Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the reason why God, though clearly seen, is still to the blessed incomprehensible.

« Although the blessed see God intuitively in his very essence, God is nevertheless incomprehensible to every created intellect. The proper reason of incomprehensibility, however, is that God is infinite in perfection and also in intrinsic knowability, and therefore cannot be known by a created intellect intensively, as far as he is knowable; whence it follows that through the intuitive vision of the divine essence in itself, not all the things of which the divine essence itself is the exemplar, or which are eminently in the divine essence, are seen by a created intellect extensively. »

I. Just as comprehension is said of bodily things in two ways, both of the apprehension of a thing and of the full inclusion of one thing in another, so too, by analogy with these, in spiritual and intellectual things the meaning of the same word is twofold, especially in ecclesiastical usage when the comprehension of God is the topic. For it is sometimes taken for the attainment of the end, a metaphor derived from runners in the stadium: « So run, that you may comprehend » 1. Cor. IX. 24; Phil. III. 12. 13. Hence all who have reached the last end are called blessed comprehensors. « In this way comprehension is one of the three endowments of the (blessed) soul, which corresponds to hope, as vision corresponds to faith, and enjoyment to charity…. The blessed have these three in God, because both they see him, and in seeing hold him present, having him always in their power to see; and holding him they enjoy him as the last end fulfilling desire » S. Th. 1. q. 12. a. 7. ad 1. From this itself it is clear that comprehension is understood in a quite different and stricter sense when God is said to be comprehended by no created intellect, even one placed in the highest supernatural elevation, and is simply predicated as incomprehensible.

1°. At the Fourth Lateran Council this profession is made: « we firmly believe and simply profess that there is one only true God, eternal, immense and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty, and ineffable » chapter Firmiter. Just as here the attributes of eternity, immensity, etc. are to be understood as absolute, and not only in a certain respect, so also incomprehensibility and ineffability, which are referred to the intellect, must be understood before any intellect that is distinct from the infinite divine intellect¹, not merely before some single intellect, or before merely natural powers. For in this way in a certain respect incomprehensibility could also be predicated of an angel; nor would it be a property proper to God, expressing the infinity of God, as is intended in that declaration of the Council. And so it must be judged altogether contrary to what Vasquez said (disp. 42. c. 3. n. 10.). He says: « since God is said by the Council to be ineffable, and yet the blessed see clearly by the light of glory, so also by the tongue of the mind they can utter and express him as he is, and he is not said to be ineffable to them in mind; so also he will not be said to be incomprehensible to them. » But just as God is in some true sense incomprehensible to the blessed in the light of glory, which Vasquez himself certainly does not deny, so in exactly the same sense he is ineffable to them; for these two, incomprehensibility and ineffability, stand in the same relation; or rather, what is in some sense incomprehensible is in the same sense a fortiori ineffable. Therefore in the sense in which Vasquez says the blessed utter God with the mind as he is, they also indeed comprehend him; but this comprehension is nothing other than the intuitive vision of God as he is. In the stricter sense, however, in which God is predicated as absolutely incomprehensible, altogether as comprehensible to himself alone, so he is ineffable to himself alone. For this full divine uttering, considered relatively, is in the Father the expression or generation of the consubstantial Word; considered absolutely, it is the divine comprehension itself (cf. supra p. 162. 163.).

2°. In Scripture the incomprehensibility of God is expressed first implicitly, wherever the infinite perfection of God is declared. Explicitly, God is then predicated as incomprehensible; for the Scriptures join to the perfections proper to God alone an inaccessible knowability, or the light of God: « the only Potentate…. who alone has immortality, and dwells in light inaccessible² » 1 Tim. VI. 16. Likewise the incomprehensibility of his counsels is inferred from the height, or depth of his perfection: « O height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God³; how incomprehensible are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! » Rom. XI. 33. In the same sense the Lord of hosts is called most strong, great, and mighty, « great in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought » Ierem. XXXII. 18. 19.⁴ This is indeed the height of riches (βάθος πλούτου), which only the Spirit of God searches: « for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God » (τὰ βάθη τοῦ θεοῦ) 1. Cor. II. 10. (See on this passage the Treatise on the Trinity, th. XVII.)

In the book of Job, Zophar the Naamathite declares the incomprehensibility of God from his infinity: « Perhaps you will comprehend the traces of God, and reach to the perfection of the Almighty?⁵ it is higher than heaven…. deeper than hell…. longer than the earth…. and broader than the sea » Job XI. 7–9. The first two clauses can be rendered literally from the Hebrew: « Will you find the depth of God? Will you reach the end (the extremity of perfection) of God? » In each clause, the depth of God and the end in the perfection of God is the infinite perfection of God, which no created intellect and no investigation can penetrate according to its whole knowability. This description of incomprehensibility is opposed to comprehension, as Augustine defined it: « it is comprehended whose limits can be surveyed; » « if whatever is bounded through knowledge by the comprehension of the knower, then certainly all infinity is in some ineffable way bounded for God » Aug. ep. 147. n. 21; Civ. Dei XII. 18. Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 14. a. 3. In the following clauses, in the words of Job, the infinite of perfection is declared by way of immensity (cf. S. Gregor. Moral. l. X. c. 9. n. 14.).

This sense, that the end of infinite perfection cannot be reached, Ecclesiasticus expressed most beautifully: « Glorifying the Lord as much as you can, for he will still surpass even that, and his wondrous magnificence; bless the Lord, exalt him as much as you are able, for he is greater than all praise⁶…. do not labour, for you will not comprehend⁷: who shall see him and declare him? and who shall magnify him as he is from the beginning? » Ecclesi. XLIII. 30. 31. As to « who shall see him and declare him? », in the proper meaning of the Greek verb ἐκδιηγεῖσθαι⁸ it must be explained: who shall fully express him and, by declaring, as it were exhaust him? For God is in this way ineffable to every creature, because he is incomprehensible. « No one has ever seen God: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him » Io. I. 18: yet he cannot be fully declared to us; nor did John say ἐκδιηγήσατο but ἐξηγήσατο. The argument for incomprehensibility drawn from those two clauses, « you will not comprehend, who shall see him and declare him? », Vasquez (disp. 52. c. 2. n. 7.) vainly tries to undermine by what follows: « who shall magnify him as he is? » For although the blessed see God as he is, yet they cannot magnify him as much as he deserves; but he alone loves and glorifies himself in himself according to the whole dignity, just as he alone sees himself according to the whole knowability⁹.

As in Job it is said that there is no way to reach the end in the knowledge of God, so in exactly the same way in Ps. CXLIV. (heb. 145.) 3. it is predicated: « Great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end, » where according to the Hebrew text it is understood: there is no end to the penetration of the knowledge of God¹⁰, which indeed is the very definition of incomprehensibility. Likewise, as Ecclesiasticus says, God cannot be fully declared; so Ps. CXLVI. (heb. 147.) 5. says: great is our Lord, and great is his power; and of his wisdom there is no number¹¹.

Therefore in the Scriptures the incomprehensibility of God is not only predicated indeterminately; but this attribute is described clearly enough that we can deduce from it its formal reason.

II. The whole difficulty lies in the question of how comprehension, taken in the strict sense (by which God remains simply incomprehensible even before the highest elevation of the created intellect), differs from the intuitive vision of God described above. For the blessed, as has been demonstrated, know by intuitive vision that he is infinite Being, namely the divine essence as it is in itself, with all its formal reasons, both absolute and relative, that is, with all perfections and with the divine persons, which are really the divine essence itself; whence the blessed could be judged to see God in such a way that nothing of him lies hidden from those seeing, and consequently this knowledge adequately corresponds to the knowability of the object, and is comprehension in the strict sense. For comprehension does not require the mode of knowing itself to be the most perfect of all, in the way in which God alone knows; otherwise every knowable thing would have to be called incomprehensible to a finite intellect, and comprehended only by an infinite intellect.

The reconciliation of this twofold member, that the blessed see the essence of God according to all perfections, as it is, and that nevertheless that same divine essence remains incomprehensible to them, some very weighty theologians seem to have despaired of. Therefore some denied the first member: Victoria, Toletus, Thomassinus, whom we refuted in the previous thesis; others so dissolved the second member, namely incomprehensibility, that the explanation seems almost equivalent to a denial; among these are Gabriel Vasquez and, to some extent, Petavius.

Vasquez laid down these two points. a) « By the power of the vision of God nothing created is seen… For the essence of God is not a medium by which any creature is known, let alone clearly seen…. therefore no creature is seen in God by the power of that vision itself; but by a peculiar revelation some possible or future creatures are known by the blessed, not by the same knowledge simultaneously with the divine essence, but by a different one »¹² disp. 50. c. 4–6. Further, b) he says that God is not comprehended by the blessed, and that this must be explained solely by the fact that the blessed do not see all possibles and all future things in God. « Although a blessed person sees in God whatever is in him formally, yet he does not see all the things which can follow from him and depend on him; for the blessed one knows neither all possibles nor future things which depend on the counsel of God: wherefore it is rightly said that God is not comprehended by the blessed » disp. 53. c. 4.

Now, if the essence of God in itself is not a medium for knowing possibles; and if the essence is known through intuitive vision, while possibles are known by another, different knowledge, arising from a peculiar revelation made to the blessed: this knowledge of possibles does not make the vision of the essence more perfect, nor does it pertain to it at all. Hence if nothing else is lacking to the intuitive vision of the essence for it to be comprehension, except that the blessed do not know all possibles through that other knowledge, which has nothing to do with the vision of God as he is in himself; then certainly nothing whatever is lacking to the intuitive vision of God for the notion of true comprehension. Nor does the explanation of Vasquez help, which, manifestly contradicting himself, afterwards adds: « in order that something be comprehended by the intellect, not only must whatever is in it be known, but also whatever can be done by it or derived from it, by the power of that same vision by which it is seen » loc. cit. n. 17. This is indeed most true in our view, who say that the divine essence is in itself so knowable that by the vision itself of that first truth every truth is known in one and the same act, and that this knowledge of the essence, as far as it is knowable, is comprehension in the proper sense; but in the principles of Vasquez that addition is inconsistent. For he first teaches that the divine essence is not so knowable that by the power of that vision all possibles can be known in it as in a primary object; secondly he expressly rejects the doctrine by which it is said that for comprehension of God it is required that God be known as far as he is intensively knowable; but he affirms that for comprehension it is sufficient that extensively nothing be in the object itself which is not known as it is. « For the infinite to be comprehended, he says, it is not necessary that the knowledge be infinitely perfect according to being or according to intensity; but it is required that the thing itself appear in every way in which it can be known, that is, that in it whatever is, and as it is, be seen; and this mode is on the side of the thing known, not on the side of the knowledge: and in this way the blessed one sees the substance of God in every way in which it can be seen, that is, the whole that is in him, and as it is in him » disp. 53. c. 2. n. 8. From these principles, therefore, the beatific vision of God would indeed not be an infinite knowledge of all truth; but it is in no way understood how the intuitive vision of the divine essence would not, in the true sense, be a comprehension of the essence.

Petavius very nearly agrees with Vasquez, who finally places the proper and formal reason of the incomprehensibility of God in this: that although the blessed see all that is in God formally, which would be enough for comprehension, « they nevertheless do not know all the things that God can produce by his infinite power. » And not without a certain acrimony he rebukes the theologians who, for the true reason of comprehension, « further require that the perfection of knowledge be as great as the perfection of knowability in the object; or that it be perceived with such clarity and perfect knowledge as it of itself demands. » Petavius then, as if doing something else, turns this aside, as though the theologians required, for the formal reason of comprehension, an ontological equality, or equality in the reason of being, between the knowledge and the object comprehended; whence he himself, as if by reduction to absurdity, concludes that, according to the explanation of the theologians, then « any substance can be comprehended by no one other than God, because every knowledge, however perfect, is an accident, and is therefore at a great distance from substance » Petav. de Deo l. VII. c. 3. et 4.

But the doctrine of these theologians, and among them of Didacus Ruiz (De scientia Dei disp. VI.), whom Petavius specifically attacks, is quite different; and we follow above all the principles of St Thomas in reconciling the vision of the essence of God as it is with the incomprehensibility of that same essence.

The explanation, moreover, runs thus. That beatific vision admits of degrees without limit, so that always another and a more perfect one is possible, just as in blessed minds in act the vision has diverse degrees of perfection according to the diverse degrees of charity (S. Th. 1. q. 12. a. 6.). We do not look directly at degrees of perfection in the very entity of the vision, in the way that God knows even a finite object by an infinite vision; but we look in the vision of the blessed at possible degrees, more perfect without limit, inasmuch as God, being an infinite object, is infinitely knowable; whence indeed, as it were obliquely, it follows that the vision will also be entitatively more perfect through indefinite degrees, the more intensely and perfectly it sees the infinite object. With these things supposed we say: just as within the reason of created being, or of created perfection, there is no supreme degree beyond which another is not possible; but the supreme being is infinite, and the divine being is outside and above the whole reason of created being: so altogether, within the reason of created vision of God, there is no supreme degree of perfection; but the supreme vision is infinite, since the object of the vision is infinite and therefore infinitely knowable; and accordingly this supreme vision is outside and above the whole reason of created vision; and it is proper to God alone, and no more communicable to a creature than the formal Esse of the divinity itself. This vision, which adequately corresponds to the knowability of the object, is properly and in the strict sense comprehensive, by which, namely, the object, as far as it is knowable, as Augustine speaks (Civ. Dei XII. 18.), is bounded by the comprehension of the one knowing. No one has ever affirmed that for comprehension, considered generally and in itself, there is required a supreme perfection of vision on the part of the act, and consequently an infinitely perfect act¹³; or that there is required an act entitative equal to the object comprehended, and so a substantial act for the comprehension of a substance. This opinion, certainly absurd, Petavius unjustly attributes to the Scholastics and by name to Diego Ruiz¹⁴. From both it would follow that no object, however finite, or certainly no substance, could be comprehended by a created and finite intellect. This very thing shows that comprehension in this sense could never have been understood by anyone who acknowledged the incomprehensibility of God as a proper attribute. When knowledge of the object is demanded for comprehension, as far as it is knowable, what is understood is not extrinsic knowability on the part of the act, as if there were demanded the supreme perfection of the knowing act, that is, infinite perfection, by which God alone knows; but what is understood is intrinsic knowability in the object, that it be known according to its whole perfection, intensively and extensively, as far as it demands of itself to be known, that is, as much knowledge as it can of itself provoke. God knows finite things infinitely more perfectly than they are knowable intrinsically and of themselves; for he knows all things by the infinite knowledge of his own essence, and does not draw knowledge from things according to their own knowability. Likewise, in comprehension there is not affirmed an ontological equality between the act and the object; but an intentional one, as the ancients said, or, as they now speak, an ideal adequation between the knowledge and the intrinsic knowability of the object. Although if the question is not of comprehension in general but of the comprehension of God, whose knowability is infinite, it follows from the eminence of the object to be known that the perfection of the comprehending act must be infinite, and accordingly the act must be divine, which is entitatively equal to the divine essence, or rather is the divine essence and substance itself. To the present point Augustine rightly says: « insofar as we know God, we are like him (cf. 1. Io. III. 2.); but not like in equality, because we do not know him as much as he knows himself... although that knowledge is some likeness of God, yet it is inferior, because it is in an inferior nature: the mind indeed is a creature, but God the creator » Trin. IX. c. 11. (We shall speak of the identity of essence and comprehension in God, where we shall explain how God is substantial truth itself.)

Now, 1°, from, as it were, the very nature of the thing and the intrinsic reason of the dogma it can be shown that, in the sense we have explained, the attribute of incomprehensibility is to be understood when God, being infinite, is predicated simply as incomprehensible before every created intellect. For a) that incomprehensibility considered in this way truly belongs to God and is a real divine attribute is evident from the very infinity of God. b) That this real attribute of God is called incomprehensibility not by a feigned name but most properly is evident from the thing itself, that is, from the proper reason of this attribute; indeed it cannot be expressed by a more apt name, nor is it found expressed in Scripture, the Councils and the Fathers in any other way. Therefore when in these documents of revelation the incomprehensibility of God is predicated simply, or the comprehension of God is denied to all creatures, even to angels and the blessed, this attribute described a little before must be understood. Otherwise it would have to be supposed—which assuredly cannot be admitted—that the incomprehensibility of God, simply predicated, is not proposed in the most proper sense, but in some less strict sense, of which, however, there is at least no indication in those documents; indeed there are arguments clear enough, as I shall show presently, which demonstrate that this very most proper sense was understood by the Fathers. c) Incomprehensibility, or the attribute of eminence above every created intellect, is predicated in order to manifest the infinite perfection of the divine essence. Now the infinity of perfection, insofar as it is referred to the intellect, consists in the very infinity of knowability; and therefore God, according to his whole reason of knowability, can be understood only by an infinite intellect. Therefore the absolute incomprehensibility of God in this sense is to be judged proposed in revelation: namely, that God, infinitely knowable, can be known by no finite intellect as far as he is knowable. Accordingly, conversely, the comprehension of God is nothing other than adequate knowledge of God according to the whole infinite reason of knowability.

2°. In this way St Thomas explains the incomprehensibility of God in all the places where he takes up the question of it. « Whatever is comprehended by some knower is known by it as perfectly as it is knowable.... But the divine substance is a certain infinite thing in comparison with every created intellect, since every created intellect is limited under a certain species (has a determinate and finite degree of perfection in knowing). It is impossible, therefore, that the vision of any created intellect should be adequate in seeing the divine substance, namely by seeing it so perfectly as it is visible. Therefore no created intellect will be able to comprehend it » S. Th. contr. gent. III. c. 55. n. 1. 2. « This is the most perfect way of attaining the divine likeness, namely that we know him in the way in which he knows himself, that is, through his essence; although we do not comprehend him as he comprehends himself—not because we are ignorant of some part of him, since he has no part; but because we shall not know him as perfectly as he is knowable; since the power of our intellect in understanding cannot be adequate to the truth of him, according to which he is knowable, since his clarity or truth is infinite, while our intellect is finite; but his intellect is infinite, as also his truth; and therefore he alone knows himself as much as he is knowable » Compend. theolog. c. 106. Cf. 1. q. 12. a. 7; 3. q. 10. a. 1. ad 2; 4. dist. 49. q. 2. a. 3; de veritate q. 8. a. 2; Compend. theol. c. 216; in Eph. III. lect. V ; in I. Decretalem (T. VIII. p. 84. ed. de Rubeis).

In the same sense the older Scholastics explain the comprehension and incomprehensibility of God, at dist. 2 or 3 of the first book, where they treat of the knowledge of God; or at dist. 14 of the third book, where the knowledge of the soul of Christ is discussed; or at dist. 49 of the fourth book, where eternal beatitude is inquired into. Alexander of Hales, 1. P. q. 7. m. 1; Albert the Great, 1. dist. 2. a. 4; 3. dist. 14. a. 1; St Bonaventure, 1. dist. 3. P. I. q. 1; 3. dist. 14. a. 1. q. 2; Giles of Rome, 3. dist. 14. P. I. a. 1; Thomas of Strasbourg, 3. dist. 14. a. 3; Richard of Middleton, 3. dist. 14. q. 4; Scotus, 3. dist. 14. q. 2. n. 7; Gabriel Biel, 3. dist. 14. a. 3. dub. 2; Dominic Soto, 4. dist. 49. q. 3. a. 1; Bañez, in 1. q. 12. a. 7. etc. As a sample I set down the words of Richard, l. c.: « The soul of Christ, in knowing the Word, does not comprehend him, because.... the object of the intellect is being: therefore, as much as a thing has of entity, so much does it have of intelligibility; but the eternal Word is of infinite entity, therefore it is of infinite intelligence (intelligibility). Hence, so far as it is on its own side, the intelligible is actu infinito intensive, or in its power; but the soul of Christ, since it is a creature, cannot understand any intelligible intellectione infinita intensive; for no creature can elicit an action that is infinite intensively.... But if it comprehended him by knowing, it would understand him as far as he is knowable on his own side... Because the Word is simple and infinite; therefore, insofar as he is simple, he is seen whole by whoever sees him; and insofar as he is infinite, something of his depth lies hidden from every intellect that does not see him as far as he is visible on his own side. For if two eyes are supposed, one weak and the other strong, each of which sees one whole colour, some of the beauty of that colour, which is not hidden from the strong eye, is hidden from the weak eye; so some depth of the treasure of divine beauty is manifest to the divine intellect, which is hidden from any creature. » That is to say, indeed no perfection lies hidden, which we refuted above at thesis XVII; but a perfection which is seen whole is not seen totally, that is, not with the whole infinite intensity and clarity by which it is knowable of itself; and thus the knowability is not exhausted by the knowledge of the one who sees. Hence Richard did not say that some divine perfection lies hidden, if perfections are regarded as it were extensively; but that some depth, something of the depth of the divine beauty lies hidden. In this same way the definition of St Augustine, ep. 147. n. 21, which the Scholastics commonly adopted, and which we explained above at pp. 209. 210., can be explained in the words of Richard. « The whole is comprehended by seeing, says St Augustine, which is so seen that nothing of it lies hidden from the one seeing, or whose limits can be surveyed. » Indeed, comprehension requires that nothing be hidden of the whole, as it were regarded extensively; but also that nothing be hidden of its depth, of that which is seen as whole: not as if in God there were grades of perfections which are not seen by those who see God as he is (see above p. 210.), but rather that in the intensity and clarity of the created vision there are grades without end, in all of which the same thing is seen, but not with the same perfection¹⁵. Hence this distinction between the extension and the intension of vision is not only necessary for explaining incomprehensibility; it also comes into use where it must be made clear how, in the very intuitive vision of the divine essence as the object of essential beatitude, the blessed differ among themselves as one star differs from another star. « Joy is said to be equal not intensively (since one sees God more clearly than another), but extensively, because one rejoices in the same things and in as many things as another rejoices in » St Bonaventure, 4. dist. 49. P. I. q. 6. ad 1. et 2.

3°. From the intensive comprehension of God itself there follows comprehension as it were extensive, that is, that in the divine essence, as the supreme truth and fount of every truth, every truth is comprehended in one and the same act. Conversely, from the very fact that the divine essence, infinitely knowable, is intensively incomprehensible to a finite intellect, it follows that in the aforesaid manner it also cannot be comprehended extensively, that is, that through the vision of the divine essence, intensively finite, not every truth is seen—or, as is commonly said by synecdoche, not all possibles are seen; and so the vision, intensively finite, is also extensively limited with respect to those truths which, although knowable in the divine essence, are nevertheless distinct from God and different. This is signified when it is said that the blessed indeed see all the things that are in God formally, but not all that are there eminently, because for this vision the comprehension of God would be required.

In substance this is also the teaching of Suarez, briefly in 1. II. de Deo c. 29. n. 13., but set out at greater length in 3. P. T. I. disp. 26. sect. 1.; and in the same sense perhaps Gregor. de Valentia T. I. disp. I. q. 12. puncto 5. can be understood. But in one mode of explanation we cannot agree with Suarez. He himself judges that the distinction of intension and extension in knowing is not necessary for explaining the comprehension and incomprehensibility of God, because the vision of all things—not only those which are in God formally but also those which are eminently in God—by this very fact has the whole intensive perfection which is necessary for the true reason of comprehension. Hence further he explains the reason why the intuitive vision of the blessed is not comprehension, from this alone: that by the power of the intuition of the divine essence, although they know all things which are formally in God, they do not however know all things which are eminently in the essence of God. He also tries in this sense to interpret the teaching of St Thomas.

But as for a): that through the vision of the divine essence all truths are understood, even those which are distinct from God, this is not the formal reason of the comprehension of the essence in itself, but is some property or some consequent of comprehension. Although therefore from this as a consequent one may infer comprehension of the essence as a principle; yet this still requires explanation in its own formal reason, which is an intellection adequate to the intrinsic intelligibility of the object; and accordingly the comprehension of an infinitely intelligible essence, from its formal reason, is an intellection intensive infinite. It is better understood that extensive adequation follows as a consequent from intensive adequation as from a principle, than in the reverse order. Hence also the formal reason of the incomprehensibility of God consists in this: that an infinite perfection, infinitely knowable, cannot be known by any finite intellect as far as it is knowable; not in this, that through the created vision of the essence not all things can be known which, distinct from God, have the character of some truth.

b) The formal reason of the inequality in the intuitive vision, by which all the blessed see God as he is in himself, insofar as it is the vision of the essence as the primary object, is constituted by a greater or lesser intension and clarity of the vision, not by a greater or lesser extension as regards the secondary object, although this difference of extension follows from the difference of intension. In this way Suarez himself explains that inequality in the vision and in essential beatitude (1. II. c. 19. n. 4. 12; c. 22. n. 1. 8.). Therefore in the same way the formal distinction between comprehension and intuitive vision is to be declared from the vision of the primary object itself; and as regards this they do not differ in extension but only in intension and clarity. For the teaching of St Thomas (1. q. 12. a. 7. ad 2.) is true, as described by Suarez himself (l. c. c. 22. n. 8.) in these words: « the blessed do not comprehend God, not because they do not see whatever is in him; but because they do not see perfectly: and in the reply to the third objection he explains that this perfection (by which the vision of the blessed differs from comprehension) is not to be considered on the part of the object, but on the part of the manner of seeing; for the whole object is seen, and every mode which is in it, namely that it exists infinitely and is infinitely knowable, although it is not seen infinitely. »

c) The teaching of St Thomas in all the places cited above (pp. 229, 230) is without doubt that which we have hitherto explained, and it is evident even from those passages which we have just seen described by Suarez. For the Angelic Doctor teaches that, just as in the beatific vision there are differences arising from the clearer or less clear manner of seeing the same object, so comprehension of the divine essence and power differs from every created vision by the very manner of knowing: that comprehension knows the infinite essence and power as far as it is knowable in itself, and accordingly with an infinite perfection of vision; whereas no created vision can know the same essence and power as far as it is knowable, but knows what is infinitely knowable in a finite manner. Moreover St Thomas indeed concedes and teaches that by the comprehension of the divine essence and power there are known not only this in itself but also all possible effects, because all are knowable in it; conversely, that one who does not comprehend the divine essence and power in itself is not able to know all possible effects. Therefore an intellect which knew all possible effects would, by the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, indeed also be said to comprehend the divine essence and power in itself; not that the knowledge of effects is formally the comprehension itself of the divine essence and power, but that that knowledge is contained in this comprehension and can be only through it. « In the vision of God there is a degree, according as some see God more clearly than others, who is the cause of all things. But the more fully a cause is known, the more effects can be perceived in it...... And hence it is that of those who see the essence of God, some regard more effects or reasons of divine works in God himself than others who see less clearly... The soul of Christ, therefore, obtaining the highest perfection of divine vision among the other creatures, fully beholds in God himself all the divine works and their reasons, whatever they are, or will be, or have been.... Yet the soul of Christ cannot attain to the comprehension of the divinity. For that is comprehended by knowing, which is known only as far as it is knowable. For each thing is knowable insofar as it is being and true; esse of God, moreover, is infinite, and likewise its truth: therefore God is infinitely knowable. But no creature can know infinitely, even if what it knows is infinite. Therefore no creature can comprehend God by seeing him..... Therefore the soul of Christ does not comprehend God...... Now it is to be considered that the comprehension of the essence of a thing and of its power is of the same reason; for each thing can act insofar as it is being actually. If therefore the soul of Christ cannot comprehend the essence of the divinity, as has been shown, it is impossible that it comprehend the divine power. But it would comprehend, if it knew whatever God can do, and by what reasons it can produce effects. But this (to comprehend the divine power) is impossible: therefore the soul of Christ does not know whatever God can do, or by what reasons it can operate » S. Th. Compend. theolog. c. 216. See 1. q. 12. a. 7, compared with a. 8.