3. Consideration of the Aforesaid Reasons

41. These reasons are not compelling:

Not the first [nn.37-39] because the examples do not prove the matter at issue [n.39]; for they prove only that the whole loves the good of itself (or loves the more principal parts of the whole) more than it loves the good of a less principal part.

42. The point is plain from the first experiment, about water [n.37]; for it is impossible for water to move itself upward because of some good of the universe; for from the fact it has a natural form, which is determined to one action, that form (remaining numerically the same) can never be the formal idea of acting with the opposite action; water itself, then, does not move itself upwards but is only thus moved upwards by some externally moving agent to which alone it belongs (as far as concerns its own nature) to be upwards; and so water is moved violently when one compares the mover with the proper nature of water. This part then is not loving the good of the whole, nor is it saving the whole by love; rather the whole (or the virtue regulative in the whole), to which are attributed the virtues of the universe, moves each and every part of the universe as befits the wellbeing of the whole. From this then is got that the whole universe loves the wellbeing of the whole more than the wellbeing proper to this or that part.

43. The same conclusion is got from the other example [n.38]; for the hand does not of its own desire expose itself for the whole, but the man, possessing these parts (one of which is more principal and another less principal), exposes the less principal part, which it can lose without danger to the whole, so as to save the whole and the other part which cannot be lost without loss of the whole totality.

44. And thus can you take it in the matter at issue, that God loves the wellbeing of the universe, or even its being, more than the wellbeing of one part, and loves the wellbeing of a principal part than the wellbeing of a less principal part. But you cannot get that some creature loves the being of God or the being of the universe more than its own proper being - just as in the examples given a part left to itself (considered according to its own inclination) never exposes itself to non-existence for the sake of another.

45. The likeness fails in another respect too, for if what is supposed about these parts be true, that is that they are something really of the whole and that, by saving the whole, they save themselves insofar as they have their being in the whole, yet no creature is thus a participated part of God although it is something of God as an effect or participation of him.

46. The second reason too, about beatitude [n.40], is not conclusive because it proceeds only about the affection of advantage [d.26 n.110]; among things indeed that are desired by the lover beatitude is desired most of all, but it is not loved most of all; rather that for which beatitude is desired more is loved more (as the end is loved more than what is for the end). Likewise the assumption about beatitude [n.41] is only true when speaking of it in general and not when determining it to that wherein it consists. So one does not get the conclusion that someone loves something other than himself more than he loves himself, for it has not been determined that ‘what beatitude exists in’ is other than the lover.