Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, "ly" all distributes over all things and over all their aspects, absolute and relative, real and of reason, not only those that are in any way whatever, but also those that can be without contradiction, that is, over all things simply. – "Ly" in God is understood objectively: so that in this object, which is God, all things contained in it may be seen in any way whatever.

II. In the body, one conclusion, answering the question in the negative: No created intellect can see all things in God; but more or fewer, according to the manner of seeing God. – It is proved. Whatever things are seen in God are seen insofar as they are in Him: therefore they are seen as effects virtually contained in their cause: therefore more or fewer are seen, according as God is seen more perfectly or less perfectly: therefore not all things, unless God be totally comprehended. Therefore by no created intellect can all things be seen in God; but more or fewer, according to the manner of seeing Him.

The antecedent is clear. The first consequence is proved: because all things are in God as in the most eminent cause. The second, however, is proved: because the more perfectly some cause is known, the more effects are seen in it. And this is made manifest from the difference among human intellects concerning some proposition that is a principle of many conclusions. The third evidently follows from the second. The fourth, however, is proved: because no created intellect can comprehend God.

III. Concerning the first consequence, a doubt arises from Scotus¹ and others who hold that things are in God as in a voluntary mirror. And the argument is formed against the letter as follows. Things are in God not only as in a cause, but as in a voluntary mirror: therefore the fallacy of Consequent is committed in inferring: therefore things are seen in God precisely as in a cause. For it is evident that the word precisely is understood implicitly in the text; otherwise it would not infer what was intended, as is clear. – The antecedent is proved. By the authority of Augustine, in the book On Seeing God²: God represents all things distinctly, as a mirror does, and not indistinctly only, as a cause does. And for this reason, since the whole course of the argument rests on this, that God represents things indistinctly only as a cause, it seems to collapse.

IV. To make this evident, know, from Qu. de Verit., qu. XII, art. 6, that things are in God properly as in a cause, but metaphorically as in a mirror. For God is truly and properly a cause: not truly and properly a mirror, but metaphorically. He is called a mirror because he represents distinctly: but he is not properly a mirror, because he does not represent things impressed upon him by another, as the nature of a mirror requires: on account of which condition, the mirror is appropriated to the Word of God proceeding from the Father, Sap. VII³, for he is the brightness of eternal light, and the spotless mirror, as being the express image of the Father. But it is established from Dionysius⁴ and Augustine⁵, that symbolic theology is not argumentative. Nothing therefore efficacious can be inferred from this metaphorical name.

V. To the authority of Augustine, then,⁶ it is said to be a metaphorical locution, on account of that condition, namely because it represents distinctly. Voluntary, however, it is said by reason of the voluntary bestowal of the light of glory, and of so great a light. And this with respect to the beatific vision. With respect, however, to new revelations, God does not concur objectively, but causally. And therefore it is altogether voluntary, and as it were an exemplary mirror.

VI. To the argument in the opposite direction⁷ it is said that one truly sins according to the fallacy of Consequence, as if representing distinctly could occur in only one way, namely as in a mirror. Here you should know that representing distinctly occurs in two ways. In one way, so that the distinction holds on the side of the representant; as appears in a mirror, in which each species representing something remains distinct from the species representing something else in the same mirror. In another way, such that the distinction holds on the side of the things represented; as if we were to say: the intellective soul represents distinctly the form of corporeity, and the form of the mixed body, and the vegetative soul, and the sensitive soul. For these do not have, in the nature of the intellective soul, distinct foundations for those likenesses to it; but by one and the same thing the nature of the intellective soul corresponds to all of them as like, no less than if each had its own proper foundation of likeness. For thus it represents the proper conditions of each, as if it were the adequate species of each. And the reason is that exceeding does not impede the perfection of representing: for the species of white would represent white no less if, along with this, it represented black through the same thing.

Reason therefore errs in two ways. First, because it argues from a metaphorical sense. Second, because it supposes that to represent distinctly is nothing other than a distinction on the side of the representer: which is already evident to be false, and most false in the matter at hand. For God in glory does not have his effects distinctly on the side of himself in his nature, but on the side of the effects: since he himself is the most perfect act, possessing all things beforehand in the highest unity; and from so eminent a perfection he has that he is thus the proper exemplar of this thing and of that—that is, he has what is thus proper to this and proper to that—as if there were a distinct exemplar of each singular.

Hence the consequence of the text is understood with precisely, as it is said in arguing: and it is best, because in God all things other than Himself are not except indistinctly and most unitively, which is to be virtually in the cause. For this is truly the truth according to theology and philosophy, as St. Thomas will say in qu. XIV⁸ And note well: since without this foundation you will always err concerning God and the things existing or seen in Him when you speak, and you will fall into childish and vulgar loquacities.

VII. Concerning the proof of the second consequence⁹, a doubt arises. For Scotus, in III, dist. XIV, qu. II¹⁰, says that this proof contains the fallacy of the Consequent. Since, given that it is true what is said in the text, namely that one who knows a cause more perfectly sees more effects in it, it does not therefore follow that the converse is true, namely that he who sees more effects must see the cause more perfectly. And yet the whole argument rests upon this proposition understood implicitly; and not upon the one expressly stated in the text.

That the converse proposition, which converts that one, is false, Scotus proves there in three ways, in general. First, insofar as a cause receives no perfection from what is caused, because it is prior. Therefore the knowledge of the principle, as it is a cause, is not perfected by the knowledge of its conclusions.

Furthermore, I take one principle known in some degree, and ask whether, without its knowledge being increased, some conclusion can be known through it, or not. If so, the point is established. And if one, then by equal reason other conclusions contained in it can be known, without more perfect knowledge of the principle. If not, therefore a principle known in this degree is not a principle, because it is no principle at all.

Furthermore, in the first book of the Posterior Analytics Posteriorum¹¹, what a thing is is supposed, and that it is is known as a passion of it. But the knowledge of what a thing is is not perfected through the knowledge of the posterior quia. Therefore the knowledge of a principle is not made more perfect by the fact that it makes us know the thing principiated.

VIII. Durandus and Gottifredus¹² also oppose the same argument, insofar as it rests on that manifestation concerning the principle and its conclusions. First, because it is not alike with respect to containment: for the conclusions are contained in the principle in potency and confusedly; whereas in the first cause the effects are contained in act and distinctly. – Then, because it is not alike with respect to being known: for from the principle the conclusions are not known in act unless a deduction, subsumption, application, etc., has been made; whereas in the first cause the effects are seen simply.

IX. For the clarification of these points, know that something can be seen in two ways. In one way, in itself objectively; as a mirror placed opposite the sight is seen in itself. In another way, in another thing objectively; as things situated behind the one seeing are seen in a mirror: for they are seen not in themselves, but in species resembling them shining back in the mirror. And as it is in bodily things, so it is in spiritual things. In the matter at hand, therefore, the discussion is not about the vision of all things in themselves, but in another, namely in the object: yet not as in a mirror, but as in a cause, as is clear from what has been said¹³.

We understand something to be seen in or from a cause, not when the cause seen is related in any manner whatsoever to the vision of the effect, but only if it is related as the per se sufficient cause of that effect. Otherwise, the effect would not be seen by virtue of the vision of the cause, but from elsewhere.

This being granted, the intended point is demonstrated as follows. The same thing, remaining the same, always, insofar as it is from itself, does the same. Therefore a cause known to some degree, remaining entirely the same both in its esse and in its being known, always does the same. Therefore it is impossible that, as such, it should cause some effect to be known which it did not cause to be known from the beginning. Therefore it cannot give rise to knowledge of more effects unless changed. But not in its esse: therefore in its being known. And not in being less known, as is evident: therefore in being more fully known. This is what was intended. – Hence it is clear that seeing more in a cause, and seeing the cause more perfectly, are convertible with one another, each following upon the other.

Since also, if one sees the cause more perfectly, one sees more in it; and if one sees more in it, one sees the cause itself more perfectly. Otherwise, seeing more in it would be an effect without a cause. For if a more perfect mode of seeing the cause is not caused by such a disposition of the cause, some other new disposition of the cause will be the cause of this effect; nor will it be easy to feign that disposition either in being or in being known.

X. From these things, however, the response to Scotus is now evident¹⁴. For in convertible terms the fallacy of the consequent does not arise: but when one is posited, the other is understood to be posited as well.

To the two objections against the truth made manifest—which truth is real in the cause and in the effects, and in the principle, not only in being known, but in being—and in the conclusions, it is easily answered by saying that Scotus either was, or feigned himself to be, blind. For it is one thing for the knowledge of the conclusions in or from the principle as from a sufficient cause to presuppose a more perfect knowledge of the principle; and another thing to make that knowledge itself more perfect. These differ more than heaven and earth. In the text the first is taught, not the second: and arguing against the second only, he attacks the second only. Wherefore, briefly, let it be conceded gratis that neither is the knowledge of the principle as cause perfected through the knowledge of the conclusion; nor that the knowledge of what it is is perfected through the knowledge of that it is, which is the effect of demonstration. But in both cases, other things being equal, a greater knowledge of the principle and of the quiddity is presupposed, if by the force of their knowledge those things are known now, and were not before.

To the second objection, however, which asks the question, either side may be answered. First, by saying that a principle known in some degree, as such, is not the principle of anyone's knowing it in act, on account of the imperfection of the cognition, and not from the nature of that principle itself. For this involves no absurdity. – Second, even granting that, in whatever degree it is known, it is the principle of some conclusion also in knowing, the inference is denied, namely that therefore it, without its cognition being increased, will be the principle of knowing one other thing. And if it is asked why it is that for one conclusion the minimal vision of the principle suffices, and for another it does not: St. Thomas answers in Quaestiones de Veritate, q. VIII, art. 4, ad 12, that, once the cause has been seen, it is at hand from which we perceive some conclusions in or from it, because they are more manifest in it; but this is not so with all of them, because many effects are more hidden, as experience attests.

XI. To the first objection of the others¹⁵ it is said that, on the contrary, there is a similar containment. For the principle of demonstration, insofar as it has active power with respect to the conclusions, contains them in act; and consequently, not confusedly, but distinctly on the side of the things contained, yet in its own order. For it is common to every active cause to contain its effects in act, formally or eminently.

To the second objection it is said that, although it matters greatly to be known from another and to be known in another, and through discourse and without discourse, etc.; yet as regards the knowledge of the plurality of effects on account of a known cause, in such a way that the term on account of denotes a sufficient cause, it does not matter. For equal is the judgment, other things being equal. And therefore the text makes mention of both: both of knowledge in another, as it were throughout; and of knowledge from another, in the manifestation brought forward concerning the demonstrative principle. – It could also be said that the text intends knowledge in another only: and that conclusions can even be known in the principle, and not only from the principle, as is clear in the term of science, where, once the conclusions have been resolved, all things are seen in the principles: and that if someone, upon seeing the principle, begins to see many conclusions, that one without doubt penetrates the principle more perfectly with no discourse at all, and this belongs rather to angelic than to human nature; since to understand belongs to that nature, but to reason belongs to ours. Nor does it stand in the way that the text names knowledge from the principle: because the declaration is a posteriori. For from the fact that we experience that knowing more from the principle proceeds from a greater knowledge of the principle, we have a sign that knowing more in the cause proceeds from nothing other than a greater knowledge of the cause: because if what is seen less and is present in something, then all the more in what is present more. Therefore the demonstrative principle was not brought forward as similar to the cause in the mode of knowledge with respect to the conclusions, etc.: but as a sign a posteriori. Wherefore let the carpers be silent.

XII. Concerning the third consequence¹⁶, a doubt arises from the very nature of the divine knowability itself. First, from Aureolus and Gottifredus¹⁷, directly against the consequence, as follows. To know all things in God admits of degrees: therefore it does not entail comprehending God, which stands indivisibly fixed. The consequence is evident. And the antecedent is proved. To know all things in God can occur in two ways: by having an infinite cognition extensively; and by having an infinite cognition intensively; and this alone is comprehension, because, speaking per se, the perfection of cognition is measured according to its intension. Therefore it is possible to know all things in God clearly, and more clearly, and infinitely clearly, which is to comprehend. The vision of all things in God, then, admits of degrees. – And it is confirmed. All other things besides God, were they posited, would not equal in being (in essendo) God's infinite esse: therefore, if all things are posited as known, they do not equal his knowability. Therefore comprehension does not follow from the knowledge of all things.

XIII. Scotus also, in the place cited above¹⁸, argues against this in two ways. First, thus: If A is present in B and C in a certain order, such that B is the whole reason why A is present in C, then if one seeing B does not comprehend A, much less will one seeing C comprehend A. An example: a subject and two attributes, one of which is present by means of the other: if one seeing the first attribute does not comprehend the subject, neither will one seeing the second. But intensive infinity is present in God, and all things are in Him, and intensive infinity is the reason why all things are in Him; therefore just as seeing intensive infinity does not entail comprehending God, as is evident, so neither does seeing all things in God entail the comprehension of God.

Second, thus. One who knows a single effect in the Word does not comprehend that effect, nor the Word as it is its cause. Therefore, however many effects he may know, he will not comprehend any of them, nor the Word as it is the cause of any of them. Therefore, one who knows all does not comprehend either them or God.

XIV. For the clarification of these matters, know that to see all things is not only to see how many, but how much the divine power is able. For there is present there not only extension according to number, but intensification according to perfection: since God can not only, whatever He has made, make something else; but, whatever He has made, He can always make something more perfect. Hence, although it is impossible for all things to come into being, whether in being or in being known, this conditional nevertheless is true: that if they were to come into being, an adequate effect of the divine power would be produced; and likewise, if they were to be known, an adequate effect of the same would be known. Now it is evident that, once the adequate effect of any power is known, it is easy to comprehend that power itself. And if this happens from the knowledge of all things in themselves, much more does the knowledge of all things in their cause presuppose a comprehension of that cause itself. For so great a knowledge is presupposed as is the force of causing: otherwise, from knowledge of the cause, its adequate effect—that is, the universality of possibles—would remain unknown.

XV. These things having been set forth in advance, to the first¹⁹ the antecedent is denied. The proof, however, assumes or presupposes one falsehood: that there can be known in God how many things are possible without its being known how much is possible. For this has been shown²⁰ to be false. Therefore, seeing all things in God and seeing God infinitely imply one another mutually.

For confirmation, it can be said in two ways. First, by denying the final inference: for although from the knowledge of all things comprehension does not follow, yet it does follow from the knowledge of all things in God, or as cause; and it is of this that we are speaking, not of that. – It also seems to me that one can say secondly, that "to equal the divine being or to be known" can be understood in two ways. In one way, that the entity or knowability of God and of those things be equal: and in this way they would not equal it. In another way, that the knowability of God, or of the divine power as such, would not be of greater knowability than that which all things together would represent; just as we say that understanding is an effect equal to the intellective soul, and yet it is not equal in entity nor in knowability in the first way, but in the second. And in this way all things would equal the divine being and the divine knowability. – But, as was said²¹, it involves a contradiction that all things should be made, whether in being or in being known: for always, whatever has been made, he can make something else and more perfect, and whatever has been revealed, he can reveal something else, since the divine power is inexhaustible.

XVI. To the first objection Scotus²² it is said that the major premise is true when the mode of being in is kept the same, but not when it is varied. For in those things that are formally present in something in a certain order, etc., that proposition is true; and therefore it holds in the example adduced. But in those things of which the first is present formally and the second causally, it is not true. For, just as a priori the vision of a cause entails the vision of the things existing formally in it, but not of all the things contained virtually in it (since the former appear manifestly in it, while the latter lie hidden in its power); so, conversely, the vision of all the things contained virtually in a cause entails a posteriori the comprehension of the cause, whereas the vision of the things existing formally in it entails only the vision of the cause itself; because the former belong to the order of things hidden in the cause, the latter to the order of things manifest in it. And therefore, when B is present formally in A the cause, and C is present virtually, it can happen that the vision of B does not entail the comprehension of A, and yet the vision of C does entail it. Such is the case in the matter at hand. For intensive infinity is in God formally; but all things are in Him, not formally, but virtually: and consequently the former are manifest when God is seen, and conversely; the latter, however, because they are present in Him latently, are seen according to the mode of the vision of God. And therefore the vision of all these things in the cause, as belonging to the order of hidden things, presupposes the comprehension of Him: but not the vision of infinity. – Therefore, when the mode of being in is varied, that major premise is false. But here it is evident that it is varied. Therefore.

To the second argument of the same, it is said that to comprehend some effect can be understood in two ways. In one way, that it be known according to all things, even possibles existing through the power present in it. In another way, that it be known according to all things, even possibles in any manner whatsoever, whether through a power in itself or in another. If comprehend is taken in the first way, I deny that one who sees the stone in the Word does not comprehend it. For I say that the soul of Christ sees in the Word every creature, and whatever is in its power: and consequently comprehends every created thing, in the first way. And by the same reasoning it comprehends the Word as it is the cause of that thing as such. A sign of this is that for comprehending this it is not required that it see the Word more perfectly. Nor is this to comprehend God, except in a certain respect: which is not unfitting. – But if comprehend is taken in the second way, then the final consequence is denied. For some one effect or however many effects are not an adequate object of the divine power: for every possible is its adequate object, and adequate effect. And therefore there is not the same judgment concerning one or several, and all; just as neither concerning an inadequate and an adequate effect. The argument therefore errs, arguing from the unequal to the equal. For although knowing an unequal effect in the cause does not presuppose comprehension of it, yet knowing an equal one does presuppose it.

You will find many other arguments on this subject in Capreolus, in III, dist. XIV, qu. II, and in IV, dist. XLIX, qu. VI. See there: for these seemed opportune to this place.