Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem
Collegii Salmanticensis Cursus Theologicus, tomus I
First published 1870
The Cursus Theologicus of the Discalced Carmelites of Salamanca (the 'Salmanticenses'), tomus I, in the 1870 Paris reprint. Contains the Prooemium and the three great treatises of this volume: De principio individuationis (a digression on the principle of individuation), De Visione Dei (in quaest. 12), and De Scientia Dei (in quaest. 14, including the extended rejection of middle knowledge). The edition prints St Thomas's Prima Pars text alongside; that text is not republished here.
Prooemium, and the Division of the whole Work
Quaestio I: On the Simplicity of God
Tractatus I: On the Principle of the Individuation of Material Substance and of Its Accidents
Disputatio I: On the Principle of the Individuation of Material Substance
Dubium I: Whether the substantial form is itself individuated, and the first principle of the individuation and of the purely individual distinction of the whole composite?
Dubium II: Whether matter, taken by itself and precisely, or matter marked by quantity, is the first and radical principle of the individuation of the whole substantial composite
Dubium III: Whether matter marked by quantity, insofar as it is said to constitute a composite of matter and quantity as an inhering and constituting form, is the first root of the individuation of the composite
Dubium IV: Whether matter determined by quantity, insofar as it denotes a certain substantial mode, is by the very nature of the thing distinct from matter and determines it toward having this quantity rather than that, is the first root of the individuation of material substance and of its substantial form?
Dubium V: Whether matter marked by quantity, insofar as it is said to possess by a radical mode this quantity rather than that, is the first root of the completed material substance and therefore of its substantial form
Disputatio II: On the Principle of the Individuation of Accidents
Dubium I: Whether the subject is the first root and principle of the individuation of accidents and of their purely individual distinction
Dubium II: Whether quantity claims for itself a peculiar principle, so that it is individuated from itself as though it were the first root
Dubium III: Whether essential repugnance exists between purely numerical distinction of accidents, as such that two of them differ only numerically in the same subject
Tractatus II: In quaest. 12 of the First Part of St. Thomas: On the Vision of God
Quaestio I: How God is known by us
Disputatio I: On the Possibility and Appetitability of the Vision of God by Essence
Dubium I: Whether the clear vision of God by essence is possible to the created intellect?
Dubium II: Whether the Holy Fathers knew that vision of God by essence is possible to a created intellect
Dubium III: Whether the possibility of vision of God by essence can be clearly known to a created intellect by the light of nature
Dubium IV: Whether the intellectual nature considered by itself has an innate appetite for the vision of God by essence
Dubium V: Whether an elicited and natural appetite is given in the intellectual creature considered by itself with regard to the clear vision of God
Disputatio II: On the Likeness, or Form, Required for a Clear Vision of God
Dubium I: Whether, according to the mind of St Thomas, some created likeness is admitted in order to elicit the clear vision of God
Dubium II: Whether the divine essence is in fact united to the intellect of the blessed man by way of an intelligible species, with a view to the clear vision of God?
Dubium III: Whether the divine essence, as it has the character of an intelligible form, actively concurs to the clear vision of God
Dubium IV: Whether by divine power a created impressed species is possible, through which God may be seen in a quidditative way, such as He is in Himself?
Dubium V: Whether the first reason which D. Thom. adduces in this article sufficiently proves the impossibility of an impressed species representing God quidditatively and clearly?
Dubium VI: Whether from the second reason of St. Thomas the impossibility is sufficiently inferred of an impressed form representing God quidditatively, and clearly, as He is in Himself
Dubium VII: What specially stands against the second reason of St. Thomas, and how it is to be solved
Dubium VIII: Whether the last reason of the article proves the impossibility of a created intelligible species representing God quidditatively: where the arguments also are dissolved which we brought from the opponents in dub. 4 of this disputation?
Dubium IX: Whether in the blessed there is necessarily and indispensably given a word, or expressed form, representing God quidditatively, as He is in Himself
Dubium X: Whether the impossibility of a created word representing God clearly and quidditatively is rightly proved from the fact that God is essentially itself the being quidditatively understood, and thus cannot be quidditatively understood through a created word?
Disputatio III: On the Impossibility of the Vision of God, As He Is in Himself, by Created Powers of the Natural Order, or Such as Are Connatural to Some Created Intellect
Dubium I: Whether by the absolute power of God there is possible some intellect which by the powers proper to it of the natural order could see God as He is in Himself
Dubium II: Whether by divine power there can be possible some substances and some intellects for which the light of glory is connatural, and which can see God by essence by their own powers?
Disputatio IV: On the Necessity of the Light of Glory for Seeing the Divine Essence As It Is in Itself
Dubium I: Whether the light of glory concurs to the vision of God, as He is in Himself, after the manner of an impressed form
Dubium II: Whether the light of glory is a necessary disposition, in order that the divine essence, in the ratio of form or of intelligible species, be united to the intellects of the blessed?
Dubium III: Whether the light of glory is necessarily desired for the receiving of the vision of God?
Dubium IV: Whether by the absolute power of God the created intellect can, without the light of glory, by its own obediential power alone, though with a concomitant influx superadded in the vision, but not by any other previous [influx], elicit that vision in the same intellect
Dubium V: Whether by divine power the divine essence can be united, in the ratio of light, to the created intellect, and thus constitute it, without a created light, in the first act for seeing God as He is in Himself?
Disputatio V: On the Quality and Inequality of the Visions in the Blessed
Dubium I: Whether an inequality is found among the beatific visions
Dubium II: Whether the inequality found among the beatific visions is not only intensive and extensive, but also essential and specific
Dubium III: Whether an intellectual power that is better, with equal light of glory, sees the divine essence more clearly
Disputatio VI: On the Incomprehensibility of God to the Created Intellect
Dubium I: Whether by divine power the created intellect can comprehend God?
Disputatio VII: On Those Things Which, God Having Been Seen, Are Seen in Him, or Can Be Seen
Dubium I: Whether those who see God see everything absolutely which is formally and of necessity contained in Him
Dubium II: Whether the divine essence can be seen without the persons, or one person without another?
Dubium III: Whether the blessed can, by the force of the vision of the divine essence, see, and in fact see, the free decrees of God?
Dubium IV: Whether from the force of the vision of the divine essence the effects existing under some difference of time can, or ought to, be seen
Dubium V: Whether by the force of the vision of the divine essence possible creatures can be seen?
Tractatus III: In quaest. 14 of the First Part of the Angelic Doctor: On the Knowledge of God
Quaestio I: De Scientia Dei
Dubium I: Whether those things which St. Thomas teaches in the Prooemium of this question are true
Disputatio I: De scientia Dei, quoad an est?
Dubium I: Whether intellectual knowledge is formally in God?
Dubium II: Whether from the fact that God is most immaterial the Angelic Doctor rightly proves that He is most intelligent?
Dubium III: Whether there is in God knowledge strictly so called and formally, and with respect to things
Dubium IV: Whether the knowledge of God is an attribute of Him?
Disputatio II: On the Twofold Distinction Which D. Thom. Constitutes in This Article Between Things Known and Things Not Known
Dubium I: Whether the first distinction which St. Thomas assigns between things that know and things that do not know is true, namely that these have only their own form, whereas those have also the forms of other things
Dubium II: Whether knowing things have not only the form of another thing, but also become by identity other things in being knowable, that is, representatively?
Disputatio III: On the Intellection and Knowledge of God with Respect to Its Primary Object
Dubium I: Whether God understands Himself primarily
Dubium II: Whether the object per se, first and specificative of the essential intellection of God is the divine essence, as distinguished from the attributes and the relations: or whether all these are formally and expressly meant?
Disputatio IV: On Understanding by God with Respect to the Power It Has to Constitute the Divine Essence and Nature
Dubium I: Whether the constitutive [element] of the divine essence, or nature, is the sole reason of a spiritual substance in itself, or of such by essence, as distinct virtually from the reason of a subsisting intellectual substance, whether radically and in the first act, or in the second act
Dubium II: Whether what constitutes the divine essence, or nature, is the ratio of substance alone, essentially and per essentiam intellectual, as virtually distinct from intellection by essence, or whether without any virtual distinction it is intellection itself?
Disputatio V: On the Knowledge of God with Respect to Its Causality toward Creatures
Dubium I: Whether divine knowledge is in some way the cause of things
Dubium II: What the knowledge of God is as cause of things
Dubium III: Whether just as the knowledge of God, taken formally, is the cause directing toward the production of creatures, so too it is the immediate effective principle and the executor of their production?
Disputatio VI: On Divine Knowledge Collated with Evils
Dubium I: Whether God knows evils?
Dubium II: Whether God necessarily knows evils through created goods?
Disputatio VII: On Whether There Is Knowledge of God with Respect to Absolute Future Contingents, and on Those Things Which Cannot Be Certainly Known by Him
Dubium I: What, and how manifold, the future contingent is
Dubium II: Whether God certainly knows absolutely future contingents?
Dubium III: Whether God certainly knows absolute free future things, by His essence and divine ideas, as they represent the truth of those things antecedently to the decree of His will
Dubium IV: Whether God certainly knows absolutely future contingents in the free decree of His will, not indeed as present, but as future?
Dubium V: Whether God certainly knows absolutely future contingents which in some way depend on created freedom, in the comprehension of secondary causes, antecedently to the free determination of the divine will?
Dubium VI: Whether God certainly knows absolute future contingents in their objective truth, antecedently to the divine decree
Disputatio VIII: On the knowledge of God with respect to absolutely future contingents, as regards those of which He is certainly known to be aware
Dubium I: Whether God certainly knows all absolutely future contingents in the decree put into execution of His will, antecedently to any infallible futurehood of them, or whether they are determined in their essence by such a decree?
Dubium II: Whether according to Scripture and the Fathers, but especially St. Thomas, absolute future contingents are from eternity really and physically present to God in the measure of eternity, and by reason of this presence are certainly known by Him
Dubium III: Whether with a sufficient reason it is proved that absolutely future contingents were from eternity, and are now really and physically present to God in the measure of eternity, and by reason of this presence are certainly known by Him?
Dubium IV: Whether eternity, and the presentiality of the future already explained in it, is altogether necessary for this, so that God may certainly and infallibly know absolutely future contingents before they are present in their own and adequate measure, or so far as we are concerned?
Disputatio IX: On the Knowledge of Conditioned Future Things, Which God Has in His Efficacious Yet Conditioned Decree
Dubium I: On the multiple division of the future contingent, and which of them belong to the present disputation
Dubium II: Whether according to holy Scripture God certainly knows conditioned future contingents, whether they be disparate, yet depending both as to the condition and as to the event on free causes, or be not disparate, but having only a probable, or conjectural, connection with the condition?
Dubium III: Whether according to the mind of the holy Fathers God knows with perfect certainty and infallibly conditioned future contingents, whether they be disparate in the manner just described, or have a probable connection with the future event
Dubium IV: Whether with a sufficient reason it is shown that God certainly, and altogether infallibly, knows both future contingents that are conditioned and disparate, and those which have only a probable and conjectural connection on the part of the object with the condition?
Dubium V: Whether in God conditioned, positive, and efficacious decrees about all conditioned future contingents are to be posited, and whether, these being set aside, the aforesaid futures can in any case be certainly and infallibly known by God?
Disputatio X: On the Impossibility of Middle, or Conditional, Knowledge Drawn from Authority
Dubium I: Whether according to holy Scripture middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is to be admitted?
Dubium II: Whether from St. Augustine's mind, as gathered from His testimonies, it is concluded that middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is to be given?
Dubium III: Whether either according to the principles of the opponents, or absolutely and simply speaking, it is inferred from the effects of Augustine's doctrine, or from other signs, that according to his mind middle, or conditional, knowledge is to be rejected
Dubium IV: Whether, according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor as drawn from His testimonies, middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is to be given in God?
Dubium V: Whether from certain other signs it is concluded that, according to the mind of St. Thomas, middle knowledge is not to be given?
Dubium VI: Whether middle knowledge has flowed down continually from the time of Augustine to the present, and has been approved by theologians both more recent and more ancient, and especially by those who were present at the Council of Trent
Dubium VII: Whether middle knowledge remained hidden from St. Augustine and the ancient Fathers up to the year 1560 and the older Scholastics, and was drawn forth by the later theologians from the doctrine of those same Fathers, or whether it was known and reprobated by the aforesaid ancient theologians and Scholastics?
Dubium VIII: How from what has been said it may be deduced that the doctrine denying middle knowledge is to be preferred to that asserting it: where in particular the Doctors denying the aforesaid middle knowledge are recounted
Disputatio XI: On the Impossibility of Middle Knowledge from the Defect of Its Necessity, and from Its Incompossibility with the Other Things Presupposed in God
Dubium I: Whether middle knowledge is necessary to God, in order that He may certainly predestinate, or efficaciously predefine the consent of created will without injury to its freedom, or whether it removes both of these?
Dubium II: Whether from yet another head middle knowledge is incompatible with divine predestination with regard to adults?
Disputatio XII: On the Impossibility of Middle Knowledge, Both a Priori, or Quasi a Priori, and Drawn from Various Inconveniences
Dubium I: Whether the impossibility of middle knowledge is sufficiently shown by a priori, or quasi a priori reasoning?
Dubium II: Whether middle knowledge is impossible, from the fact that through it the reason of the first cause and of the first author of grace is removed from God?
Dubium III: Whether middle knowledge is impossible on the ground that it follows from it that God cannot fulfil what He promises concerning the faith, or the conversion, of the rational creature by the power of His omnipotence, but only from the foreknowledge of our future consent
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.