Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

1. In the ontological order there exists a connexion, dependence, and relation of beings among themselves. In the most general signification of the terms we can for the present matter reduce all relations to the connexion of cause and principle with effect and principiate. Whence also in the order of cognition truths, or beings insofar as knowable, are mutually connected, so that the human mind can advance from one known truth to the cognition of another. For a cause, considered according to its perfection, contains the effect in itself at least in potency, and insofar as it is a univocal cause, i. e. operating according to the perfection of its nature to produce a homogeneous effect of the same character as itself, its perfection simply determines the perfection of the effect; when however it is an equivocal cause, i. e. one not acting according to the whole perfection of its power and producing a heterogeneous effect of a character diverse from itself, its perfection in a certain measure determines the perfection of the effect. Further, a necessary cause, and a cause insofar as it is in act although not acting necessarily, is connected with the existence of the effect; but a cause in potency and not acting necessarily coheres with the possibility of the effect. Conversely the perfection of the effect is connected with the perfection of the cause, and the existing effect with the existence of the cause and of the series of causes up to the first, which has no cause. Hence in the order of cognition the effect can be known in such a way that its nexus and relation to the cause is understood, and with this nexus supposed, from the known nature and perfection of the effect the perfection of the cause is known, insofar as it is manifested from that nexus and from the perfection of the effect; conversely too the cause can be known in its perfection and formal character in such a way that its nexus with the effect is known, and from its perfection and action the proper character and perfection of the effect is known. What we say of the efficient cause holds in its own way of the formal cause in relation to what depends on it, and of the final cause in relation to what is for the end, and generally of any relation whatever of principle to principiate.

When human reason from that which is prior only in cognition but ontologically posterior knows that which is ontologically prior and posterior only in cognition, the cognition is said to be a posteriori. A priori cognition descends from that which is prior both in being and in cognition to the cognition of the posterior.

Insofar as a cause or principle is the medium from which the effect or principiate is known, or vice versa — in sum, insofar as one truth is the formal object under which another is manifested and known — the cognition is mediate. The faculty of the mind, moreover, insofar as it reaches from one or more known truths to others to be known, is specifically called reason, at least among writers before our age, as has already been said above. Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 79. a. 8.

2. The cognition of those things which depend on others as on causes and principles in the ontological order is never perfect, nor is the knowing mind fully satisfied, unless they are known from their very causes and principles. Then indeed not only the causes and the truths which are the medium of knowing in which, as they call it, but the effects themselves and the truths understood from principles are known in themselves and according to their inmost character. The higher the causes known up to the supreme, and the more fully the dependent effects and consequences are known from them, the more perfect is the cognition.

Cognition from causes is properly called science by the ancients. If it be science from the highest causes, on which all orders of knowable things depend — and so science from the eminent universality of principles, which contain under themselves as a norm the lower principles of particular sciences — it has the name of wisdom.

« Truth is doubly considerable, says St. Thomas: in one way as self-evident, in another way as known through another. What is self-evident holds itself as a principle and is perceived at once by the intellect, and therefore the habit perfecting the intellect for the consideration of truth of this kind is called intellect, which is the habit of principles. But truth which is known through another is not perceived at once by the intellect but through the inquiry of reason, and holds itself in the character of a term. This indeed can be in two ways: in one way as it is ultimate in some genus, in another way as it is ultimate in respect of the whole of human cognition. And because those things which are known later for us are prior and more known according to nature... therefore what is ultimate in respect of the whole of human cognition is what is first and most knowable according to nature. And about things of this kind is wisdom, which considers the highest causes... But for what is ultimate in this or that genus of knowable things, science perfects the intellect; and therefore according to the diverse genera of knowable things there are diverse habits of sciences, although wisdom is but one » S. Th. 1. 2. q. 57. a. 2.

You will notice from this by the way how God also in this sense is wisdom itself (ἡ αὐτοσοφία), namely insofar as in His essence as in the supreme reason He beholds the whole amplitude, all orders, and all relations of knowable things. All created wisdom, moreover, is a certain assimilation to and participation of that divine wisdom (see Lessius de Perfection. divin. l. IV.). In God there is not as in us a wisdom of reason advancing from understood causes to the understanding of effects and of whatever depends on causes and principles; but there is a wisdom of intellect beholding all things in His own essence as in the representation of all truth — beholding, moreover, not only as all truth is in the divine essence as in the supreme reason, but also as it is in itself (cf. Tract. de Deo th. XXXVI-XXXIX.).

3. All those who assume that the mode of our cognition is the most perfect, and that its order from its very first beginnings corresponds to the ontological order of knowable things, thereby also maintain that the first inception and progress of our cognition begins from the immediate intuition of absolute being, which is the supreme cause and reason of all knowable things; and consequently that whatever we know is known by us first of all under the character and through the idea of absolute being. Since, however, on the one hand absolute being cannot be beheld immediately in itself by the intellect without, on account of its very simplicity, being beheld according to all perfection as it is in itself (Tract. de Deo th. XVII.), and since on the other hand it is altogether evident that that character of being which we first know, from which we advance to knowing all grades of being, and under which we know all things, is abstract universal being; there is indeed imminent danger lest absolute being — infinite in intensity of perfection, one and singular, and eminent above the whole character of being which we can naturally know immediately in itself — be confounded with universal being, least in intensity of perfection of all things that can be conceived, as being the most abstract, consisting of a single note (Tract. de Deo th. XXIV.). Cf. Concil. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 1. can. 3. 4.

The mode of our rational cognition, therefore, is not such that it begins from the highest cause and advances from it to the understanding of the rest, which depend on that supreme cause; but on the contrary those things which are ontologically posterior are prior in our cognition. From phenomena and operations we first understand the substance underlying them, from effects the cause; from sensibles begins the progress of cognition to supersensible things, from lower to higher things to be in some measure understood. Most of all, indeed, we can know the first cause itself by the natural light of reason only a posteriori, insofar as it manifests itself in effects and in all things depending on it. From the known reality of the posterior we can know the reality of the prior, from the existence of the effect the existence of the cause; the perfection, however, and quiddity of the cause is known from the effect only insofar as the perfection of the transient action or effect manifests it. Where therefore the effect is equivocal, i. e. of a character altogether other than is the essence of the cause, the cognition of the cause from the effect — what it is — cannot be but imperfect, concluding from the foreknown perfections of the effect or action to analogous but eminent perfections of the cause itself (Tract. de Deo th. X. sqq.). Moreover the effects themselves and what depends on causes are not perfectly known, so that the mind is fully satisfied, so long as they are not known from their causes.

This a posteriori cognition, therefore, so long as one rests in it alone, is indeed imperfect in the character of science, yet is the necessary beginning of human science; it can however without doubt be called science simply, although this name belongs to it in a less strict sense than to cognition from causes. Once the cause is known at least in some measure from the effect, reason itself by more diligent consideration of the perfections of the cause can advance to a deeper cognition of the same, from them advance to knowing others, and finally turn back and as it were descend to the science of effects from causes. See S. Th. in Boëth. de Trin. lect. 2. q. 2. a. 1. solut. 3.

From what has been said it is also clear how mediate rational cognition, where one truth is manifested to the intellect through another, is nevertheless cognition from internal reasons. For the light of reason understands one truth which is to it the principle of cognition in such a way that it at once sees its inward nexus with another truth, and understands this truth by its own force from that inward nexus beheld with the truth foreknown as a principle. It is nevertheless true that the effect from its cause is known more in itself and therefore more from its inmost reason than the cause from its effect.