Abstract
The concept of divine infinity has been a subject of philosophical debate among scholastic thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, who challenged the traditional views of the Church Fathers. They explored the relationship between God's infinite being and the finite nature of human creatures. According to Bonaventure, God's infinity is not just a negation of the finite, but a positive and absolute act that realizes itself in the world. Thomas Aquinas drew on Aristotle's concept of the "first immobile mover" to demonstrate the necessity of considering the infinite in act. The question of divine infinity is central to understanding the nature of God and humanity's relationship with the divine. It raises fundamental questions about the limits of human knowledge and the extent to which we can comprehend the infinite essence of God. By examining the views of these influential thinkers, we gain insight into the complex and nuanced discussion surrounding the concept of divine infinity.
Extract
[...] It is necessary, however, to introduce here a certain form of finiteness in the divine nature, in the sense that the formal being of God supposes that He exists in a certain order, according to a certain orientation, that of creation and transcendence. This form of God is that of a finite modality (because formal) but which is realized without end. It is the first form that exceeds all forms, as 'maxime formale omnium'. Thus, the link between perfection and infinite can be thought, imposing an overcoming of the postulates dictated by Aristotle in his Physics. [...]
[...] However, the infinite is what has no end. From this, the infinite exists only in potentiality, it cannot have a Telos. However, the notion of act and power implies the explanation of movement, related here to change. The act is what will modify the being by imposing a change in the realization of a power contained in its end. The movement in this sense is caused by an external power and an internal power that is found in the substance. [...]
[...] Thus, the analogical relationship of God to man assumes that the divine essence participates in the human essence in a displacement of relationship. Thus, the finite is an emanation of the infinite grasped through the relationship created by the analogy between God and his creature. Between the infinite and the finite, there exists a relationship of proportionality, by which the agent intellect returns to its source. It is then necessary to consider God as "absolutely simple being", in the sense that his being in his emanation escapes all conditionality. [...]
[...] The question of the infinite therefore implies, before being theological, being philosophical, or more precisely metaphysical. Duns Scot and the scholastics, in this sense, will rely on the analyses of the infinite proposed by Aristotle in his Physics and Metaphysics. Two kinds of infinites thus impose themselves, one thought in potentiality and the other in actuality, but in both cases, the infinite seems to have to escape our understanding. The infinite, in fact, supposes a category that escapes our understanding, in the sense that it appears inaccessible in its essence for a finite intellect. [...]
[...] 3.1 Presence of the infinite in man: end of the cut between finite and infinite in Bonaventure. There are two forms of infinity, the one that is in the truth of divine self-intellection and the one that the human intellect conceives by analogy about the creator. For Bonaventure, these two infinities are not separate but complementary, in the sense that divine infinity gives meaning to human life and shows it the path to truth. For Bonaventure, "God is an infinite ocean of substance", and this substantiality of infinity constitutes in his eyes a radical objection to those who would consider God's infinity as only negative knowledge, that is to say, consider it as a negation of the finite. [...]
