Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The title is clear: for he intends through certain likenesses, such as intelligible species, apart from the divine essence itself.

In the body, one conclusion, answering the question in the negative: Those who see God do not see other things in Him through their own species, but through the divine essence itself united to their intellect. – It is proved. Each thing is known insofar as its likeness is in the knower. Therefore a thing comes to be known in two ways: namely, through a likeness of itself, and through a likeness of something similar to it. Therefore it is known in itself, and in another. Therefore for other things to be seen in God is for them to be seen not through their own proper likenesses, but according to their likenesses in God. Therefore things seen in God are seen not through species, but through the divine essence alone united to the intellect.

The first consequence is proved from the fact that whatever things are similar to one and the same thing are also similar to each other: for from this the other member, which could have been turned into a doubt, manifestly follows. – The second consequence, however, is proved by the topic of convertibles. For to be known through its own species is to be known in itself as an object, and conversely; and likewise, to be known through the species of another is to be known in another as an object. – The third proof it does not need: for it is evident that for a thing to be seen in God is for it to be seen in another to which things are assimilated. And on this account they are said to have their similitudes in God, just as every effect has something in its cause to which it is assimilated. – The last consequence, however, holds as regards its second part from what was determined ear¹lier, namely that the divine essence is joined to the intellect not through a species but through itself. And therefore, since according to the force of the present discussion there should have been concluded in the text: "therefore things seen in God are seen not through their proper species but through the species of God"; what was inferred instead was: "but they are seen through the divine essence itself united to the intellect." For that essence holds not only the place of the object in which other things are seen; it also supplies the role of the species by which the intellect is assimilated to the object.

II. On these matters, Capreolus, in III, dist. XIV, qu. II, and in IV, dist. XLIX, qu. VI, cites certain arguments from a certain Irishman and Aureolo, unworthy of mention in this place: either because even a boy could resolve them from the letter of the text; or because they inquire into the distinction between morning knowledge and evening knowledge, concerning which, as such, we shall treat below².