures He has made, but not by the making of
new ones.
Reply Obj. 2: Rest is here not opposed to labor or to movement, but
to the production of new creatures, and to the desire tending to an
external object.
Reply Obj. 3: Even as God rests in Himself alone and is happy in the
enjoyment of Himself, so our own sole happiness lies in the enjoyment
of God. Thus, also, He makes us find rest in Himself, both from His
works and our own. It is not, then, unreasonable to say that God
rested in giving rest to us. Still, this explanation must not be set
down as the only one, and the other is the first and principal
explanation.
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