Is God Really Related to Creatures?
Introduction
Many people are disturbed and confused to find out that a Christian theologian as eminent as St. Thomas Aquinas taught that God is not really related to creatures. When we dig into the details, we find that the disturbance and confusion often come from an improper colloquial reading of a technical claim. When we clarify the philosophical import of Aquinas’s statement, we can see (a) why it is not as disturbing as it first sounds and (b) why it can be taken as true and compatible with orthodox Christianity.
The Main Mistake
When people read that “God is not really related to creatures” they often naturally translate it as “God is not truly related to creatures.” But this translation is incorrect. On Thomism, when it is said that God is not “really related” or that in God there are no “real relations” to creatures, “real” is not opposed to fake. Rather, “real” is opposed to “rational” in describing the type of relation involved when the simple and immutable God makes and sustains his creatures.
In other words, the main mistake is thinking that “not really related” means “not truly related” or “not actually related.” But that’s not what Aquinas means, and we see this clearly in one of his replies in ST I.13.7 where he states, “Since God is related to the creature for the reason that the creature is related to Him: and since the relation of subjection is real in the creature, it follows that God is Lord not in idea only, **but in reality**; for He is called Lord according to the manner in which the creature is subject to Him” (source, emphasis mine).
So, God’s having in him no real relations to creatures does not prevent him from being truly Lord and truly related to creatures albeit in a unique way: since the way an absolutely simple, unlimited, immutable creator relates to us will be different than the way finite individual persons like Jones and Jane relate to each other.
The Finer Points
Having established what Aquinas does not mean by the statement, we can turn to what he does mean. Aquinas holds a scholastic metaphysical view of real relations according to which a relation is said to be real in a subject only under the conditions that there is a real, extra-mental foundation in the subject for the relation (cf. Mark Henninger quote on pg. 57 of W. Matthews Grant’s Free Will and God’s Universal Causality). Positing such an item in God would pose the problem of making God complex (i.e. composed of substance and the accidental relational property) and mutable (i.e. when creating, God would take on some new feature that he would not have had otherwise ).
Hence, as a consistent classical theist, Aquinas holds that the relation in God is not real but “rational” or “of reason” since there is no real, additional entity in God that kicks into gear when he creates, exercises lordship, or saves sinners. Rather, the type of relationship that holds between the simple and immutable God and creatures is described by Aquinas as a mixed relation. This refers to a relation between the two subjects (i.e. God and the creature) which has extra-mental real ontological foundation on one side (i.e. creation) and not the other side (i.e. God).
So, the mode or manner in which God relates to us is different from the way created beings relate to one another. God doesn’t take on new accidental properties or relations in order to create, sustain, and save. Rather, he directly produces the relevant effects in creation in a more intimate and immediate way. He doesn’t need to flex his muscles, gather his intentions, or “rev up the ol’ engine” to produce wonderful and glorious works. He simply does so immediately with no intrinsic, accidental modification, and He acts from the fullness of his being to create, sustain, and save. Similarly, God is truly the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not because he takes on new metaphysical relations, but because he actually brings it about that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exist in covenant with Him.
Two Further Resources
Dr. Steven J. Duby summarizes the main points well:
“To say that God is only “rationally” related to the creature is to say not only that he is not necessarily ordered to us but also that he lives in the most intimate and unobstructed relation to us. While creatures relate to one another by various kinds of media and by the acquisition of various accidents and determinations of being, the triune God in his completeness creates and sustains us by his own essential *actus* without using any instrument to do so.”
Steven J. Duby, God in Himself, pp. 224 – 225
Dr. W. Matthews Grant is also helpful:
God’s relation to E [i.e. a creature or created effect] as cause is, thus, understood to be “rational” and not a “real” relation, not because God is not truly related to E as cause but because the ontological basis for that truth does not include an intrinsic entity in God that is God’s relation to E.
W. Matthews Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, p. 210, endnote #30.
Summary
In short, God not being really related to creatures does not mean God is not truly related to creatures (He is!) or that he is not in a relationship with you (He is!). Rather, it’s a technical, metaphysical description, using terminology accepted at the time, to explain how the unlimited, unchanging, timeless creator relates to creatures i.e. through the mixed relation and not the same type of relation that occurs when two finite beings relate to each other.
Related Episodes
Ep. #263 – Divine Names; Is God Really Creator and Lord? w/ Ryan Hurd
