“Infinitely above all these natures is the Divine nature; for none other is so purely spiritual ; none other has like it the power to behold God immediately or unite itself so intimately to His own nature by love.”

 from Scheeban, Glories of Divine Grace 42

A being’s nature is what it is. Isn’t G-d united to His own nature like all beings, to that-which-He-is?  And can there be any more intimate relationship that the relationship between a being and that-which-it-is?

Yes, He is related to His Own Nature like all beings, as to that-which-He-Is. But in  addition, he is united to His Nature by love.  For G-d, besides being Being Itself, Goodness, Truth and Beauty,  also loves Being itself, Goodness, Truth and Beauty. No other rational being (irrational beings are incapable of love, which is a free act of will)  can love its own nature without turning away from Being Itself, Goodness, Truth and Beauty (from G-d).  So no other being can have the intimate relationship which G-d has to His Own Nature: of loving its own nature.  A man or an angel that loved its own nature would violate its own nature!  For as a rational being, his nature is fulfilled in the love of G-d (of Goodness, Truth and Beauty), but when he loves himself, he puts himself before G-d, before Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.

We might also say that there is something still closer to a rational being than his own nature (what-he is): what he loves,  because the object of his love is what actualizes his freedom, his will and his intellect.  The object of his love is that through which a rational being actually exists. He becomes present to himself through his love and the object of his love. Since a rational being is, by definition, a being whose existence is actualized in its consciousness, he is closer to the object of his love than he is to his own nature;  he is closer to that through which he actually exists than to that in which his existence is merely a potentiality.

Blessings,