Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

1 Since we have shown the impossibility of middle knowledge, both by the testimonies of Scripture, the Fathers, and the Scholastics, and from the defect of its own necessity, with respect to those two difficulties on account of whose solution it was introduced; and likewise also from its incompatibility with the predestination of adults: it remains that we prove this same impossibility from other headings as well; and therefore, to accomplish this more fully, the following disputation is instituted.

This difficulty must be dispatched most briefly, because its resolution is established, from what was said in disp. 7, almost throughout. It must therefore be said that the impossibility of middle knowledge is shown by a sufficient reason a priori, or quasi a priori. Thus the Doctors whom we cited in disp. 10, dub. 8. This assertion can be proved no better than by setting forth the aforesaid reason for it: and that reason, taken from D. Thom., we can reduce to this brief form. Since, before the efficacious decree, whether absolute or conditional, of the divine will, existing in God, it has nothing with respect to the future, whether absolute or conditional: therefore it is repugnant that something be known as future by any knowledge: therefore it will also be repugnant for middle knowledge to be given. This last consequence is clear from the first. Since middle knowledge is posited by the Adversaries for the knowing of future contingents, whether absolute or conditional, before the efficacious decree of the divine will, existing in that prior. But the first consequence follows from the antecedent. Since it is repugnant for something to be known as future by divine knowledge, when it is not in fact future; otherwise such a knowledge would be fallible, and consequently would not be divine. The antecedent, however, is established from what we said in disp. 7, num. 18, and more widely afterwards: where we also set out the evasions which the Adversaries offer against this reason, and refuted them at length.

It is confirmed. Because there is not present any medium in which future contingents, conditional or absolute, can be certainly known by God before the efficacious decree of His will: therefore there cannot be given any knowledge (which they call middle) by which they are then known. The consequence requires no proof. The antecedent, however, is clear, by running through all those media which we set out in disp. 7, from num. 26 up to num. 136, in various difficulties: and of which we showed in detail that they cannot serve for the aforesaid cognition of future contingents before the efficacious decree of the divine will.

2 Once the impossibility of middle knowledge has been proved a priori, or quasi a priori, from the impossibility of its object, before the efficacious decree of the divine will, there remains that we should demonstrate it further from some of the inconsistencies that follow from it; and since among all other things the most important is that which we recounted in the title of this Difficulty, we therefore begin with that in the first place.

§ I. Explanation of the Difficulty, and its first proof.

It must therefore be said that from the position of middle knowledge it is correctly inferred that the reason of the first cause, and of the first author of grace, is taken away from God; and consequently that by this head it is sufficiently proved that it is not to be admitted. Thus do the authors adduced for our opinion in disp. 10. dub. ult. This assertion, insofar as its last part follows from the preceding one, is sufficiently clear. As for the first part, however, it is proved by a fundamental reason drawn from D. Thom. in the places cited above; our own Cornelius, however, adduces it in due form, and expounds it in this article, disp. 3. num. 107. and 108. For from the position of middle knowledge it follows that the first root of the conditional futurition of our free act, even of a good one, for example the conversion of the Tyrians, if Christ were to preach to them, is not primarily to be referred back to God, but to their created will; and consequently their conversion in the state of the conditioned would not be due to God as first author, but to their own will; and this indeed removes from God the reason of the first cause with respect to free acts, and the reason of the first author of grace. The minor is sufficiently clear. The consequence, however, is proved. Because that conversion would be due to him as first author, from whom its futurition first arose in its execution; but if it be future antecedently with respect to the divine will, its futurition did not first arise from God, but from their own will: ergo, etc.

3 It makes no difference if, with the authors of the opposite opinion, one says that God is the first root and the author of such a futurition, not indeed by reason of any conditioned decree efficacious in the present act, by which such a conversion is willed under a condition, but by reason of the divine decree which precedes objectively, of giving to those men sufficient aid, by which they may be able to convert, and of concurring with their will, if they themselves are willing to convert.

It makes no difference, then, for this reason. Because by reason of that decree the conversion of the Tyrians is not more willed than their non-conversion; and therefore, precisely by reason of that decree, it cannot be attributed to God that he be the first root and the first author of that their conversion is to be determined. The consequence seems certain, and the antecedent is proved. Because by that decree God wills to concur only with the will of those men toward conversion, or toward an act which is not conversion, according as they themselves shall wish to act from their own native freedom; and therefore, so far as it lies on the part of that decree, the conversion is not more future than its omission; and therefore that it is in fact future, the condition and the aid being posited, cannot be referred back to the divine will, as to the first root and the first author of such a conversion.

4 It is confirmed. Because that will of God which is posited as objectively present, and which as thus present has being prior in the order of reason than that God, in our way of understanding, should know that the will of those men would be, with such a will of God towards them, consenting, in no way determines their will to conversion, but leaves it altogether indifferent, without any infallible determination, to either part of the contradiction, as the authors of the opposite opinion confess; and therefore that the will of the Tyrians antecedently to the divine cognition determinately elects to convert is not to be attributed to that divine will, as the first root of such election and conversion; but it is to be attributed to the human will of the Tyrians itself, which, with such a will or volition of God, will determine itself of itself indifferently to the one part or the other of the contradiction.

5 It is confirmed a second time. Because that will, or that divine volition with respect to the state of the conditioned, only gives the possibility of being converted, and does not of itself, nor infers from itself, that conversion determinately, since it is not efficacious of itself according to the doctrine of the solution which we impugne; and therefore, by reason of it, the conversion itself cannot be attributed to God as first author. The consequence is proved by almost the same reason as that used by D. August. in lib. 2. de peccatorum meritis cap. 18. contra Pelagianos, who said that a good will was to be attributed to God precisely for this, that he had given man a good will, with which he could will the good.

The reason, however, is this. If, for this precise reason, the good will of the Tyrians, or their actual conversion, is to be attributed to God, because he gave them something, or (which comes to the same thing for the present) because he had towards them that gratuitous will, already described, and not efficacious, and with which they could will the good and be converted; and therefore, for the same reason, our bad will would be attributed to him, because namely he gives us free choice, with which we can will something badly; therefore God has not only the aforesaid will with regard to the good acts of the created choice, but he also has a will efficacious of itself towards them, by which he grants to the aforesaid choice that it not only can act, but acts infallibly.

6 Nor does it make any difference if one says that that will, which God had towards the Tyrians on such an occasion, was congruent; and thus that the conversion is to be attributed to God, who confers it, and is its first author.

It makes no difference, then, for this reason. Because that will with respect to the sign, on which it is presupposed, both itself and the free choice of the Tyrians, towards that knowledge of their conversion which is known by God as determinately future, cannot be said to be congruent of itself, and in so far as it lies in its own force, but is said to be congruent only accidentally and from the effect; and therefore, precisely by reason of it thus taken, such a conversion cannot be attributed to God as first author. The consequence cannot be denied. And the antecedent is proved. Because with respect to that prior sense in which we understand God to have that will towards the Tyrians in the state of the conditioned, he does not yet know, but rather ignores (if it is so permissible to speak) what their will will be, when it operates with him, until in the later sense of reason he sees their operations, since otherwise he would know that will altogether indifferently in the cause; and therefore with respect to the prior sense by which he has such a will or volition antecedently to that knowledge, he does not yet know whether it will be congruent or incongruent, or not congruent, but he knows this only in the posterior sign, when he sees that it has had its effect; and therefore he has not the reason of a congruent will, neither in itself, nor as it is known by God, insofar as it precedes the conversion itself in the manner of the first act.

§ II. Proof of the second assertion.

7 And all these things can be clarified and confirmed by another reason, which the same Master adduces on the part of Cornelius and expounds in this way. For from the position of middle knowledge it follows that God is at least the first cause of this, that the created will be established by him in this or that order of things, in which these or those acts are future of themselves, yet not that they, with respect to the substance of the acts and their other circumstances, would have proceeded from the created will, if they were posited by God in such an order of things; and so the reason of the first cause is taken away from God with respect to the substance of free acts and of the aforesaid circumstances of those same acts. This second consequence is evident from the preceding one. The prior, however, as regards its first part, follows from itself: since that the created will be established in this order of things rather than in that one cannot, as is clear from itself, have its origin from anywhere else than from the good pleasure of the divine will. As for the second part, it is also clear from those things which we said by way of the preceding reason.

8 It makes no difference if one says first that it is sufficient that God, from his free will, with no regard had to anything outside himself, should have chosen and established this order of things, which now is one among others out of the countless ones which he might have produced, to the end that he be called the first cause of those effects, to which he is also presupposed to have concurred.

It makes no difference, then, for this reason. Because he is said to be the first cause of this order for this, that he established it independently of anything extrinsic, from his will alone, with no regard had to, and no inspection of, any reason or condition outside himself; but in this way he is not the cause of those effects; and therefore he is not the first cause with respect to them. The consequence is evident, because opposite reasons, or causes, have opposite effects. The minor, however, is proved. Because with precisely the same act of being objectively present, by which, in the state of the conditioned, an act and an effect of the created will are presupposed to be willed by God, for example the conversion of D. Peter, he must also have willed it, when that divine volition is posited as existing on the part of the thing, since the thing existing ad extra is that same one which was formerly future; but in the state of the conditioned the act by which God is said to have willed effects that are free and contingent, and conditional, for example the conversion of D. Peter on such an occasion (and the same is true of all the others (was not independent of the extrinsic, but depended on the will of Peter himself and on his consent; as from a condition sine qua non, previously antecedent, or concomitant (as was shown above) because it was not an act efficacious of itself, the condition being still posited, but was a simple affect, and indifferent of itself towards either, according as the human will should determine itself; and therefore it is not in the same way the cause of this order of things that God is the cause of the free acts of this order; and consequently he is not the first cause of either, but only of the order of things.

9 It is confirmed. Because in the state of the conditioned God, according to the opposite opinion, did not see these or those acts as future by the created will, because he foreknew them by his own decree and moved it efficaciously toward them; but because the created will itself, associated nevertheless with grace, or with the gratuitous will of God, would by its own innate freedom elicit them, as is clear from the things said in disp. 10. dub. 1; and therefore precisely from the fact that God established this order of things it does not follow that he was the first and independent cause of the free acts of his own creatures, which in fact he produced.

It is confirmed a second time. Because although God could, by his freedom, have established not this order of things, which in fact he created, but another, yet in that one he could do nothing else than that which he had previously, through this knowledge, found to exist objectively in themselves by the created will; since the knowledge of these future things precedes the free act of the divine will, so that, that hypothesis being posited, it was not in God's power to know otherwise than he knew; and therefore with respect to these effects he cannot have the reason of the first cause, operating from his own motive, and from his own freedom alone independently of any other secondary cause, as of a prerequisite condition. Especially since that act of the divine will, whether actually exhibited or objectively present, is according to the opinion of the Adversaries indifferent to serving (so to speak) for consent, for example, rather than for dissent of the created will; and so he could not with the aforesaid independence be the first reason of consent rather than of dissent.

10 Nor in turn will it be sufficient if one says a second time that there is a disparity between the effects which depend on the will of God alone, such as the fact that this or that order of things, this or that universe, is produced, and the effects which depend at the same time on the will of God and on the created will, such as are all the free acts and effects of the creature. Because of effects of the first kind God is the first cause, with no regard had to any reason outside himself which might move him, or which is required as a necessary condition; of effects, however, of the second kind, namely of free acts, he cannot be the first cause otherwise than dependently upon the concurrence and the consent of the created will itself.

It is not enough, then, for this reason. Because, as we shall say below, it is one thing to be the cause of a free act of the creature dependently upon the consent of the created will, as upon an effect infallibly following afterward by causality, or (as we should speak more accurately) it is one thing for God to be the cause of a free act of the creature, infallibly inferring it as an effect of his own, and as something posterior to it by his own causality; and it is another thing, however, to be the cause of that act, dependently upon the created consent itself, as upon a prerequisite condition. And although the first is not against the reason of the first cause, the second, however, is well against it; since such a condition is presupposed with respect to the divine will itself, namely the consent itself of the will.

11 Nor finally does it make any difference if, both by those things which we brought forward in this present Difficulty on the second of these reasons and by the others which we did so on the first, one says with Suarez, in lib. 1. de concursu, cap. 15. that that will of God is not indifferent, but that he truly has a will by which he determinately wills, for example, consent rather than dissent of the created will; although this divine volition is not such that he absolutely wills that it should consent rather than dissent, but by including an implicit condition, if the created will should be willing; and therefore God does not offer one determinate concurrence, but several, toward diverse objects and diverse acts.

It makes no difference, then, for this reason. For either this mode of speaking does not in fact differ from the opinion of Molina, or, according to that, the efficacious will of God infallibly inferring the consent of the created will, antecedently to middle knowledge, and independently in the said sense from the created will, must be admitted; to this Suarez objects with all his strength: and therefore he must concede the former, at least not in words but in fact; and consequently all the inconsistencies follow which we said follow in this Difficulty from the position of middle knowledge. The antecedent is proved. For from the force of that will to concur, including nevertheless an implicit condition, namely if the created will should be willing, God will concur to an act of love, for example, if it should be willing to love on such an occasion; on the contrary, however, he will concur by the force of that same will to an act of hatred, if on the same occasion it should be willing to pursue with hatred and not to love. Because if it did not proceed from the force of that will except a determinate concurrence toward loving, so that not toward the opposite, that will would already be a predefinition of the act of loving preceding it in the order of causality; and therefore either this kind of predefinition must be conceded, which Suarez rejects, or he posits only a general will to concur, and indifferent of itself, as Molina posits.

12 It is confirmed. Because otherwise God would not influence through the manner of freedom, but through the manner of nature. For that will declared in the aforesaid manner is so necessary in God that he cannot will the opposite, or will not to will it: since he cannot not will to concur with the created will, or with any other secondary cause, if that cause should concur: because in such an object, whether in possible creatures, or in future ones, there would be a manifest involvement. Nor will it be necessary, both in this and in the following Difficulties of this disputation, to adduce the foundations of the Adversaries in their own favour, since by those things which we said in the preceding disputations they remain answered. Let those things, however, be considered which we brought forward in disp. praecedenti dub. 1.

13 It must be said that from middle knowledge, and from the power of the created will, there follows the incongruity recounted above under this heading; and consequently that under this heading also the aforesaid knowledge is repugnant. This assertion is taught by the Doctors cited above in disput. 10, dub. ult.; and it is urged by the following reason, drawn from Augustine at the places to be cited presently. For once middle knowledge is granted, as necessary for the safeguarding of the freedom of our free choice, in the order in which almost all the adversaries introduce it, God was unable to promise to Abraham spiritual sons, namely the Gentiles, according to that of the Apostle: I have made you the father of many nations, unless solely on the supposition of middle knowledge, by which He would know that these or those Gentiles called at such a time would believe the faith, even if perchance they had been called by an equal internal and external calling, and indeed perhaps by a lesser one than other Gentiles, who did not believe: therefore, that God was able to fulfil that promise, depended not so much on His power as on the aforesaid foreknowledge, and on the power of our free choice, as on a first root, or condition entirely previous; for if this were not presupposed, God could not have made such a promise out of His whole omnipotence, or have certainly fulfilled it; but this cannot be said: therefore, and so on.

14 The minor is shown by Augustine, both in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 10, where he says: Let us therefore believe, with faithful Abraham, that what God has promised He is able to fulfil, in such a way that God does not here depend on the power of our free choice, and yet renders account. For piety and truth forbid us to say that what God has promised is not in God's power, but in man's. And also in letter 105, in these words: For what God promises, He does not perform unless He is God: for it belongs in some way to reason and truth, that a man promise and God perform. But for a man to say that he performs what God has promised is a base, impious sense. Then afterwards, in the book On Correction and Grace, ch. 12, where, commending the sons of promise, of whom the Apostle speaks, he says thus: For, freed from sin, they have become servants of righteousness, in which they will stand unto the end, He who foreknew them, and predestined them, and called them according to His purpose, and justified them, and glorified them, granting them that same perseverance. For those things which He promised to them, He has already made to be future, to whom Abraham, who believed the promiser, entrusted it, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness: for he gave glory to God with the fullest faith, as it is written: because what He promised, He is able also to do. He therefore makes them good, so that they may do good. Nor did He promise them to Abraham on that account, because He foreknew that they would of themselves be good. For if what He promised were His own, and not theirs: Abraham, however, does not believe thus, but is not weakened in faith, giving glory to God, and believing with the fullest faith: because what God promised, He is able also to do: he does not say: what He foreknew, He is able to promise.

15 Nor can this reasoning be dissolved by having recourse to God's decree as objectively present, whether conditionally or absolutely, in as far as God foresaw that if the created will were set in such or such a series, then the divine will would concur with it with respect to consent and faith, for example. And so, by resting on this foreseen decree, it is in God's power to promise to Himself whatever pleases Him.

Recourse therefore cannot be had to these things, supposing those which we said above. Then, because, as we proved in disput. 7, num. 48, the divine decree cannot have the ratio of the future. Then also: because, as we were saying in the preceding difficulty, that decree of God is, with respect to itself, according to this mode of speaking, indifferent, and by it, in as far as it is on God's part, He wills consent no more than dissent: but that this willing (so to speak) serve for consent depends on the created will and on its influx at least as on a previous condition: therefore, that God be able to foreknow that faith of the Gentiles depends at least, as on a previous condition, on the consent of created freedom. And likewise, that He be able to give that faith which He promised depends, not so much on His power as on this foreknowledge, and on the power of created freedom, as on a first root, or at least as on a first and previous condition: and thus He will be able to fulfil this promise, not so much from His own power as from the power, and concurrence, of created freedom.

16 Since we have shown that by middle knowledge there is taken away from God both the reason of the first act that is free, and the reason of His predetermination, and that He is not the first cause and the first author of grace, and finally that He does not have the most omnipotent power to fulfil what He promises: we must now show whether the aforesaid knowledge postulates in God ignorance and blindness, and consequently a manner of operating that is blind, ignorant, and without intention of the end in particular.

§ I. Decision of the difficulty, and its first reason.

It must therefore be said that from middle knowledge there follows ignorance and blindness in God, or a manner of operating that is blind and ignorant, and that He Himself concurs with respect to our free acts without intention of the end in particular; and consequently that under this heading also middle knowledge is repugnant. Thus the Doctors cited in disp. 10, dub. ultim. This assertion is clear from the premise as regards its second part.

The first part, however, is urged by the reasoning which D. Thom. hints at in the places cited above and to be referred to in the treatise On the Will of God, art. 8. For once middle knowledge is admitted, God, as its authors concede, influxes through a certain indifferent will, by which He is ready to influx into that which Peter, for example, willed, such that the will which is presupposed in that prior, before it is understood that middle knowledge is in it, is not for concurring determinately to consent, for example, to the act of faith: otherwise He would effectively predetermine that act before the aforesaid knowledge; but for granting an indifferent concurrence, or for concurring to that which Peter willed, namely either to assent if Peter should be pleased, or to dissent if he should prefer it: therefore He influxes while ignoring what precisely that is which is to follow from His influx: whether namely that will be assent to the faith, or rather dissent, and consequently without intention of it in particular, which is to follow: and consequently in a manner blind, ignorant, and without any counsel, and providence, with respect to that effect taken determinately and in particular.

17 Whence it will be of no avail for you to object that by middle knowledge God knows determinately and in particular what that is which is to be chosen by Peter; and thus, this knowledge being presupposed, God has the aforesaid decree not blindly and ignorantly, but knowingly and wisely.

This will therefore be of no avail. For let us inquire about the decree of the first cause, which is presupposed by middle knowledge itself for this, that it may attain with certainty a future effect: since, just as this presupposes its future effect under a condition, so also all future causalities required in that conditioned state for such an effect are supposed, whether they be on the part of the second cause, or even on the part of the first: but the future decree, prerequisite in that sign, on the part of the first cause with respect to such an effect, and foreseen as future, is to will to be ready to concur to that which the created will has chosen, without any judgment of the intellect directing toward such an effect in particular: therefore God in that sign will know that He is to will, in some sign, ignorantly, that is, not knowing in that sign what precisely that will be which is to follow from His influx, or from that will of His, since it is prior that God have the aforesaid decree than that the created will will it. The major, with its consequence, seems to be clear enough. The minor, however, in which the difficulty lies, seems to be certain. Since that decree is known most precisely as future which afterwards will be so in fact: therefore, since God afterwards has only the will of granting concurrence indifferently, ¹ as the adversaries, in accordance with their own opinion, confess, and as we have shown they must confess, it follows that the decree which, on God's part, seems to be future in that prior, is only this: to will to be ready to concur to that which the created will has chosen, without any judgment of the intellect directing toward such an effect in particular.

18 It is confirmed first. For since this knowledge is not practical, or productive of things, but purely speculative, and consequently presupposes its object, as they themselves say, it must be that it presupposes all future essential dependencies required for the existence of the action: therefore, if this action depends on God once for all so as to have the aforesaid future decree, and indifferent with respect to that act and its opposite, and not so as to have a future decree with respect to that act in particular in preference to its opposite, it presupposes it rather as destined to have this precise decree, indifferent, and not some other determined decree (so to speak): therefore it also presupposes it as operating without providence, wisdom, and counsel: because from the force of such a decree, indifferent and future, as presupposed for this knowledge, it cannot know whether the created will will be going to give its concurrence; since that decree of God is not more directed toward one act than toward its opposite.

19 It is confirmed second. Because in the opinion of those admitting this knowledge, that which it presupposes is not necessarily required for the existence of the actions of secondary causes: since this knowledge, as we were saying, presupposes its object, and all the essential dependencies required for its existence: therefore, since according to them that manner of willing of the first cause, through counsel, and prudence, and from the intention of a particular effect, presupposes middle knowledge, this manner of concurring will not be necessary for the existence of such actions: and consequently they must distinguish a twofold manner of concurring in the first cause: one fortuitously, without counsel and deliberation, and in a blind manner, and this one essentially required for the existence of the effect; the other indeed with counsel and deliberation, and this one not essentially desired for such an existence: than which what is more absurd?

§ II. The same assertion is proved by another reason.

20 Second, the same assertion is proved, and at the same time the preceding reason is confirmed. Because if middle knowledge is granted once for all, it follows that God learns from the event that of which He previously had no certain knowledge: and consequently that there is in Him some ignorance and experimental knowledge: this, however, is shown by the following reasoning. Because in that prior, in which in the state of the conditioned God is understood to give aids, to impose precepts, to inspire, and to enlighten the intellect of secondary causes, He does not know with certainty and infallibility, from the force of these, according to the opposed opinion, what will happen from them through created freedom; but then it is certainly known to Him precisely, from the force of the vision of the effect in itself, which the created will, by reason of its innate freedom and aided by such aids, has chosen: therefore He will learn from the event, and by experience.

The antecedent is proved. Because according to the opposed opinion God does not know with certainty the event itself in the very aid, or will, by which it is given, in as far as these two, by way of the first act, precede the consent of created freedom: for, according to the aforesaid opinion, that consent is not inferred with certainty and infallibility from such an aid and will of God: and so it attains it with certainty only in the very fact that, as a second act, it proceeds from the created will and from an aid indifferent in itself. The consequence, however, is proved by the following example. For if one persuades another to be seated, and from the force of the persuasion considered in the first act does not know with certainty that the sitting will be, but knows it only when he sees it in himself, then it is truly said that he knows that effect from the event: therefore the same must be said of God, that He attains the cognition of future contingents, if this is true, not by His free decrees, but by middle knowledge.

Nor will it be necessary to employ any solution which can be drawn from the doctrine of the adversaries, because it remains refuted by what we said at length in disp. 7.

21 Nor does it avail to object that absolute knowledge, which God has of absolute futures, has a dependence on a future event, and yet God is not therefore said to learn them from the event, nor is this knowledge, with respect to those, experimental for Him: therefore the same must be said as was said above, even if conditional knowledge is admitted in Him.

It is answered, then, that for someone to be said to learn from the event, it is not enough that his cognition have some dependence on that same event, as on the object toward which the cognition itself tends; but for this it is required that the learner be ignorant, or not know, the truth in its causes, and afterwards know it from the force of the vision of the event: but God at once sees the future effect absolutely in Himself, and as existing in eternity, and at once in its determined cause through the efficacious divine decree, on account of which from eternity He draws it out of Himself into the now of eternity; and so He never learns from the event. But since, according to the opposed opinion, God never knows future contingents, whether absolute or conditional, in His decree, but knows them only after He has seen the event, He cannot fail to learn from that same event, and to have experimental knowledge of it; and these things are true both of this difficulty, and of this whole disputation and article.

The conclusion affirms.

Concerning which we said many things in the preceding article.

The conclusion denies.

Concerning which many things could be said, were it not that in the treatise On the Will of God many things pertaining to this point, concerning the immutability of the divine will, concerning the free acts of God, would have to be said.

Conclusion. God has with respect to Himself only speculative knowledge, but with respect to others both practical and speculative knowledge at once.

But on the subject matter of this article we said more in art. 8, showing that the knowledge of God is the cause of things: and therefore nothing remains to be said at present.