Question 1. Whether theology is about God as about its first object.

124. The question is whether theology is about God as about its first object.

And that it is not is argued in two ways:

[Argument in the First Way] - The first way is that something else is the subject of theology, therefore this is not.

The antecedent is proved in several ways:

125. First thus, from Augustine On Christian Doctrine 1 ch.2 n.2: “All Scripture is of things or of signs;” therefore things or signs are the subject.

126. Again, Scripture has four senses: the anagogical, the tropological, the allegorical, and the historical or literal; but to each of these senses there corresponds some first subject, just as to any other science having one sense there corresponds a subject in accord with that sense; therefore here there are four subjects.

127. Again, that man is the subject is proved by the authority of the Commentator on Ethics bk.1 in the prologue, because, according to him there, moral science is of man as to his soul, medical science is of man as to his body. From this is received the proposition: ‘every practical science has for first object that for which the end of the practical science is acquired and not the end itself’; but the end of this science is acquired for man, not God; therefore man is the subject of this science.

128. Again in another way, though it comes back to the same: the end of a science is to attain through its act the first object by introducing into the act the form principally intended by the science, to wit: as in the case of speculative science, to introduce into it ‘being known’, because knowledge is principally there intended; in the case of practical science, to introduce the form to which its action is ordered; but the end here intended is moral goodness, and the intention is not to introduce it in God but in man; therefore man is its first object.

129. [Argument in the Second Way] - The second way to the proposed conclusion is to show that God is not theology’s first object.

This is proved first by the authority of Boethius On the Trinity ch.2: “The form,” he says, “cannot be a simple subject.”

130. Again, the matter does not coincide with the other causes in the same thing, whether in number or in kind (Physics 2.7.198a24-27); but God is the end and efficient cause of this science; therefore he is not the matter of it.

131. Again, from Posterior Analytics 1.28.87a38-39, the subject of a science has parts: principles and properties. But God does not have integral parts, since he is altogether simple, nor subjective parts, since he is singular of himself; nor does he have principles, since he is the first principle, nor properties, because a property is present in a subject in such a way that it is outside the subject’s essence; nothing is present in God in this way.

132: To the Contrary:

Augustine City of God VIII ch.1: “Theology is discussion or reasoning about God.”