Ordinatio

To this a certain doctor [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 says the following: when speaking of the knowledge of something, a distinction can be drawn on the part of the object, that it can be known through itself or through an accident, in particular or universally. Through an accident is God not known really, because whatever about him is known is himself; however, by knowing some attribute of his we know as it were per accidens what he is. Hence Damascene [Orthodox Faith I ch.4] says of the attributes, “They do not state the nature of God but what is around his nature.” Universally too, namely in a general attribute, is he known: not indeed as to what may be said of him universally in predication (in whom nothing is universal, because the quiddity is of itself singular), but universally as to what is only analogically common to him and creatures; yet he is conceived as if one thing by us because of the closeness of the concepts, though they be diverse concepts [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2] He is not known in particular from creatures because a creature is a foreign likeness of him – in this way because a creature is only conformed to God as to certain attributes that are not that nature in particular. Therefore, since nothing leads to the knowledge of another save under the idea of what is alike, it follows etc.

Again, he is known universally in three ways: most generally, more generally, generally. ‘Most generally’ has three degrees. For by knowing any being as it is, very indistinctly, this being, being is conceived as if part of the concept; and it is the first degree. And by removing the ‘this’ and conceiving ‘being’, there is the second degree; for now, as conceived not as a part, an analogue is conceived common to God and creatures. But if a distinction is drawn in the concept of being that belongs to God, namely by conceiving negatively indeterminate being (that is, not determinable by a concept of being that belongs analogically, which is privatively indeterminate being), there is now the third degree. In the first way [sc. negatively] the indeterminate is abstracted as form from the whole of matter, as subsisting in itself and capable of being participated; the indeterminate in the second way [sc. privatively] is the universal abstracted from particulars, which is something actually participated in them. After these three degrees of conceiving ‘most generally’, God is conceived ‘more generally’ by conceiving any attribute, not simply as before, but along with supreme eminence. And God is conceived ‘generally’ by conceiving any attribute to be the same as his first attribute, namely ‘being’, because of its simplicity. And God is not known through his proper species, because nothing is more simple than he, but by way of estimation,¹ through some foreign species taken from creatures, and this in the three aforesaid ways.

As to the second question [n.6], a distinction must be drawn, according to this opinion, about the way of conceiving naturally and rationally. In the first way God is the object first intelligible to us from creatures, because natural cognition proceeds from the indeterminate to the determinate. The indeterminate negatively is more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively, so is conceived before it; and the indeterminate privatively is prior in our knowledge to the determinate, because “‘being’ and ‘thing’ are impressed by first impression on our intellect,” according to Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.6. Therefore, the indeterminate negatively is altogether first the object for our intellect, according to the mode of conceiving naturally. Rationally, however, it is known later, after the creature is known according to the three degrees (most generally, then more generally, and last generally), because first is conceived this good, then universal good abstracted by second abstraction, namely what is indeterminate privatively, then good abstracted by first abstraction, which namely is the indeterminate negatively, because by way of ratiocinative deduction must that from which abstraction is made be known first before what is abstracted is known.

The exposition of the first member, namely naturally [n.22], how in this way something is known, is given first: because God, as he is thus the first thing known, is not distinguished from other things, both because of his simplicity and because he is the first only as to the two first degrees of conceiving most generally [n.21] – neither of which pertains to any idea determining that attribute to God. And how God can be known and not distinguished from other things by the knowing intellect is explained by an example: as the eye sees light first, though does not, because of the subtlety of it, discern it as it discerns color through light.²