Ordinatio

[To the principal arguments] To the arguments for this question [nn.1-4]. As to the first [n.1], I say that the comparison must be understood with respect to the first moving of the intellect by the object; for there the phantasm has, along with the agent intellect, the office of the first moving object. But it must not be understood as to every act that follows the first motion; for the intellect can abstract every object included in the first moving object, and can consider the thing abstracted without considering that from which it abstracts. And, by considering this abstracted thing, it thus considers what is common to the sensible and to the non-sensible, because therein is considered the non-sensible universally just as also the sensible. And the intellect can consider that abstracted thing and another abstracted thing in what is proper to the other, namely the non-sensible. But the sense does not abstract, and therefore in every act, both first and second, it requires some proper object moving it in a way the phantasm is not related to the intellect.

To the second [n.2] I say that the Commentator [n.2, interpolated text] expounds the Philosopher’s simile of the difficult and not of the impossible. And his reason is because then nature would in vain have made those abstract substances to be intelligible and not able to be understood by any intellect. But this reason of his is not valid: first because it is not the end of those substances, insofar as they are intelligible, to be understood by our intellect (and so, if this did not belong to them, they would not for this reason be intelligible in vain); second because the inference ‘they are not intelligible by our intellect, therefore by no intellect’ does not hold, for they could be understood by themselves. And so there is a fallacy here of the consequent. Hence, although the authority of the Philosopher could be expounded in many ways, I say that the eye of an owl has only intuitive and natural knowledge, and that, as to these two conditions, the authority of the Philosopher can be expounded of impossibility, because just as it is impossible for the eye to consider this object [the sun] gazing at it, so it is for our intellect to know God naturally and also intuitively.

To the third [n.3] I say that the potential infinite is unknown, because each thing is knowable insofar as it is actual. However, it is not unknown such that it is repugnant for it to be understood by an infinite intellect; but the infinite cannot be known by any intellect knowing it according to the manner of its own infinity. For the manner of its infinity is by taking one thing after another, and an intellect that would in this way know one thing after another would always know the finite and never the infinite. However, an infinite intellect can know the whole simultaneously, not part after part. – Also, when from Metaphysics 2.2.994b22-23 argument is taken about infinites and the infinite, I say that the case is not alike, because knowledge of objects numerically infinite would prove the infinity of the knowing power (as was plain in the first question of the second distinction, article 2, relating to infinity [Ord. I d.2 n.127]), namely because there more on the part of the object proves more of virtue in the intellect. But intellection of some infinite does not prove infinity, because it is not necessary for the act to have the sort of real mode that the object has; for an act under the idea of the finite can relate to an object under the idea of the infinite, unless the act were comprehensive; and I concede that we do not have such an act about an infinite object, nor is it possible to have it.

To Gregory [n.4] I say that he must not be understood to mean that contemplation stops at some creature under God (because this would be to enjoy things that are to be used, which would be extreme perversity, according to Augustine 83 Questions q.30). But the concept of that essence [of God] under the idea of being is more imperfect than the concept of that essence as it is this essence; and because it is more imperfect therefore is it inferior in intelligibility. But contemplation, by general law, stops at such a common concept, and therefore it stops at some concept that is of lesser intelligibility than God is in himself as he is this essence. And therefore it must be understood with reference to something that is under God, that is, to something under the idea of the intelligible, whose intelligibility is inferior to the intelligibility of God in himself as this singular essence.

[To the other arguments]. To the arguments for the first opinion [of Henry, n.20]. When it is argued that God cannot be understood in any concept common univocally to him and creatures, because he is a certain singularity, the consequence is not valid. For Socrates is singular insofar as he is Socrates, and yet from Socrates can many predicates be abstracted. And so the singularity of something does not prevent the possibility of some common concept being abstracted from that which is singular. And although whatever is there in the thing be singular of itself in existing, such that nothing contracts something else there to singularity, yet that same thing can be conceived as ‘this’ in reality or in some way indistinctly, and so as singular or common.

What Henry says for the opinion about knowledge per accidens [n.20] it is not necessary to refute, because [God] is known quasi per accidens in an attribute, but not precisely, as was proved [n.25].