Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD, AND ON DIVINE KNOWLEDGE CONSIDERED IN ITSELF.

God is spirit.

« It is contained in the complex of perfections which we have declared, that God is infinite spirit: therefore, when in Scripture God is said to be spirit, this must be understood in the most proper sense. This is demonstrated expressly from the context of Io. IV. 24., and from the dependence of created spirits and of all spiritual perfections on God the spirit. »

I. By the name spirit we understand a substance which a) negatively has no real parts, whether constituent or integral; but is simple and one in itself, without distinction and dispersion into several components, at least substantial. This simplicity, however, we understand in spirit not only as the negation of parts, but positively as the intrinsic essential nobility of being, which surpasses, in some sense at least infinitely, the grade of substances having perfection in the composition and from the composition of parts; so that, of course, no intensification of such perfections can attain to that nobility, but it is a nobility superior in its whole order. For spirit is, and is understood to be, a b) substance immaterial, that is, negatively not inert, nor acting only outside itself, nor in intrinsic action restricted to composites and dependent on composition; but which positively has life in itself, and that intellectual life: namely, from its very essence it is so ordered that by a vital act it understands the true and has formal truth in itself, and by a vital act tends toward the good known under the aspect of good, and embraces it with love, and is blessed in the good. Moreover, in all these inner vital acts the spirit at the same time has an inner consciousness of its acts, and a consciousness of itself as substantial principle. Finally, c) from the very simplicity, nobility, and intellectuality of being and life of spirit, it is by its nature immortal, in its substance unchangeable, and with respect to place exempt and superior to the modes of existing to which bodies are subject in space. The more perfect this simplicity and intellectuality is, the more perfect is the nature of spirit.

Now from what has been demonstrated in the preceding theses: a) God is most pure act, in whom, on account of his essential perfection, not only physical composition from real parts but also metaphysical composition from parts considered according to reason is absolutely repugnant. b) He is not only an intellectual substance, having the faculty of embracing the true and the good by his vital acts; but he is essentially one substantive act, which is identically both absolute truth and infinite understanding of truth, and absolute good and infinite love of good, and thus in himself and in the fullness of his perfection is an absolute infinite beatitude. c) Just as God is absolute unchangeable truth, goodness, substantial active power and pure act; so every succession, and every limitation of presence, is wholly repugnant to his perfection: he himself is his eternity and his immensity.

This life of infinite understanding, will and beatitude is not only an inner act of the divine substance; but it is the eternal and immense divine substance itself. « He is wholly thought, wholly will, wholly mind, wholly light, wholly eye, wholly hearing, wholly the fountain of all good things » Iren. 1.I. c.12. n.2.¹. Hence the divine understanding and will is not only independent of all things which are, or can be thought, outside itself, but is the principle, exemplar and cause from which depends every truth, every good, every life, every understanding, every love of good, every beatitude. God is therefore infinite spirit, because he is the intellectual life of infinite perfection, ἡ ζωὴ, τὸ φῶς, ἡ ἀγάπη, ἡ αὐτοζωὴ, ἡ αὐτοσοφία, ἡ αὐτοαγαθότης (Dionys. div. nom. c. 2. 5.); he is spirit in an eminent sense, to whom created spirits, and whatever spiritual thing is conceived apart from him, are only images and likenesses. Hence the nearer creatures are to the image and likeness of God, the more properly they are spirits. In the Scriptures themselves the human soul, according to its intellectual faculties, is called spiritus πνεῦμα, to distinguish it from the sensitive faculties, according to which the same substance, informing and animating the body, is called anima ψυχή. Hence, moreover, those intellectual substances which are not ordered to the body through such sensitive faculties are of a nobler order and are pure spirits. Further, the soul elevated by supernatural gifts, which are and are called spiritual, is called spiritualis πνεῦμα; the whole man through this elevation is πνευματικὸς in comparison with the purely natural condition, according to which he is called carnal σαρκικὸς². If therefore the thing itself is considered, which we wish to express philosophically and theologically by the name spiritus, God is and is called spirit in the most proper sense, although, with regard to the imposition of the name, it is said of creatures before it is said of God, which it has in common with nearly all the other names by which we designate the divine perfections (see above Coroll. 1. ad th. XIII.).

II. It is utterly absurd, as is clear from what has been said, what George Hermes taught, that the spiritual nature of God cannot be demonstrated by any other valid argument except that which is supplied in the text Io. IV. 24: God is spirit. Indeed the whole force of this very saying of the Saviour cannot be sufficiently understood unless the other chapters of revealed doctrine, concerning the simplicity and intellectual life which God is, are compared at the same time. Yet with this comparison made, it is most true that in those words of Christ there is comprehended, as it were, a synthesis of all those things which have been demonstrated in the preceding theses concerning the essence, truth, goodness and simplicity of God; for that the nature of God is wholly spiritual is indeed proved from the context, this clause being stated.

In this discourse with the Samaritan woman, Io. IV. 20–24., Christ the Lord deduces from the spiritual nature of God that the worship of God must be spiritual: « God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. »

Therefore, that it may be proved from the context itself in what sense God is called spirit, it must be inquired in what sense the divine worship which the Lord promises is said to be « in spirit and truth. » Again, that we may understand this other point, it must be defined what opposition is, and what is not, there established between the worship of the old dispensation and the worship promised by the New Testament.

Here one must distinguish between the things which are opposed, and the formal reason under which they are opposed. The things which are opposed are not merely external worship and merely internal worship, as the pseudo-mystic heretics asserted, and as impious men now say, who would wish all external worship removed. The woman asks not about any adoration of God whatever, but about that which the Samaritans gave in the temple of Mount Garizim, and the Jews in the temple of Jerusalem only; this was the adoration of public and sacerdotal worship, carried out specifically through sacrifices. Whence also in the opposition public and sacerdotal worship of the New Testament must be understood. This sense is proved both from the question, which concerned public adoration, and from the identity of the word in each member. « Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. » « The hour comes, when neither on this mountain nor at Jerusalem will you worship..... The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father also seeks such to worship him: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth »³. But public and sacerdotal worship cannot be merely internal. Therefore the things which are mutually opposed cannot be the merely external worship of the Old Testament and the merely internal worship of the New Testament. But the formal reason under which the opposition is set up must be understood as that which in each worship corresponds to the proper character of the dispensation to which it belongs. In the old dispensation this is indeed external, ceremonial, typical, in itself ineffective, and, as the Apostle speaks (2. Cor. III. 6. sq.; Heb. IX. 10.), a ministry of the letter, deformed, and a justice of the flesh; but in the worship of the New Testament the proper character, arising from the very nature of the dispensation of grace, is that which is internal, spiritual, efficacious unto justification in spirit. Christ the Lord therefore sets over against the typical worship, and so far imperfect, a perfect worship prefigured by it; for in this sense adoration is said to be in truth, and the worshippers are said to be true⁴. With the imperfection of the type coheres the fact that worship, insofar as it is proper to that typical dispensation, is external; and under this formal reason the worship of the New Testament is set over against it as adoration in spirit: « the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. » But adoration in spirit, consisting in dispositions, thoughts and affections of the soul, in faith, hope and charity, under this formal reason is something spiritual, freed from all material things; it is an entirely intellectual life in acts which in the proper sense are and are called spiritual; from this spirituality worship has its perfection, so that it is adoration in truth.

Hence this is the conclusion: adoration in spirit and truth is required from the proper nature of God, because God is spirit: « God is spirit, and (by Hebraism, the particle of inference = ergo) those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. » Now in the phrase « to worship in spirit » the word spirit is necessarily taken in the negating sense of what is material and corporeal, and affirming supernatural intellectual life in faith, hope and charity. Therefore also when God is called spirit, as the demonstration why spiritual worship is due to him, Christ the Lord understood, and wished to be understood, spirit in the negating sense of what is material, and in the affirming sense of intellectual substance and life, according to the concept of spirit set forth a little before, in n. I.

By a nearly similar reasoning, 2. Cor. III. describes the Christian dispensation, in its goods and gifts, as spiritual, to which is opposed the external dispensation and the legislation written on tables and in letters. But the principle of the charisms is called « the Spirit of the living God; » consequently the ministry of the New Testament is « the ministration of the Spirit. » Now the author of the charisms is understood to be not indeed a quality, but a subsisting and personal substance; for the Apostle concludes: « Now the Lord is the Spirit » (ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν). Moreover, there is no need to appeal to the texts of Scripture by which the spiritual nature and essence of God is set forth, since the whole revealed doctrine concerning the relations of God to creatures demonstrates this very thing evidently.

III. God is not only, as Creator and Conserver, « God of the spirits of all flesh » (Num. XVI. 22; Iob XII. 10.) and « lover of souls » (Sap. XI. 27.); but he is described more distinctly as the sun of intelligible things (ἥλιος τοῖς νοητοῖς), as Gregory Nazianzen says (or. 21. n. 1; or. 28. n. 30. Cf. supra th.XI.n.II.). For God is the principle, in general, of all life, Ps. CIII. (heb. 104.) 30; Iob XXXIII. 4. Specifically he is the fount of intellectual life, « an illuminating light, » first indeed in the natural order also: he himself « gave the heart to think and created the knowledge of spirit » Ecclesi. XVII. 5. 6. Then he is the fount of intellectual life in the supernatural order; for what has not come up into the eye, the ear, the heart of man, that is, into natural knowledge, this « God revealed through his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God » 1. Cor. II. 9.10. « The Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge and piety » Is. XI. 2. He alone is the principle of all spiritual charisms, which are referred either to the intellect or to the will: « all these things are wrought by one and the same Spirit » 1. Cor. XII. 4. sqq.; « there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; » and in the same Spirit is given wisdom, knowledge, the working of virtues, prophecy, discernment of spirits, 1. Cor. 1. c. Finally the same Spirit, by his very gifts, transforms created spirits into the same image, from glory to glory, 2. Cor. III. 18.⁵, so that finally they are made one spirit with the Spirit himself, who is for them the principle and ultimate end, not indeed in substance but by union and likeness, 1. Cor. VI. 17. All these things, however, are wrought by one Spirit, abiding in himself without any change in himself. « The artificer of all things, wisdom… for in her is a spirit of understanding, holy, unique, manifold… having all power, overseeing all things, and passing through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, most subtle… and, since she is one, she can do all things, and remaining in herself she renews all things, and through the nations passes into holy souls, and makes friends of God and prophets » Sap. VII. 21-27.⁶

Thus God is declared to us as absolute understanding and substantial will abiding in himself, or he is declared as personal spirit abiding in himself, so that by no division or emanation of himself, but by his free volition, he is the principle and cause of intellects, wills, finite spirits, and of all substances, powers and spiritual faculties; and so he is said to be principle, because and insofar as he is himself creator of spirit. Therefore not only from the metaphysical principle, that the perfection of an effect necessarily pre-exists in its cause either formally or eminently, but also from the express declarations of Scripture, the dependence of all spiritual effects on God as on an exemplar and efficient cause demonstrates that God is spirit according to all the senses by which these simple perfections, without limitation, can be designated by this name.

The divine essence itself is infinite understanding and comprehension.¹

That God is absolute perfection, and consequently absolute truth, and that he is most simple, and that he is spirit infinite in perfection, has been proved in the preceding theses. Because therefore he is spirit, he is understood to be a substance whose life is understanding; because he is most simple, his understanding is the divine substance itself; and likewise he neither is nor can be conceived to be in power, but of necessity is ἐντελέχεια and the purest act of understanding.

Yet because the concept of essence is other than that of understanding, the one is distinguished from the other according to reason. Therefore Being absolute, in comparison with understanding, has the character of knowable object; and because it is Being of infinite perfection, it is infinite also in the character of knowability, or in the character of truth, to which no understanding except an infinite one can be perfectly adequated.

Further, the divine act of understanding is as infinite as the object of understanding is infinite, because it is really the divine essence itself and that object. The act of understanding is therefore perfectly proportioned to its infinite object.

Since, finally, understanding is the adequation of the intellect to the object, where actual infinite understanding is really identical with the infinite object itself according to every aspect of its infinite knowability, there is certainly a perfect adequation of the intellect with the object, as far as the object is knowable. This adequation is and is called comprehension. We understand God, therefore, insofar as he is an act of infinite understanding adequated to himself as the infinitely knowable truth, to be the perfect comprehension of himself; and because the act of understanding is the divine substance itself, he is substantial comprehension of himself.

So that such abstract names may be rightly understood, what we said about the divine simplicity above on p. 306 must be recalled. We use abstract names, namely, to express the divine perfections in some measure, for a double reason: both that we may signify the fullness of perfection, and that we may declare simplicity with every composition, even metaphysical, excluded. We say, e. g.: God is wisdom; because in God there is no wisdom restricted to some degree, but he is the whole reason of absolute wisdom, and because wisdom is not, as in creatures, something superadded to substance and essence, but essence itself, from its intrinsic nature, is wisdom. Therefore in the same way we also use those abstract names which in creatures signify immanent action. God is infinite understanding, volition, efficacy (ἐνέργεια). By these names we signify that understanding and will and omnipotence, just as the essence itself is, so are in intrinsic reason in the perfection of act; not, however, as a faculty which proceeds to the act of understanding, willing, effecting. When therefore it is said that God is substantial comprehension of his essence, this means that the divine essence is the divine intellect, and that the intellect is essentially in the perfection of act, and so is understanding; whence it comes about that the infinite divine understanding is adequated to the infinite divine essence, according to which adequation the understanding is called comprehension.

Corollary. If the divine understanding is considered insofar as in reason it is distinguished from its object, which is the divine essence, it can be compared, by analogy with our knowledge, with direct knowledge; but if understanding is viewed insofar as it is the divine essence itself, and so is object to itself, there corresponds to it analogically reflex knowledge, by which we know our own act of knowing.

God, from his essence and from the infinity of his understanding, necessarily knows every truth.

« The divine essence, as infinite truth and first intelligible, from which no truth can be independent, and as the exemplary idea both of all possibles and of all those that at some time really exist, objectively presents to the divine intellect whatever has the character of truth; and moreover, understanding itself, considered formally, is by its infinity the representation of every truth. God therefore, through his own essence and from the infinity of his understanding, is determined to the comprehension of every truth. •

1°. We can consider the divine essence in three ways: a) as absolute being and truth, on which all things depend and by whose analogical participation are all things that have the character of being and of truth. See above th. XXVIII. n. II. Now, while absolute Being and absolute truth are understood by a perfect comprehension, both intensively and extensively, by that very comprehension there are necessarily understood all things which, depending on him, either are in act or can be. Therefore God, comprehending his essence as absolute Being and first truth, from which all being and every participated truth depends, by the same act of understanding necessarily comprehends every truth.

b) The divine essence may be considered more expressly, insofar as it is the idea and exemplar, imitable externally through all the grades, reasons and relations of participated being and participated truth. Moreover, that infinite exemplar may be considered as it were in first act, so that its adumbrations outside it are only possible. In this way it is evident that comprehension of the exemplar is at the same time comprehension of all the possible adumbrations of it, or comprehension of the whole participated being in the metaphysical order and in the ideal state. This imitability of the divine essence in first act is as necessary as the essence itself. Wherefore this understanding of imitability, and of the whole being through which it is imitable, is necessary by that very fact, because the term of understanding is necessary. But if the divine exemplar is considered in second act, insofar as some imitation is actual and some existing ectype of that intelligible and intelligent exemplar or divine idea, this actual imitation is not necessary but contingent; yet on the hypothesis that it really exists, the divine understanding cannot comprehend the exemplar itself, from which the ectype depends by real, continuous and essential dependence, under every aspect of knowability, without at the same time comprehending all its actual expressions and imitations depending on it.

c) The divine essence is also infinite, insofar as it is the representation of truth, that is, wisdom and understanding formally representing truth. But it would not be an infinite representation, unless in it there shone forth and were represented every truth, both in the order of essences and of ideal possibles, and in the order of the actual existences of all participated being.

2°. Although this whole account of the divine knowledge is manifest from the principles handed down above concerning absolute perfection, simplicity, and truth, it can nevertheless be directly confirmed from the teaching of Scripture.

In the Scriptures it is declared above all as a proper perfection of divine wisdom that it knows and beholds all things from eternity, before they come to be in time. « The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, looking round about on all the ways of men, beholding the hearts and the hidden parts.»¹ For to the Lord God all things are known before they are created, and so also after they are made he regards all things « Ecclesi. XXIII. 28. 29. (graece 19. 20.). The intrinsic reason of this perfection is set forth in the sacred books in this way: that all things depend upon wisdom itself, or that she herself is the artificer, and therefore contains the reasons of all things, or that the efficacy of the divine gaze penetrates all things. « You have understood my thoughts from afar..... you have foreseen all my ways... Behold, O Lord, you have known the last things and the things of old: you have formed me² and laid your hand upon me » Psalm. CXXXVIII. 3. sqq. « What is richer than wisdom, which works all things? If, however, sense (φρονησις) works, who of those things that are is more the artificer than she? And if anyone desires the abundance of knowledge, she knows the things past, and estimates the things to come... she knows signs and wonders before they come to pass, and the outcomes of times and ages » Sap. VIII. 5-8. In almost the same way Ecclesiasticus joins the knowledge of all things with creating omnipotence. « The works of the Lord are all very good... The works of every flesh are before him, nor is anything hidden from his eyes: from age to age he looks, and nothing is wonderful in his sight. It is not to be said, What is this? or What is that? for all things shall be sought in their time »³ Ecclesi. XXXIX. 21-26. (graece 16-21.). Cf. Psalm. XXXII. 15; Is. XLI. 22-23; XLIV. 7. 8; XLV. 21; XLVI. 9. 10; Baruch III. 31. 32; Dan. XIII. 42. This same reason, why God knows all things, is contained in those places in which all things are said to depend on God under the aspect of wisdom, or on the Word, and all things to have been made and to consist through him. Wisdom is « a spotless mirror of God's majesty » (Greek: a mirror of the power and efficacy of God, or rather of the purest act, from which all things depend, ἐσοπτρον ἀκηλίδωτον τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνεργείας) Sap. VIII. 26; wisdom is « the beginning of the ways of the Lord, before he made anything, from the beginning » Prov. VIII. 22; through the Word which was in the beginning with God, all things were made, Io. I. 3. 4.

Therefore, as far as the omnipotence of God extends, so far extend his wisdom and knowledge. As in God omnipotence and wisdom are one simple Being: so in objects outside God, whatever depends on the divine Being and whatever is subject to omnipotence, that is, whatever in any order has the character of being, is necessarily subject to divine wisdom and knowledge. For « he who planted the ear, shall he not hear? or he who formed the eye, shall he not consider? » Psal. XCIII. 9. If, however, the most pure Being and the omnipotence of God are distinguished by reason from his wisdom, in this as in a most clean mirror shines forth the whole reason of being, or the universal truth, which depends on the power of the first and absolute Being.

3°. The doctrine of the Fathers explicitly declares the mode of God's knowledge from his essence as from the principle, exemplar, and representation of every being, and consequently of all truth. « It is not possible, says Pantaenus in the second century, that he who is above beings should receive knowledge of beings according to beings; but we say that beings know him as his own wills » Routh Reliq. sacr. T. I. p. 340.⁴. Most eloquently Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 7. §. 2., discusses this whole matter. « The divine mind comprehends all things by a certain eminent knowledge, by which, according to the cause of all things, it anticipates in itself the knowledge of all things (πάντων εἰδῆσιν προειλήφως)… and this, I think, Scripture signifies when it says: he who knows all things before they come to be (Dan. XIII. 42.). For the divine mind does not learn beings and know them from beings themselves; but from itself and in itself, according to the reason of cause, it has beforehand and comprehends before all things the knowledge and cognition and essence of all things (προεχει και προσυνειληφεν), not attending to each thing's species singly (divided), but knowing all things and containing them by one complex of cause….. Therefore divine wisdom, knowing itself, knows all things: in an immaterial way the material, in an undivided way the divided, and the many in a unified way, knowing and producing all things through the one (which is the divine essence)⁵. Therefore God does not have a separate knowledge of himself and another which comprehends all beings in common….. Thus God knows beings not through a knowledge of beings (derived from beings as cause), but through a knowledge of himself »⁶.

St Augustine treats at length of the eternal reasons, according to which God knows all things. « That which was made through him, let it be understood to be life in him, in which life he saw all things when he made them; and as he saw, so he made: not seeing beyond himself but in himself, he so enumerated all the things which he made… Note, then: he made; he did not know made things. Therefore before they came to be, they both were and were not: they were in God's knowledge, they were not in their own nature….. He no longer needs messengers for the knowledge of lesser things, as though through them he might become more knowing; but by that simple and wonderful mode he knows all things stably and unchangeably » Aug. Genes. ad litt. l. V. cc. 15. 18. 19.⁷. « With him, in whom is highest power, is highest and secret knowledge… With him all things are established in the Word of God by a certain knowledge of ineffable wisdom, and the Word himself (exemplarily) all things… And why are all things with him? Because even before all things were or were created, all things were known to him » Id. in Ps. 49. n. 18. Following in the footsteps of St Augustine, St Anselm, Monol. c. 10., after saying that nothing can be known unless some expression of it and some word is in the mind, and that this is the most noble of all utterances, concludes: « It can not undeservedly be seen that with the highest substance such an utterance of things has both been before they were, so that through it they might be made, and is when they have been made, so that through it they may be known. » St Anselm declares a little later, in c. 12., that this utterance or reason of all things is not some accident, as the ideas are in us, but the very essence and substance of God. « But since it is certain, as reason teaches, that whatever the highest substance has made… it has made by its inner utterance, whether single things by single words, or rather by saying all things at once in one word, what can seem more necessary than that this utterance of the highest essence is nothing other than the highest essence? » We can comprehend the whole in the words of St Thomas, 1. q. 14. a. 6. « Since the essence of God has in itself whatever perfection the essence of any other thing has… God in himself can know all things by a proper knowledge. For the proper nature of each thing consists in this, that it participates the divine perfection in some way. Nor would God perfectly know himself, unless he knew in what way his perfection is participable by others (this is the knowledge of essences). Nor would he perfectly know the nature of being itself, unless he knew all the modes of being » (all of which depend on him, whence is the knowledge of existents).

Not only if by reason we distinguish the essence and the understanding does the divine mind, through the essence as the infinite object, become determined to know every truth; but understanding also, considered formally in its intrinsic perfection, must be conceived as determined to the comprehension of every truth. This is the living quality of unshaken truth, as St Augustine calls the knowledge of God (ad Simplic. l. II. q. 2.). « When I have left behind only the living quality of certain and unshaken truth, which illumines all things by one eternal contemplation, or rather do not leave it behind (by mere abstraction from human knowledge; for human knowledge does not have this), but, as far as I can, have thought, God's knowledge is somehow insinuated to me. » It is the same light without darkness, of which St Bernard speaks, Consid. V. 5: « God, the lord of knowledges, who alone knows no ignorance, who is wholly light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, is wholly eye and is never at all deceived, because he is never shut in, who seeks no light outside himself, to whom one draws near that he may see, he who sees, he from whom he sees. »

Corollary. Whatever God knows besides himself is indeed some term of divine knowledge, or is subject to divine knowledge; yet by any real influx it does not in God produce knowledge and science, or, as is commonly said, it does not determine divine knowledge as a cause. « God does not know beings by a knowledge derived from beings, but by the knowledge of himself » Pantaen. Dionys. August. Therefore, although God would not know, e. g., the world as existing, unless for some difference of time it really existed, because for God the true is the term of knowledge: yet the existing world does not exercise any action or influx upon God; but only if it is objectively true that the world exists at some time, the divine substance, under the aspect of knowledge, is terminated at this truth as well as at every truth, because by its intrinsic perfection it is determined to the comprehension of every truth. If therefore some theologians sometimes say that an object has the role of determining God's knowledge to know it, they take determination in the sense in which we speak of the term of knowledge. But when we deny the determination of God's knowledge by an object distinct from God, we deny an action and influx of the object into God by way of cause or principle. But when we affirm that the knowledge of God is determined by the divine essence itself, we wish three things: a)negatively that it is not the cause of knowledge outside God; b) positively, that the reason of knowledge is the intrinsic perfection of God himself; c) with the distinction made, according to our manner of understanding, between the divine essence and understanding, that the essence is conceived by us as prior in reason and as the object determining divine knowledge, the analogy being taken from the relation which exists between our cognitions and their object.

The divine essence is the object formal, all other truths are secondary object of God's knowledge.

« From the reason by which we have demonstrated that God's understanding relates to the divine essence, and through the essence to all other things, it follows of itself that the divine essence is, and is rightly called by theologians, the principal and formal object, while all other truths taken together are the secondary and material object of divine knowledge. »

Form and matter are properly said of composite substances, in which form is that which gives essential perfection of a certain order and species, and so constitutes a being distinct and different from other orders or species; matter, on the other hand, does not give a specific perfection distinguishing it from other orders, but is common to many, or rather to all orders of material substances. From this the denomination has been transferred to the object of knowledge, which is distinguished into material and formal. According to that analogy of matter and form, the formal object of knowledge is called that by which the proper perfection of knowledge, distinct and different from the knowledges of other orders, is constituted. But by the very fact that the object gives its proper perfection to knowledge, it determines it, and consequently it is known through itself and for its own sake (they call it the motive), and not on account of something else. The material object, on the contrary, underlies the science, which has its perfection not from the object but from elsewhere, and different from the knowledges of other orders; therefore it does not itself determine the science and the perfection of the science, although the science, having its perfection determined elsewhere, also has this object as its term. Therefore the material object is known not through itself and for its own sake as the motive of science, but through another and on account of another. From these very proper characters of the formal and material object it is easily clear that the formal object, in relation to the material objects subordinate to it, is at the same time the object of knowledge, principal, while the material objects are secondary.

Now indeed: a) the divine knowledge and understanding, from what has been said, is really the divine substance and essence itself. It therefore has its own perfection, different from any knowledge of another order, from nothing other than the divine substance itself, or from itself. For this is its own proper reason and perfection: that the infinite understanding act is really the divine substance itself and the infinite substantial truth itself, to which no perfection can accrue or be lost, however the objects of knowledge may stand, which are distinct from and different from that infinite truth. Hence b) if by reason we distinguish infinite truth and the infinite act of understanding, the infinite truth itself is not only knowable, but by its intrinsic reason it requires, and is (in our manner of speaking) the motive, that it be actually known through the infinite understanding itself (see p. 314.): and so we conceive infinite truth, or divine Being, with foundation in reality, as determining the divine intellect to comprehend it. Further, c) this substantial act of understanding, in the comprehension of the divine essence, is so determined that, in the essence as in absolute Being, in the infinite exemplar, in the actual representation of all truth, it comprehends at once whatever has the character of truth (th. XXXVII.). The divine essence, therefore, is the formal reason under which God comprehends any truth whatever; and an object distinct from God does not act upon the divine intellect, or induce in it any modification, which would plainly repugn to that substantial act. Therefore an object distinct from God neither perfects nor determines God's knowledge; but through the essence and in his essence, as through the formal object, God is determined to the knowledge of every truth, even of what is distinct from himself. The Scholastics meant this when they said: God does not understand things distinct from himself through proper species of things, but through his own essence as through an intelligible species (representation) of all things; and the same, after the other Fathers, St Anselm expressed more brightly in Monol. c. 32. « The word by which God speaks the creature is in no way similarly a word of the creature, for it is not its likeness (derived from it), but the principal essence; it follows therefore that he does not speak the creature by a word of the creature…. If therefore he says nothing by a word of the creature, whatever he says he says by his own Word.'» The same may be declared in another way. Just as the divine volition, which is of itself determined to love the absolute good that is the divine essence, can, without any change in itself, extend to loving in it and on account of it the participated goods; so the divine understanding, determined of itself to understand the absolute truth, extends, without increase of its perfection, to knowing every truth in the absolute truth itself. « He did not know created things otherwise than things to be created; for nothing accrued to his wisdom from them, but when they existed as they ought and when they ought, it remained as it was. Thus it is written in the book of Ecclesiasticus: before they are created, all things are known to him, so also after they have been consummated. Thus, he says, not otherwise, both before they are created and after they have been consummated, thus they are known to him » St Augustine, Trin. XV. c. 13. Cf. Genes. ad litt. V. c. 18; Civ. Dei X. c. 12. See the teaching of the PP. above in thesis XXXVII. Cf. what we have said on p. 307. sqq.

It is therefore most clear that the formal and principal object of the divine understanding, by which it has its own proper perfection, by which it is determined, through which and in which it knows every truth, is the divine essence itself; but that any truth whatever distinct from God is the secondary and material object of one and the same act of God, by which he understands himself, which does not give to that act its proper perfection, and which is known in another and through another, namely through the principal and formal object.

Corollary. From the declared mode of divine knowledge it is understood in what way faith and theology and mystical contemplation, and much more truly the beatific vision, imitate the divine knowledge itself, while all created things and all truth are considered in God, the supreme truth, as in their cause and their principle and end. Likewise it is understood how the divine understanding, both in respect of its principal object and in respect of its secondary object, is alone adequate theology in the most sublime sense of the name. See above p. 4. 5.

God knows all truths not only in the divine essence but also in themselves.

« Although God does not know the secondary objects of his knowledge in themselves, as in a cause determining and perfecting knowledge, he nevertheless knows them not only as they are eminently in the divine essence, but also as they are or can be formally in themselves. »

This saying, God knows things in themselves, is ambiguous in meaning. For if the particle in themselves is joined with the verb knows, so that it is understood that the perfection of knowledge depends on objects as on a determining cause, and thus things diverse from the essence of God are called the formal object of knowledge; it follows from the preceding thesis that in this sense things are not known by God in themselves but in the essence of God. « Something is known in two ways, in one way in itself, in another way in another. Something is known in itself when it is known through its proper species adequate to the knowable thing itself; as the eye sees a man through the species of man: but in another, that is seen which is seen through the species of the containing; as when a part is seen in a whole through the species of the whole… Thus, therefore, it must be said that God sees himself in himself, because he sees himself through his essence, but other things not in themselves but in himself, insofar as his essence contains the likeness of others from himself » St Thomas, 1. q. 14. a. 5. But if the particle in themselves is connected with the noun, so that things in themselves, not merely the exemplar and archetype of things in the divine essence, are understood to be an object, although only material, and known through the adequate knowledge of the divine essence; in this sense single things are known by God in themselves. For « if someone knowing knows the known according to the being which it has in the knower, nevertheless he knows it according to the being which it has outside the knower: as the intellect knows a stone according to the intelligible being which it has in the intellect, insofar as it knows itself to understand (reflexively); but nevertheless it knows the being of the stone in its own nature… Thus, therefore, it must be said that God not only knows things to be in himself, but through what he contains in himself of things he knows them in their own nature, and so much the more perfectly as each thing is more perfect in him » St Thomas, 1. q. 14. a. 6. ad 1; q. 20. a. 2. ad 2; q. 57. a. 3; de verit. q. 2. a. 4. ad 6.

Indeed, a) if God knew the being of things only as they are eminently in God, he would not know created or possible being itself, but only his own essence. For the eminent Being in God is not created or possible being, but is the divine essence itself, in which, as in the formal object, he knows all things; this he not only knows: «nor would he have those things which were not yet made, except as he himself is unmade» Aug. Genes. ad litt. V. c. 16. Hence in many places Augustine repeats that when all things are said to be in God, this is to be understood of the exemplar and living ideas, and of living knowledge, in which he does not hold the natures of things existing from eternity in himself, but nevertheless holds the things themselves in his knowledge. «If he knew them before he made them; certainly before they were made, they were known to him in the same way as they live eternally and unchangeably and are life, and they were made in the same way as each creature is in its kind» Aug. Genes. ad litt. V. c. 15. «Before they were made, they both were and were not: they were in the knowledge of God, they were not in their own nature» ib. c. 18. Indeed b) unless God perfectly knew the being of things as they are in themselves or can be, neither could he be considered to comprehend his own essence as the cause and exemplar of all. For the perfect comprehension of a cause includes the knowledge of its effects, whether possible or actually existing, as they are in themselves. Therefore, because God comprehends his essence under the reason of absolute Being, of infinite exemplar, and of infinite representation of every participated being and of every participated truth (th. XXXVII.), he comprehends this very participated being as it is in itself or can be.

It might seem to someone that, precisely because things, as they are in themselves, are constituted as the object of God's knowledge, this knowledge depends in some measure on the known things. The answer to this difficulty or question cannot be hard, provided we keep in mind what we have said about the divine simplicity. Surely God's knowledge is not an accident or modification of substance, but is the divine substance itself. This substantial understanding is in itself infinitely perfect, and therefore from its essence it is the understanding of every truth; hence it does not receive perfection in itself as our understanding does, through assimilation to the known object; but the divine essence itself, and the divine idea, is the exemplar to which it is assimilated and from which every truth has its perfection. Hence too it is that the divine substantial understanding is in no way changed in itself, if a contingent truth as its subject stands one way or another. «God's knowledge is most universal, because by one likeness, which is his essence, it knows all things» S. Th. 2. dist. 3. q. 3. a. 2. When divine knowledge is named, e.g., of the existing world, or knowledge of a human act, e.g., of Peter's denial, two things are named: namely God's knowledge in itself and the connotation of a non-necessary term. But because the term is something non-necessary, the connotation of this term rather than another (for example, of the existing world rather than of the merely possible, of Peter's denial rather than his confession) is not absolutely necessary, but only on the hypothesis that the contingent truth stands in this way rather than in another. Therefore, that God's knowledge is referred to this rather than to its opposite, depending on the term, does not arise from imperfection but from the perfection of knowledge, because every truth lies under that knowledge, which is always perfect in itself in the same way, as it really stands. «Knowledge of vision adds nothing within the genus of knowledge to the divine knowledge, but only the existence of creatures, which are said to be seen» S. Th. de veritat. q. 3. a. 3. ad 8. To the question therefore proposed, a distinction must be made: God's knowledge in itself and in its perfection depends on a term distinct from itself: I deny; the connotation of the term, whether this term rather than another underlies the knowledge, depends on the term and on the manner in which it stands: I subdistinguish: it depends on the term on account of an imperfection of knowledge: I deny; on account of the perfection of knowledge, which necessarily understands all truth as it is: I concede.

Corollary 1. From the fact that God knows all things from eternity, as they are or can be in themselves at any difference of time, it is not said that to possibles or to things not yet existing belongs some diminished being, of which some have spoken; but it is asserted that God understands the whole reason of being, as it would be in itself if it were produced, or as it actually is at the time when it exists. God therefore knows from eternity actual being, which creatures can have or at some time actually have; yet he does not know that they have that being actually from eternity; rather he knows that no being distinct from himself is actual from eternity. Supra th. XXXII.

Corollary 2. It follows from what has been said how God's knowledge is, and how it is not, intuitive; whence it is further evident that the argument which Diego Alvarez (de Auxiliis l. II. c. 8.), with others, wished to prove, that the existence of all things according to their real being is in eternity from eternity — namely, that otherwise God could not see things from eternity by intuitive knowledge — is of no value. For intuitive knowledge requires, on the side of the manner of knowing: a) that it be immediate knowledge and not derived; b) that it be apprehension of the object as it is in itself, and not through the analogy of another; hence c) only accidentally is it required that the object of knowledge be formal, i.e., that it itself determine the knowledge and give it its specific perfection. Accidentally, I say, this is required for our intuitive knowledge, because we can know only the formal object in itself, as it is in itself; but if the vision of the divine essence, as the formal object, at the same time comprehends in the divine essence other things as they are in themselves, this will be the intuition of things so much the more perfect. These conditions, to which Marsilius of Inghen went before for the more recent authors (in 1. d. 38. a. 1. concl. 7.), are not unjustly held to be sufficient, as a rule, for knowledge to be called intuitive. In this sense, therefore, all knowledge of God is intuition. But the older authors for the most part demanded d) on the side of the object its real existence for some difference of time, in which sense Suarez (de Attributis div. 1. III. c. 4. n. 2.) calls knowledge of existing things intuitive, but the knowledge of possibles, even in God, abstractive, « because it abstracts from the actual existence of its object. »