De Deo uno

289. God is infinite in intellect and will, utterly simple and immutable; his knowledge is pure act. Therefore everything implying imperfection, potentiality, composition, or succession must be excluded from it. God's cognition is not an act proceeding from a faculty, but a substantial divine act; there is complete identity among the divine essence, the intellect, and the act of understanding; there is not even a distinction of reason with objective precision. God, from himself alone, knows most perfectly whatever has the character of truth. He is in no way determined, nor can he be determined, by objects to know them, because such determination presupposes a potential subject. Indeed, it cannot properly be said even of the divine essence that it determines the divine intellect to cognition as a principle, because divine intellection in no way arises or is produced. Therefore no object exerts a real influence upon the divine intellect; objects are merely terms of the divine intellection. Hence an object's real existence is not required for it to be known by God: if it is true, it is known by God precisely for that reason, and it is known from eternity according to every truth it possesses and every degree of certainty it has. For example, a determinate free act of some creature may be contained with probability in its causes and be knowable from them. If so, God knows with infinite certainty that the act is contained with probability in its causes. If the act is truly posited, it is metaphysically impossible that it not be posited; and God likewise knows with infinite certainty the act as outside its causes and as metaphysically impossible not to occur.

290. We cannot conceive this infinite, substantial cognition of God except after the manner of potential, created cognition. As was said above concerning God's attributes and perfections in general, some things must be distinguished in God and considered after the manner of a certain succession. Thus we distinguish the divine intellect as a “faculty” or principle of intellection from intellection itself; the intellect as the principle of intellection from divine being (the physical essence) as the object of intellection; and cognition of divine being from cognition of non-divine objects. But being, intellect, and intellection are fully identical, and the intellection by which God knows himself is the same as that by which he knows non-divine objects.

291. Since a knowing creature is potential, it must in some way be determined to cognition, either immediately by the object or by something that takes the object's place: an intelligible species. In a similar way, an “intelligible species” is usually assigned to God, to inform the divine intellect in some way for cognition, while excluding every real determination, as was said above. This species is the divine essence, which, conceived by us under this aspect, can be called the medium quo of divine cognition. It should be noted, however, that the divine essence is understood as the physical essence, divine being itself.

By this species we conceive the divine intellect as informed so as to know that of which this species is the species—namely, primarily, divine being itself; and, since the divine essence is the foundation and representation of all truth, also, secondarily, every non-divine truth. The divine essence is also the medium in quo by which God knows things other than himself.

292. Just as the divine essence is the foundation of all being, so too it is the foundation of all truth. It is the foundation of the truth of possibles because possibility is grounded in the divine essence as imitable; it is the foundation of the truth of existents because existence is grounded in the free decree to create that being, which decree is the divine essence itself. And just as the essence determinately grounds those truths, so too it represents them, so that whoever knows divine being comprehensively also sees the truths grounded by it.

In this sense one may rightly say that God knows non-divine objects in his essence, or that the divine essence is the medium in which God knows things other than himself—not by discursive reasoning, but intuitively. These words should not be understood as if one were saying that God knows non-divine things only according to the eminent being they have in the divine essence, an opinion attributed by some to AUREOLUS (In 1 d. 35 p. 2 a. 2). Rather, non-divine objects are known in the divine essence, as the representation of all truth, according to their own natures, with all their properties down to the smallest details. This cognition, however, is not discursive. “For when something is known in something, the knower is carried in one movement toward both; as is clear when something is known in something as in an intelligible form. Such cognition is not discursive” (De veritate, q. 8 a. 15 c.).

293. If one says that God knows this truth in his essence, another in the decree to create, and another in his decree to concur or in his concurrence, the meaning is this: This truth (for example, Peter is possible) is grounded in the divine essence, prior to any divine decree, because the divine essence is thus imitable; that truth (Peter not merely as possible but as existing at some time) derives from the free decree to create Peter. Hence the divine essence, insofar as it is identical with this decree, grounds this truth and represents it; thus in this decree the truth “Peter exists” is known.

Generally, the question “In what medium does God know this or that truth?” properly means: From what is this or that thing true? How is this or that truth grounded and connected with the divine essence—independently of any divine decree, dependently on a decree, on which decree, and so forth? The question in no way means explaining how cognition of this or that truth is possible for God. For this possibility is fully explained by the fact that God is infinite in intellect and that the object in question is true. We cannot, however, positively understand in itself the manner in which God knows, since in thinking about this matter we always think after the manner in which creatures know.

294. It has been said that the divine essence is the medium in which God knows things other than himself. Some authors, whom you may consult in URRABURU, Theodicea, II, 150 s., have further maintained that one must admit a cognition by which non-divine things are known not in the divine essence but immediately in those things themselves. If this opinion is defended by saying that things have truth not only in the divine essence but also in themselves, and that they are knowable and known by God according to this twofold account of truth, it seems that one should observe the following: just as there is not one being of things grounded in divine being and another that they possess in themselves, so there is not one truth of things grounded in the divine essence and another that they possess in themselves. Therefore, even if God does not know them immediately in themselves but only in his essence, no account of their truth escapes him. On the other hand, it seems quite difficult to admit in God a cognition in which the intelligible species—which, in that cognition too, by which things are said to be known not in the divine essence, is posited as the divine essence—would immediately lead to the cognition of something that is not the divine essence. One should therefore say, it seems, that God knows all non-divine things in his essence as the medium in which; this appears to be the more common opinion. Those who defend it may be consulted in URRABURU, l. c., pag. 148 s. Theologically, this is an entirely open question.

295. What has been said applies readily to the cognition of possibles and of those things that exist whose truth depends solely on a free divine decree (the existence of things and their necessary actions). A difficulty arises, however, when the acts in question involve created freedom.