Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

Because D. Thom. treats of two things in this article: first, whether there is a knowledge of God conjoined with evils, that is, whether he knows them; secondly, in what manner it terminates in them — therefore we shall treat of both in this disputation.

The decision of this doubt is brief and easy, although there are not lacking reasons for doubting which seem to urge that there is no knowledge of evils in God.

§ I. Reasons for doubt.

1 The first reason for doubt is drawn from Sacred Scripture. For concerning God it is said in Habacuc. 1.: Your eyes are pure; you cannot look upon iniquity. And in Jeremiae 19. it is said of certain sins that they did not ascend into God's heart.

This is confirmed from Origen, who says in Psalm. 33. homil. 3. et 4. in Genesi, et ad Roman. 8. on the text: We know that those who love God, etc., that according to the usage of Scripture God is not said to know evils, but goods.

2 The second. Since the object of the divine intellect is the good—not indeed any good whatever, that is, only according to estimation, but true good, although not under the ratio of the good but of the true—therefore it cannot extend to evils, which are good only according to estimation. The consequence is evident: no power can extend beyond its adequately corresponding object.

3 Nevertheless, it must be said that God knows evils, whether of fault or of punishment. This is an article of faith, and D. Thom. proves it in praesenti from Prov. 15. Hell and perdition are before the Lord, and 2. contra Gent. from Psal. 68. My sins are not hidden from you, and it is said in Job 11.: He knows the vanity of men, and seeing, does he not consider iniquity? Hence all the Fathers and theologians commonly defend this assertion.

4 It is proved first by the reason of D. Thom. from 1. cont. Gent. cap. 71., which he adduces in these words: It is true that the good of the intellect consists in this: for an intellect is said to be good because it knows the true; but the true is not only that it is good to be good, but also that it is bad to be evil. For just as it is true to be what is, so it is true not to be what is not. The good of the intellect, therefore, also consists in the knowledge of evil. But since the divine intellect is perfect in goodness, none of the intellectual perfections can be lacking to it. Therefore, the knowledge of evils is present to it.

5 It is confirmed by the reason of the same S. Doct. ibidem, which he reduces to this form: For the knowledge of evils is never blameworthy in itself, insofar as it belongs to knowledge; that is, insofar as it is the judgment formed concerning evils, but only accidentally, insofar as through the consideration of evils someone is sometimes inclined toward evil. This, however, is not in God, because he is immutable. Therefore, nothing prevents God from knowing evils. This reason also demonstrates the point concerning penal evils: although it may be blameworthy to incur them on account of their own faults, it is not so insofar as knowledge in itself is of them; otherwise the reasoning concerning the supreme judge and governor, for whom penal evils must necessarily be known so that he may punish sinners, would be blameworthy.

6 Secondly, it is proved by the reason of the same Holy Doctor in this article, which he proposes in this form: It must be said that whoever perfectly knows something must know everything that can happen to it. Now there are some goods which can be corrupted by evils happening to them. Therefore, God would not perfectly know goods unless he also knew evils.

§ II. The reasons for doubt initially proposed are answered.

7 To the first reason it will be answered that those and similar testimonies which deny that God knows sins must be understood as referring to knowledge through the knowledge of approval and complacency. Thus D. Greg. 11. Moral. cap. 7. et lib. 23. cap. 1. et lib. 28. cap. 3. D. August. quaest. 152. in Exod. et lib. 83. quaestionum, quaest. 60. et 65. Add that it is also said that he does not know sins because he conceals them, as Ambros. explains in lib. 5. de Fide cap. 8. ad Theophyl. Lucae 13.; and that it is likewise said that he does not know them either according to operation, because he cannot be the cause of them, as Epiphanius says in lib. de Haeresibus, or because he does not know them through his own idea, but through created good, against which they oppose, as D. Thom. explains in praesenti. By this also its confirmation is sufficiently clear.

To the second reason it will be answered that, so that knowledge may not be carried beyond its formally adequate object, which is to be true good, it is enough that he know evils through the good; for the knowledge of opposites is the same.

This difficulty follows in due order upon the preceding one: since, once the question an est? of the divine knowledge with regard to evils has been explained, the mind is immediately prompted to inquire about the manner in which it terminates upon them.

§ I. Explanation of the heading.

8 For the understanding of the heading, it is to be noted that it is one thing for evil not to be able to be known without the good being known to which it is opposed; and another thing for it to be unable to be known except through such a good. Just as it is one thing for a relation not to be able to be known without its terminus being known, and another thing for it to be necessarily known through it. For in a relation the former is true and the latter false: because for the former it suffices that there be an indissoluble and uncircumventible bond between the one and the other, at least with respect to the intellect which is to terminate upon them: for the latter, however, a bond of just any kind is not desired, but such a one that the one may be the reason on account of which the other is known, so that the one is rendered knowable by means of the other.

9 Whence the heading of this difficulty does not inquire whether evil is known, or can be known by God without the good being known to which it is opposed; but whether it is thereby touched upon by the divine knowledge, so that in this manner, and in no other, the knowledge can terminate upon it? For it is certain that God cannot know evils unless he know the goods that are opposed to them. D. Thomas gave the best account of this in quodlib. 2. art. 11: because God knows each thing according to what it is, and not in any way whatever, but by touching upon it perfectly; but evil is said to be in an order of relation to good, inasmuch as it is the privation of good, or is set in opposition to it: and therefore it will not be able to be perfectly known unless the good be known to which it is contrary. Just as also many created goods cannot be known by God unless the evils be known; because they were produced as a remedy against evils, such as medicine, and the coming of Christ the Lord; or because some evils are involved in them, such as the order of the universe, in which death and the corruption of many are included: indeed no created good can be perfectly known by God unless the good opposed to it be known: because such a good is destructive of the evil to which it is opposed, and so cannot be perfectly touched upon while that evil is unknown.

10 Secondly, it is to be noted that the sense of the heading of this difficulty is not whether God knows evils through the created goods to which they are opposed, as though through an intelligible species, or as though through the object that is known per se in the first place by him: because from what has been said above it is certain that the divine essence alone has the character of an intelligible species with respect to any knowledge of the intellect of God. Just as it is also altogether certain that the aforesaid essence alone is the object known per se in the first place by God, in whom, as in an object seen first, he understands the other things. Wherefore the sense of the heading will be only this: whether God necessarily knows evils through the created goods, as through something contained in his essence, as a secondary object in a primary one: in such a way indeed that, although such created goods are known from the force of the previously known divine essence, they are nevertheless reasons for knowing: not indeed on God's part, but on the part of the object known with respect to evils: and consequently they are so compared with them that, if by an impossibility God did not know the aforesaid created goods, but only himself, then he would be ignorant of such evils, nor could his knowledge terminate upon them.

11 We have said, Not indeed on God's part, but on the part of the object known with respect to evils: because it is certain that the aforesaid goods are not the reason on account of which God is actively terminated toward evils by knowing them, as is clear from what was said in art. 8. And so we inquire only whether they ought to be passive terminations of those same evils, such that neither passively can they materially terminate the divine knowledge except by reason of the goods to which the evils are opposed; although the most formal reason of terminating, and the active termination of God himself, is always the divine essence; as is clear from what was said in disput. 3. dub. 4.

§ II. The negative opinion.

12 Zumel maintains the negative part in the conclusion 3. of this article, citing in its favour Bonaventure and Marsilius. Others also maintain it, whom Durandus cites with his name suppressed in 1. dist. 36. quaest. 1. num. 13. It is proved first from Dionysius the Divine, 7. de divinis nominibus, where he says: that God knows evils, as light, if it were knowing, would know the darkness: therefore God knows them: not indeed through the created goodnesses to which they are opposed, but through his own essence, or goodness. The consequence is evident. Because light, if it were knowing, would not know the darkness through something other than through itself.

13 Secondly. Because in God are found all the peculiar reasons of the good, with which evils have an opposition: therefore through them, such as they are in God himself, and as they have in him a divine being, all evils will be able to be known even in particular, although the created goods themselves, such as they are in themselves, are not touched upon. The consequence is evident. Because when they are found in God in a more perfect way, they will be able to lead more effectively into the knowledge of evils than the created goods themselves, such as they are in themselves.

It is confirmed first. Because otherwise God would receive the knowledge and the science which he has from something extrinsic, and would not have it from himself: since he would receive the knowledge of evil from a created good.

It is confirmed second. Because there is no peculiar evil which, according to its own proper and atomic reason, does not have an opposition with the divine good: therefore they will be able to be known through it. The antecedent is clear. Because every peculiar evil is discordant with the divine art and rule, which is the good of the divine intellect. The consequence, however, is proved. Because it is common to every artisan that through his own knowledge and art he touch upon all the defects which are against his own art: and thus a rhetorician through his art perceives the defects of ornate speech.

14 Thirdly. Because the evil of guilt, of punishment, and of nature very often consists formally in something positive: therefore at least in that case they can be known by God through themselves, even if by an impossibility we granted that the created goods to which they are opposed are not known by him. The antecedent is proved. For the evil of the sin of commission consists formally in a positive tendency toward an object discordant with the law, or with reason, as very many of the Thomists teach in the matter of sins; and the evil of punishment also is wont, insofar as it is such, to be something positive, as is clear in the fire of hell; and lastly the evil of nature very often is said to be something positive, as is clear in error with respect to the intellect, and in heat with respect to water: since heat is of itself, and according to its intrinsic entity, discordant with water, and, taken thus with it, it is badly disposed, even if it were there without the expulsion of coldness; and similarly error is in the same way discordant with the intellect. The consequence, however, is proved. Because that which is of itself positive, having a true entity, and consequently actuality, can of itself found true passive intelligibility, at least material intelligibility, by reason of which it can be touched upon immediately, that is, without the mediation of some other created thing, and known by God; since it does not found that intelligibility on account of some other created good, apart from the fact that it must be touched upon through the positive evil opposed to it, unless because it has of itself a true entity and actuality.

15 Fourthly. Because at least the evil of mortal guilt is opposed to God: therefore at least the aforesaid evil will be able to be known by God through his goodness, as through a reason for knowing, apart from the fact that it be known through the created goodness to which it is opposed. The consequence seems clear. Because the created goodness could be the reason for knowing the aforesaid evil (in the way hinted at in the explanation of the heading) for no other reason than because the evil of guilt is opposed to it; therefore if it is opposed to God, and to his goodness, this will be able to be the reason for knowing that evil, apart from the fact that in an intrinsic place the knowledge of the created goodness is desired, in the manner of an objective reason for knowing that evil. The antecedent, however, is proved. First, because the evil of mortal guilt is an aversion from God, who is the last end, and as far as it is of itself it destroys God. Then too, because it has an opposition with the eternal law of God; and therefore it is defined by this, that it is something said, done, or concupisced against the law of God. Lastly, because D. Thomas, infra quaest. 48. art. 6., assigning the difference between the evil of guilt and of punishment, says that the former is immediately opposed to the divine good, but the latter to a created good.

It is confirmed. Because God is of himself, and by reason of himself, the judge of sinners: therefore of himself, and by reason of himself, he will know them. The consequence is evident. Because the knowledge of a judge ought to be proportioned to the reason of the judge: therefore if God is of himself, and by reason of himself, the judge of sinners, he will also have the knowledge of them of himself, and by reason of himself, and not only by reason of the created goods to which they are opposed.

16 Lastly. Because evil in the common sense is directly opposed to the divine good: therefore at least the aforesaid evil will be able to be known by God precisely through his uncreated goodness. The consequence is clear from what has been said. The antecedent, however, is proved. First, from D. Thomas, de Verit. quaest. 2. art. 15., and in 1. dist. 36. quaest. 3. art. 2., where he teaches that evil, according to the common reason of evil, is opposed to God. Then also: because evil, according to the common reason of evil, is said to be every evil: therefore it will be opposed to him who is all good, namely God, insofar as he is the divine goodness itself per essentiam.

§ III. The knot of the difficulty is unloosed according to the mind of D. Thomas.

17 It must nevertheless be said that God does not know, nor can know, evils except through the created goods to which they are opposed. This assertion is to be understood in accordance with what we said in the explanation of the heading: and it is very consonant with Scripture. For in Psal. 13. it is said: The Lord prospers over the sons of men, to see whether there is one who understands, or who seeks God; all have turned aside together. These words are thus explained by Augustine and the Interlinear Gloss: That he might see those who turn aside from good, he regards those who seek God: because he does not know evils except through goods. And similarly in Job 1. and 2. it is asserted that Satan stood on a certain day before God among the sons of God. Gregory gives the reason for this (as Gonzal reports in the present passage) in 2. Moral. in these words: Therefore Satan is said to have stood before God, because God in the light sees the darkness, and through the good works of others sees the wickedness of Satan. Whence it is asserted that he was seen among the sons of God, because through their uprightness he discerned his malice. And therefore D. Thomas maintains this assertion in this article and in 1. cont. Gent. cap. 71. quodlib. 11. art. 2., and often elsewhere, as do the theologians in common, among whom are also to be mentioned Bonaventure in 1. dist. 36. quaest. 2. and Marsilius, quaest. 38. art. 4., whom Zumel did not adduce so well in support of his opinion.

18 The fundamental reason of this assertion, however, is taken from D. Thomas in the places cited and infra quaest. 17. art. 4. ad 3. It can be reduced to this form: Because no evil is formally and immediately opposed to God and to the divine good: therefore none can be known by him except, in the way hinted at in the explanation of the heading, through a created good to which it is formally and immediately opposed. The antecedent is proved by D. Thomas, then in quaest. 17. art. 4., in the solution ad 3., just cited: where he says thus: Because contraries and things opposed privatively are naturally produced about the same thing, therefore, insofar as God is considered in himself, nothing is contrary to him, neither by reason of his goodness nor by reason of his truth: because no falsity can exist in his intellect. But in our apprehension it has something contrary. For a false opinion about a thing is contrary to a true opinion about it. And thus lying idols are said to be opposed to the divine truth, insofar as a false opinion about idols is contrary to a true opinion about the goodness of God. Then also in 1. dist. 1. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad 1., from the fact that nothing is opposed to that good from which nothing can be taken away and nothing of which can be destroyed. Wherefore, since nothing can be taken away from God and from his goodness, and nothing of his can be destroyed, the consequence is that nothing can be opposed to him. The consequence, however, is proved and explained in a somewhat diffuse discourse, because the matter under discussion requires it. For if evil is taken precisely privatively, or insofar as it precisely imports only the privation of the opposed good, then, just as this is of itself nothing, so of itself it cannot found passive intelligibility, even material intelligibility, but it must necessarily found it by reason of something else; and consequently by reason of its opposite, with which it of itself and intrinsically has such a connexion that it is nothing other than the privation of that opposite, nor is anything else immediately and formally required except the knowledge of its opposite for the sake of its being touched upon. But if evil, in the reason of evil, be something positive, as the highly probable opinion of many Thomists teaches concerning the sin of commission, then, although the aforesaid evils, insofar as they are entities, according to which reason they are good, can be known through themselves, that is, without the mediation of a created good, they cannot nevertheless be known insofar as they are such entities, that is, insofar as they are deficiencies and evils: because evil cannot be known, for example, sin as such, unless it be known as discordant from the divine rule; but it cannot be known as discordant unless it be known first in what the concord with that rule consists: or (which is the same thing) in the good that is concordant with it. And we say this same thing by analogy of any other evil: because nothing is formally evil except insofar as it is discordant from some rule, art, or idea; or insofar as it is dissonant from some nature. And so it cannot be known according to this reason unless it be known first what is concordant with such an art, or consonant with that nature. And therefore a grammarian, and any other artisan, does not know the incongruity and the defect, even a positive one, against his art, except by means of the knowledge of the congruity and of the concord with it.

§ IV. The arguments of the first opinion are met head-on.

19 To the first point the answer is given first, that Dionysius the Divine, in the words quoted there, is not speaking of the knowledge of the evils of which we are speaking here, but of the knowledge of created goods which, in comparison with the divine goodness, are said to be non-things and evils: as is clear from that of Isaiah, cap. 40: All the nations are as though they were not; so are they before him. And from Matth. 7: If then you, when you are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? In which words the just, compared with the divine goodness, are called evil. Just as also in the same sense that dictum is verified: No one is good except God alone, that is, no one is good if he be compared with the divine goodness.

Secondly it is answered that the intention of Dionysius is not to establish an altogether complete likeness between light in that event and God, but a partial one, in as far as God also in some way knows all evils through his own essence: because through it he knows created goods, and with those as intermediaries, in as far as something of that kind holds him on the part of the passive termination of evils, in the way hinted at above, he knows those same evils. And so his goodness is the radical reason for touching upon them, and also the most formal reason, by which his knowledge is specified.

20 To the second point, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied. Because nothing can be opposed to created goodnesses, such as they are in God, and as they are God himself, as has been said. Whence it is not inferred, from the fact that created perfections are in God in a nobler way than in themselves, that they, such as they are in God, can be the nearest reasons, holding themselves on the part of the object known, for this, that evils be known: since that greater perfection rather takes away from them that evils be opposed to them, according as they are in God, and consequently they are known precisely through them as thus taken.

To the first confirmation it is clear from what was said in the explanation of the heading how created goods are not active reasons of the termination of the divine knowledge toward evils, but only passive ones, and in what sense the fontal and radical reason of knowing itself is the divine essence, as has been explained.

To the second confirmation it is clear from what was said in support of the assertion.

To the third it is also clear from what we have asserted. Whence a created good cannot be known by God precisely on account of its essence because it is something positive; but because it is a positive thing of such a kind, namely, having the character of good, and not having the character of the deficient and of dissonance from a rule or an art.

21 To the fourth point the antecedent must be denied. And to the first proof it is to be said that the evil of guilt turns away from God, and is opposed to him as an end and as an offended person, or as an object, but not as a form: and so between the two there is only an opposition (so to speak) that is objective, and not formal. For according to this opposition it is not opposed except to grace, or to habits, etc., to which it is contrary, or by which it is deprived. Whence, just as to know blindness perfectly one must know sight, as the form by which it is deprived, and the visible object, as that by which, perceived as an object, it is deprived; so, to touch upon the evil of guilt perfectly, in whatever way God ought to touch upon it, it is necessary that he know both the form to which it is opposed; then also the person to whom the offense is done, and the end from which he is turned away by the sin, which indeed is none other than God himself: whom the mortal guilt itself, in the act of the sinner, has immediately to destroy as an end, and as an object and an offended person, but not as a form and an immediately opposed habit.

To the second proof, however, it is to be said that mortal guilt does not have an immediate opposition with the law that exists in God, but by means of a created good, to which the aforesaid guilt is opposed, whether that be the opposed act together with grace and charity, etc., as happens in sins of omission; or whether the aforesaid opposed act be not there, but grace and charity themselves, with which the aforesaid sin has an opposition, whether they be considered in themselves or as they are fervid: yet so that mortal sins are opposed to grace and charity taken in themselves, and are venial to them insofar as they are fervid, as many probably teach happens in sins of omission and in the case of negative laws that are opposed. For that law prohibits indirectly that the aforesaid act be done, even with regard to that respect according to which it is, in the way just described, opposed to grace and charity.

Add that neither is it formally opposed to the human law, if we speak properly: since things formally opposed must turn around the same subject, which nevertheless does not happen here: because the law is in the intellect, insofar as it is its act; but the formal and intrinsic malice of the sin is in the will.

To the third proof, however, it is answered that the sense of D. Thomas is only this, that the evil of guilt is objectively opposed to God, but not formally.

22 To the confirmation, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied; and to the proof it is to be said that the knowledge of a judge ought to be proportioned to the reason of a judge with respect to other things, but not with respect to what is said there: because evil is not otherwise knowable except through the good opposed to it.

Add that, as Gonzalez well noted in the present passage, rather the proportion which ought to obtain between God's knowledge, as that of a judge, and the reason of a judge, which he has, seems to demand this manner of knowing evils. For God, as a judge, does not intend punishment as an evil of punishment, but on account of some other good: and similarly he intends in the first place to bestow a reward on the good, and for the greater glory of the predestined he has established the penalties for punishing sins. Whence it is not surprising that the knowledge of sinners presupposes the knowledge of goods, and that in the way explained above there is the reason on account of which evils themselves passively terminate the divine knowledge, although they are not the reason on account of which God is actively terminated toward them.

23 To the last point, the antecedent must be denied. And to the first proof it is answered first, in agreement with some of the more rigorous Thomists, that D. Thomas speaks of evil negatively, insofar as not good denies every reason of good, even if it have no subject, and that evils of this kind (among which is counted not God) cannot be known except through the divine goodness: we are not, however, speaking of evil taken precisely in this way, as will be evident to the reader.

Secondly it is answered to the same proof that D. Thomas merely wishes it to be understood that the greatest evil, thus taken in the common sense, without determining in what it consists, is opposed to God, who is the greatest good, not indeed by an opposition secundum rem, but, as he himself explains in 2. dist. 1. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad 2., in the word: Because, since the knowledge and the science which God has of a thing ought to be of the thing according to the thing itself, therefore it ought to be through the good to which it is according to the thing itself opposed, and not precisely through the divine goodness.

To the second proof, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied, if we speak of an opposition secundum rem. Because the aforesaid evil, even in the common sense, is not naturally situated about God as about a subject: and so it is opposed only to a created good, in this way: because only the aforesaid good can be fitted for this, that it be received in the same subject in which evil can be received, in this way.

The conclusion is affirmative.

Around this conclusion it is usual to inquire whether our intellect knows singulars directly, an occasion taken from certain words of D. Thomas in this article, because from the fact that we know singulars it is inferred that God knows them under a higher title. But, since the Complutenses treat this at length in 3. de Anima disput. 21. quaest. 6., we therefore say nothing about this difficulty here.

Conclusion. God knows infinities both by the knowledge of simple intellection and by vision.

Concerning this conclusion and the doctrine of this article, let those see what we said in the treatise On the Vision of God, arts. 7 and 8, where we explained how the blessed see infinities in the divine essence; and for what reason they cannot see all possible creatures, from the fact that they cannot comprehend God: but God himself is otherwise, who comprehends himself, as also our Complutenses say in 3. Physic. disp. 18. quaest. 5.

The first conclusion is affirmative.

Second conclusion. Future contingents, such as they are actually in themselves, are subject to a certain and infallible knowledge of God: but such as they are in their causes, they are not subject to a certain knowledge.

Third conclusion. God knows future contingents, such as they are actually in themselves: not only because he holds the reasons of things within himself, but also because they are present to him in eternity.