Ordinatio

About the third distinction I ask first about the knowability of God; and I ask first whether God is naturally knowable by the intellect of the wayfarer.¹ I argue that he is not: The Philosopher On the Soul 3.7.431a14-15 says, “Phantasms are to the intellect as sensibles are to the senses;” but the senses only sense sensible things; therefore the intellect understands only that of which it can, through the senses, apprehend a phantasm. But God does not have a phantasm, nor is he anything of which there can be a phantasm; therefore etc.

Again, Metaphysics 2.1.993b9-11, “As the eye of an owl is to the light of the sun so too is our intellect to the things that are most manifest in nature;”² but there is an impossibility there; so also here.

Again Physics 1.4.187b7-8, “The infinite, insofar as it is infinite, is unknown;” and Metaphysics 2.2.994b22-23, “It is not possible to know infinites,” therefore not an infinite thing either, for there seems to be the same disproportion of a finite intellect to the infinite as to infinite things, because the excess is equal, or not less.

Again, Gregory On Ezekiel II hom.2 n.14, “However much our mind has advanced in the contemplation of God, it reaches, not to what he is, but to what is below him.”

On the contrary: Metaphysics 6.2.1026a21-23, “Metaphysics is theology of God and about divine things principally;” therefore etc. And in an act of metaphysics, namely in the actual consideration of separate substances, does the Philosopher locate human happiness, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17.

Next after this I ask whether God is the first thing naturally known by us in this state of life. Argument that he is: “As each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to knowledge,” from Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31; but God is the first being; therefore he is the first known thing.

Again, nothing is perfectly known save when he has been perfectly known; therefore, nothing is simply known save when he has been simply known. The consequence is clear, because in the case of things that exist per se, ‘as the greatest is to the greatest, so is the simply so to the simply so’, and conversely; from Topics 5.8.137b20-27.

Again the most perfect act of a power is about the simply first object; but the most perfect act is about God, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17; therefore, God is the simply first knowable object.

On the contrary: All our knowledge arises from the senses, Metaphysics 1.1.980b28-81a12 and Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a3-b5; therefore God, who is furthest removed from the senses, is not first known by our intellect.

In the first question [n.1] the distinction should not be drawn that God can be known negatively or affirmatively [Alexander of Hales, ST I q.2 n.1 ch.2], because negation cannot be known save through affirmation, On Interpretation 14.24b3-4, Metaphysics 4.4.1008a17-18. Plain too is that we do not know any negations about God save through the affirmations by which we remove other incompossible things from those affirmations,. Also, we do not supremely love negations. Likewise too, a negation is conceived either precisely or as said of something. If a negation is conceived precisely, as ‘non-stone’, this belongs as equally to nothing as to God, because a pure negation is said of being and of non-being; therefore, God is no more understood in this than nothing is or a chimaera. If it is understood as a negation said of something, then, about the underlying concept that this negation is understood to be true of, I ask the question: will it be an affirmative concept or a negative one? If it is affirmative then the conclusion is gained. If negative I ask the question as before: is the negation conceived either precisely or as said of something? If in the first way this belongs as equally to nothing as to God; if said of something, I ask as before. And however far the process in negations goes, either God would not be understood more than nothing is, or a stand will be made at some affirmative concept that is first.

Nor, second, should a distinction be made about knowledge what a thing is and knowledge whether it is [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.3], because in the matter at hand I am looking for a simple concept, the ‘being’ of which may be known by an act of the intellect combining and dividing. For I never know of something whether it is if I have no concept of the term about which I know the ‘is’; and the question being asked here is about that concept.

Nor third should a distinction about ‘whether it is’ be drawn as it is a question about the truth of a proposition or as it is a question about the being of God [Henry of Ghent, ibid.]; because if there can be a question about the truth of a proposition in which the ‘is’ serves as predicate of a subject, one must, in order to conceive the truth of the proposition or question, first conceive the terms of the question; and about the simple concept of that subject, whether it is possible, is the question now being asked.

Nor, fourth, is it valid to draw a distinction between a natural concept and a supernatural concept [Henry of Ghent, ibid. and q.2], because the question is about the natural concept.

Nor, fifth, is it valid to draw a distinction about ‘naturally’ by speaking of nature absolutely or of nature for this present state [Bonaventure, Sent. I d.3 p.1 a.1 q.1; Henry of Ghent, ibid., q.6], because the question is precisely about knowledge for this present state.

Nor, sixth, is it of value to draw a distinction about knowledge of God in creatures or in himself [Alexander of Hales, ST I tr. Intro. q.2 m.2 ch.2], because if knowledge be obtained through a creature such that discursive knowledge begin from the creature, I ask in what term does the knowledge come to rest? If in God in himself, I have the intended conclusion, because I am asking for that concept of God in himself. If it does not come to rest in God in himself but in a creature, then the same thing will be the end and the beginning of the discursive reasoning, and so no knowledge will be had of God – at any rate the intellect is not in the final term of discursive reasoning as long as it rests in some object that is the beginning of the discourse.

About the knowledge of God ‘whether he is’ and ‘what he is’ (Godfrey of Fontaines in Quodlibet 7.11 rejects Henry of Ghent [ibid., a.22 q.4] on the distinction between ‘whether he is’, and that knowledge ‘what he is’ be possible), note: the ‘what’ which is spoken of in the name is the ‘what’ which is of the thing, and it is inclusive of ‘whether it is’, because, Metaphysics 4.7.1012a23-24, “the idea of which the name is the sign is the definition.” However, the ‘what is’ of the name is more common than the ‘is’ and the ‘what’ of the thing, because being signified by the name belongs to more things than ‘is’ does; but when they are conjoined they are the same, just as not every color is whiteness yet the color that is whiteness is the same as whiteness. The example, however, is not altogether similar, because color is taken from some partial perfection. Not so here, but the whole ‘what’ has a relation to the name as to a sign, which whole has a relation to the thing as quiddity to supposit. But about the same ‘what’ I know the first relation before the second.¹ Nor only in this is there an order to these knowings (knowing of the same simple concept one relation before another), but also in this, that a simple concept is somehow different in many cases, as in definitions, because the first is confused, the second distinct. For the first either does not explain the parts of the concept, or if it does, not distinctly under compossibility or non-compossibility; the second does explain the compossiblity, and thereby that the idea is true and is from this ‘what’ that expresses the ‘what it is’ of a possible thing.²

Second [sc. second to n.16], note that the subject of the first science is at the same time already known. What is said by the name is both ‘if it is’ and ‘what it is’, because no science asks about its first subject ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’ [Metaphysics 7.1.1028a36-b2].³ Therefore either this is not a question at all, or only in a prior science; no science is prior to the first science; therefore about its first subject there is in no way a question ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’. Therefore the concept is simply simple, so being is.⁴ Because a ‘being per se’ can be doubted as to the compossibility of the parts of the concept⁵ (to this extent too, because it is what is not God, because no idea simply simple is had of God that distinguishes him from other things), therefore about any such idea there is a question ‘if it is’ and a demonstration that the idea of it is not in itself false; therefore according to no concept possible for a wayfarer is God the first subject of metaphysics. Again, whatever is proved of God is contained virtually in the idea of being, because just as a convertible simple property is included first in the subject, so too is a disjunct property; therefore in the subject there is included first that some part of a disjunct property belongs to some being.⁶ Therefore being first includes virtually this proposition ‘some being is first’, therefore both the ‘if it is’ and the ‘what it is’ of this idea. The first being⁷ is included first in being, therefore also whatever is concluded about the first being through the idea of this totality, or through the idea of being. Therefore metaphysics is theology finally and principally, because just as it is more principally about substance than about accident, Metaphysics 7.1.1028a18-19, so (by a further analogy) is it more principally about God; because always what is first in the order of perfection is included in the idea of the first subject – particularly the part of a disjunctive property that is simply more perfect.⁸

On the contrary: no knowledge simply more perfect is included virtually in less perfect knowledge, but conversely; therefore, no knowledge naturally possible for the wayfarer about God is more perfect than the concept of being, therefore than the speculation wherein is happiness [cf. n.5]. If this reasoning is probative, then [it proves] that which the arguments for the first side [nn.1-4] suppose about a non-simple concept. It is denied according to Henry; rather a proper and simple concept of God [is asserted], through motion of the effect. But then being is not common but analogous, and so the first science of being will be about the first being to which everything is attributed.

The sense, then, of the question [n.1] is this, whether the intellect of the wayfarer could naturally have some simple concept, in which simple concept God is conceived.

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

Secondly [n.24] I say that not only in a concept analogous to a concept of creatures is God conceived (namely one which is altogether other than that which is said of creatures), but in some concept univocal to him and creatures. And lest there be dispute about the name of univocity, I say a concept is univocal that is so one that the unity of it suffices for contradiction, for affirming and denying it of the same thing; suffices too for a syllogistic middle term, so that the extreme terms [sc. major and minor] when united in a middle term thus one may be deduced, without fallacy of equivocation, to be united between themselves.

[Reasons for univocity]. And univocity thus understood I prove in five ways.¹ First as follows: every intellect, certain of one concept and doubtful of diverse ones, has a concept about which it is certain different from the concepts about which it is doubtful; the subject [‘every intellect…’] includes the predicate [‘has a concept…’]. But the intellect of a wayfarer can be certain that God is a being while doubting about finite or infinite, created or uncreated being; therefore, the concept of being of God is different from the former and latter concepts [‘finite …infinite’ ‘created…uncreated’], and so, of itself, it is neither of them and is included in each of them; therefore it is univocal.

The proof of the major is that no same concept is certain and doubtful; therefore either it is a different concept, which is the intended proposition, or no concept – and then there will not be certitude about any concept.

The proof of the minor is that every philosopher was certain that what he posited as first principle was a being – to wit, one about fire, another about water, was certain that it was a being;² but he was not certain that it would be a being created or uncreated, first or not first. For he was not certain that it was first, because then he would have been certain about what is false and the false is not knowable; nor certain that it was a being not first, for then they would not have posited the opposite [sc. that it was the first being]. There is a confirmation too, for someone seeing the philosophers disagreeing was able to be certain that whatever one of them posited as first principle was a being, and yet, because of the contrariety of their opinions, was able to doubt whether it is this being [e.g. fire] or that being [e.g. water]. And if a demonstration were given to such doubter proving or destroying some lower concept (to wit, that fire will not be the first being but some being posterior to the first being), the concept first certain to him, which he had about being, would not be destroyed but preserved in the particular concept proved of fire – and hereby the proposition, supposed in the ultimate consequence of the reasoning [n.27, end], is proved, which was that the certain concept, which of itself is neither of the doubtful ones, is preserved in each of them.

But if you do not care about the authority taken from the diversity of philosophizers’ opinions, but you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2] that everyone has in his intellect two concepts close to each other which, because of the closeness of analogy, seem to be a single concept – against this seems to be that then, from this evasion, the whole way of proving univocal unity of some concept would seem to be destroyed; for if you say that ‘man’ has one concept for Socrates and Plato, it will be denied you, and it will be said that they are two but ‘they seem’ one because of their great similarity.

Besides, the two concepts are simply simple; therefore, not intelligible save distinctly and totally. Therefore, if they are not now seen to be two, not afterwards either.

Again, they are conceived either as altogether disparate, and it is a wonder how they seem to be one, or as compared according to analogy or likeness or distinction, and then they are conceived at once or in advance as distinct. Therefore, they are not seen as one.

Again, in positing two concepts you posit two formal objects known. How are two formal objects known and not as distinct?

Further, if the intellect were to understand singulars in their proper ideas, then, although the concepts of two things of the same species would be very similar (it is, however, not doubtful but that they are much more similar than the two in the issue at hand [finite, infinite, created, uncreated, n.29] because these two differ in species), still the intellect would well distinguish between such concepts of singulars. This response [n.30] is also rejected in d.8 q.3 [d.8 p.1 q.3 n.7], and one other response [d.8 nn.5-6] that denies the major [nn.27-28].

Secondly I argue principally as follows:³ no real concept is caused naturally in the intellect of the wayfarer save by things that naturally move our intellect; but those are the phantasms (or an object shining forth in a phantasm) and the agent intellect; therefore no simple concept naturally comes to be now in our intellect save what can come to be by virtue of these. But a concept that would not be univocal to the object shining forth in a phantasm but one altogether different, prior, to which the object would have an analogy, cannot be brought about by virtue of the agent intellect and the phantasm; therefore the sort of different, analogous concept that is posited will never exist naturally in the intellect of a wayfarer; and so a concept of God will be unable to be had naturally, which is false. Proof of the assumption [sc. “But a concept that would not be univocal to the object shining forth in a phantasm…”]: any object, whether shining forth in the phantasm or in the intelligible species, with the agent or possible intellect cooperating, produces according to the ultimate of its power, as an effect adequate to it, its own proper concept,⁴ and a concept of everything essentially or virtually included in it. But that other concept, which is posited to be analogous, is not essentially or virtually included in this one, nor too is it this one; therefore, this one will not be brought about by any such moving object [sc. by an object that brings about the analogous concept]. And there is confirmation of the reasoning (because ‘any object, whether…’ [previous paragraph]): besides its proper concept, adequate to it and included in it in either of the two aforesaid ways [sc. ‘essentially or virtually’ – previous paragraph], nothing can be known from this object save by discursive reasoning; but discursive reasoning presupposes knowledge of the simple thing to which the discourse leads. Let the reason, therefore, be formed as follows: because no object brings about a proper simple concept in this intellect (a proper simple concept of another object) unless it contain that other object essentially or virtually; but a created object does not contain an uncreated object essentially or virtually (and this under the idea under which it is attributed to an uncreated object as something essentially posterior is attributed to something essentially prior; because it is against the idea of the essentially posterior to include its prior virtually); and it is plain that a created object does not essentially contain an uncreated object according to anything altogether proper to it and not common; therefore it does not make a concept that is simple and proper to uncreated being.

There is argument, third, as follows: the concept proper to a subject is an idea sufficient for proving of that subject all the conceivable things that are necessarily present in it; but we have no concept of God by which we could sufficiently know all the things conceived by us that are necessarily in him – it is plain about the Trinity and other necessary points of faith; therefore etc.

The proof of the major is because we know any immediate truth to the extent we know the terms; so the major is plain about everything conceivable that is immediately present in the concept of the subject. But if it is present in it mediately, the same argument will be made about the middle term compared to the same subject; and wherever a stand will be made, the proposed thesis about immediates is obtained; and further, through them will the mediates be known.

Again, fourth, an argument can be made as follows: either a ‘perfection simply’ has an idea common to God and creatures, and the proposed thesis is obtained; or it does not but has only an idea proper to creatures, and then the idea of it will not belong formally to God, which is unacceptable; or it has an idea that is altogether proper to God, and then it follows that nothing is to be attributed to God because it is a perfection simply, for this is to say nothing else save that, because its idea as it belongs to God states ‘a perfection simply’, therefore is it posited in God; and so will perish Anselm’s doctrine in the Monologion ch.15, where he maintains that ‘passing over relations, in the case of all other things, whatever is simply better it than not it is to be attributed to God, just as whatever is not such is to be removed from him’. First then, according to Anselm, is something known to be such [sc. ‘better it than not it’] and second it is attributed to God; therefore, it is not such precisely as it is in God. This is also confirmed because then no perfection simply would exist in a creature; the consequence is plain, because of no such perfection does even any concept belong to creatures, save an analogical concept that, ex hypothesi, is such in itself, because an analogical concept is imperfect, and in nothing is its idea better than not it, because otherwise it would, according to that analogical idea, be posited in God.

This fourth reason is confirmed also as follows:⁵ every metaphysical inquiry about God proceeds in this way: by considering the formal idea of something and taking away from that formal idea the imperfection that it has in creatures, and by keeping hold of the formal idea and attributing to it an altogether supreme perfection, and attributing it thus to God. An example about the formal idea of wisdom or intellect or will: for it is considered in itself and by itself, and from the fact that this idea does not prove formally any imperfection or limitation, the imperfections are removed from it that are concomitant with it in creatures and, with the same idea of wisdom and of will retained, these are attributed most perfectly to God.⁶ Therefore, all inquiry about God supposes that the intellect has the same univocal concept that it has taken from creatures.

But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.32 q.4] the formal idea of the things that belong to God is different – from this follows something unacceptable, that from no idea proper to them as they are in creatures can they be proved of God, because the idea of the former is altogether different from the idea of the latter. Indeed, from the idea of wisdom that we grasp from creatures, it will no more be proved that God is formally wise than that God is formally a stone. For a concept different from the concept of a created stone can be formed, to which concept of stone, as it is an idea in God, this stone has an [analogous] attribution; and so ‘God is a stone’ would be asserted formally according to this analogous concept [of stone], just as ‘God is wise’ would be according to that analogous concept [of wise].

An argument for this is also, fifth, made as follows: a more perfect creature can move [the intellect] to a more perfect concept of God. Therefore, since some vision of God, for example the lowest, does not differ as much from any given abstractive intellection of him as the highest creature is distant from the lowest, it seems to follow that, if the lowest can move [the intellect] to some abstractive intellection, that the highest creature, or some creature below it, will be able to move [the intellect] to an intuitive intellection, which is impossible.

But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.6] that there are as many degrees in abstractive intellection of God as there are created species, though the extreme intellections not be as distant from each other as the extreme species, which is very possible, because any degree in intellections is less distant from the degree next to it than the created species moving [the intellect] to that one is distant from the species moving it to another one – on the contrary: the difference of abstractive intellections is not only numerical, because they are caused by causes of different species and through the proper ideas of them, not insofar as they include something common as the way about univocity says. Therefore it follows that between the lowest abstractive intellection and the lowest intuitive one there are more intermediates than between the lowest species of beings and the highest, or there are as many. But if the consequent is unacceptable, then also, through the consequent, is the antecedent. Therefore, the species of abstractive intellection are fewer than those of beings. Therefore, by beginning from the lowest on this side and that, a species of being is left that is higher than the one that causes the highest abstractive intellection. Therefore, that higher one will cause intuitive intellection of God.

Again, why will so many species of intellections of the same object be posited, if the object moves [the intellect] to what is proper to it?

Again, as to the principal conclusion [the univocity of being, n.26], it seems to be that every multitude is reduced to unity [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2 ad 2]. Therefore so it is in concepts.⁷

But of what sort the univocity of being is, how many and what things it extends to, will be spoken of rather in the question about the first object of the intellect [nn.130-151].

[Objections against the aforesaid reasons] – Against these reasons is objection made. Against the first reason the objection is about the total disjunct [n.27], and the response is set down in d.8 p.1 q.3 n.68, and is more weakly refuted than others are [supra, second paragraph of added note to n.44].

As to the second (as it is briefly stated [n.35]), the major is denied because, on account of their connection, the effect can produce some concept of the cause, though not as perfect as the cause can about itself: for it is conceded that the conclusion produces knowledge of the principle by a demonstration of the ‘that’ [sc. as opposed to a demonstration of the ‘why’]; but it is not the most perfect knowledge of a principle; rather that knowledge is by which [the conclusion] is known from terms perfectly known. For why (unlike in the case of concepts) will an effect simply apprehended cause some simple habitual knowledge of the cause?

To the proof of the major [n.35, third paragraph], I say that although an equivocal effect have no power over an existing equivocal cause, nor over anything of the same idea as the cause [sc. to produce a concept of them], yet it does have power for some knowledge of it, which knowledge is more imperfect not only than the very cause in itself, but also in the very equivocal effect of the cause, namely than a perfect concept of it. But let the major be taken in this way: “no object has power for a concept of anything unless it contain that concept virtually or essentially.” This seems manifest from the idea of cause and equivocal effect [infra n.429], and although action be attributed to the intellect, according to some (I care not), the object, in whatever way it is required, has thus no power for a concept more perfect than a concept adequate to it; such is the proper quidditative concept; therefore etc. The proof of the minor [“such is the proper quidditative concept”] is because, in the case of equivocal effects of the same cause, that effect is most perfect which is most like the cause; such is the intellectual offspring, or the perfect word, of this object. The proof of the major [“the object…has no power for a concept more perfect…”] because then [sc. if the major were false] the perfection of intelligence would exceed the whole power of the memory.

It seems one must absolutely concede that no concept of God can come to be in us by the action of a created object, which may be more perfect than the perfect concept proper to that object, nor consequently [could there come to be in us] a concept to which this concept, proper to the moving object, may be attributed [sc. analogically]; indeed further, the concept of God is more imperfect than this word, because an equivocal effect is less like the cause. It is necessary, therefore, to depart from the opinion of Henry if he posit that the concept of a stone is attributed to the concept that the stone causes of God. It is possible to preserve precisely that the object conceived is attributed to the object, but not that the concept is attributed to the concept. And this is possible enough, because of a more perfect concept a more imperfect concept is had than of a more imperfect concept. And how is it reasonable that, in the same intellect, a proper concept of God is simply more imperfect than the concept of stone or white? And how will there be natural beatitude in the knowledge of God (from Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17)?

But there seems to be the same difficulty against univocity [sc. same as against analogy, n.49], because every concept of God will be less perfect than a perfect proper concept of white, since every such concept is contained in whiteness as a common concept in a special one, and a common concept is simply less perfect, because it is potential and a part with respect to a special concept. How then according to that [sc. univocity] will there be beatitude in natural knowledge of God?

Response. Any concept simply simple [n.71], namely of univocity, is more imperfect positively than the word of white, that is, it does not posit as much perfection; however it is more perfect permissively, because it abstracts from limitation and so is conceivable under infinity; and then the concept, simple indeed but not simply simple, namely ‘infinite being’, will be more perfect than the word of white, and it will be proper to God, but not the prior, common one abstracted from whiteness. Hence the way of univocity holds that every concept proper to God is more perfect than the word of any created thing, but the other way not so.

But there is a twofold objection against this response: first by arguing that the difficulty remains against the way of univocity, because from two concepts, each of which is more imperfect than the word of white, there does not seem to come to be a concept more perfect than that word. But the concept of being, as is conceded [n.51], is more imperfect than the concept of white or of line, and the concept of the infinite similarly. The proof is because the infinite is conceived by us through the finite, the finite through line, or some such object moving us to a concept of the property. Therefore, the concept of the infinite is more imperfect than the concept of line. There is a confirmation of the reason, because a concept that includes affirmation and negation is not more perfect because of the negation, or at least it is not more perfect than by conceiving the affirmation of the negation; here infinite being is not some concept of a positive save of being; therefore infinity does not make a perfect concept, or at any rate there will not be a more perfect concept of infinite being than of finite being.

A second objection in favor of Henry is made in a similar way, because although a simply simple concept is more imperfect than the word or concept of a creature, as the argument says, [n.51], yet many such concepts can be put together, and one will determine another, and the whole concept will be more perfect. And there is no greater difficulty here [in the way of analogy] than there [the way of univocity] save on two points: first that here any concept [‘infinite’, ‘being’], whether determining or determinable, is posited proper to God, and there one is common [‘being’ as univocal] and the other proper [‘infinite’ as proper to God]; second: that here some concept proper to God is conceded to be more imperfect than the word of a creature [n.52], there that none is [n.51, end]. Now the first of these points is not unacceptable, because a property does well determine a subject (‘man’ ‘capable of laughter’ [cp. ‘being’ ‘infinite’]), and yet each is equally common. The second point one should altogether concede, because of this second argument here [n.53] – when speaking of the concept, that is, of the act of conceiving, but not of the object conceived.

As to these objections [nn.52-53], it seems that a response sufficiently fitting is that each opinion [sc. of analogy and of univocity] posits a not simply simple concept more perfect than the word of that which moves to a part [of that simply simple concept; n.51 end, n.53 beginning]. But the objection made in the arguing [sc. for Henry, nn.52-53] seems against both opinions, because however many are put together, each of the concepts is impressed [on the intellect] by a creature moving [the intellect]. Therefore, each is more imperfect than the word of the creature. How will an aggregation of more imperfect concepts make a concept that is intensively more perfect? The confirmation too [n.52] objects well against the point about the infinite. Not for this reason, then, may the opinion [of the univocity of being] be rejected, because the difficulty is common to both, and equally so, if the analogy of concepts be expounded of concepts.

Perhaps the objections [nn.52-53] do well prove that an act about God is not the most perfect intensively; nor, in order for natural beatitude to exist there, is this required, but that there be union with the most perfect object (Parts of Animals 1.5.644b31-33). And perhaps some creature is more intensely loved than God, nor yet when loved does it now beatify as God does (about this in Ord. IV d.49 p.1 qq.1-2 [nn.1-4 19-32], ‘how we are beatified in the object’). This point about infinite being would be true if the infinite were precisely the mode under which the object would be conceived, and not a part of the concept, or the mode such that the concept in itself [would be conceived] (as distinguished [Ord. I d.2 n.183] in the question about the unity of God, about singularity as conceived, and as now precisely ‘that under which’ it is conceived [Ord. I d.2 n.183]), the way too a certain degree of intensity is precisely the mode under which ‘this’ whiteness is seen. But we do not understand ‘infinite being’ thus, but as including two concepts, albeit one of them determine the other. And perhaps the privative concept of the infinite [sc. the infinite conceived as the privation or negation of finitude, from Henry of Ghent n.35] does not posit anything, although it does give to understand a positive such that, if we do have a positive concept of the necessary, more perfectly positively is God understood here, the simply necessary being. But perhaps we conceive neither the necessary nor the eternal except as negation of imperfection, namely of potency to be differently disposed or to be in flux, or of beginning or end. The eternal states an infinite of a sort, for in duration is infinity not at all more perfect than in quantity of perfection, as an infinite magnitude would be more perfect than an infinite time.

I say third [n.24] that God is not known naturally by the wayfarer in particular and properly, that is, under the idea of this essence as this and in itself. But the reason set down for this in the preceding opinion [n.20] is not conclusive. For when it is argued that a thing is only known through a likeness, it understands ‘through a likeness’ of the likeness either of univocity or of imitation. If in the first way then nothing is known of God according to that opinion, because in nothing does he have a likeness of univocity in that way [n.20]. If in the second way, and creatures imitate the essence not only under the idea of general attribute but also this essence as this essence or as it is existent bare in itself, according to him [Henry] (for thus is it rather an idea or exemplar than taken under the idea of a general attribute), then the creature could, because of such likeness, be a principle for knowing the divine essence in itself and in particular.

There is, then, another reason for this conclusion, namely that God as this essence in itself is not known naturally by us, because under the idea of such a knowable he is a voluntary object, not a natural one, save in respect of his own intellect alone. And so by no created intellect can he be naturally known under the idea of this essence as this, nor does any essence naturally knowable by us sufficiently display this essence as this, not by likeness of univocity nor of imitation. For univocity only exists in general ideas; imitation too is deficient, because imperfect, for a creature imperfectly imitates God. Now whether there be another reason for this impossibility, namely because of the idea of first object, as others posit [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.88 a.3] – about this in the question about the first object [nn.110-119, 185-187].

Fourth [n.24] I say that we can reach many concepts proper to God that do not belong to creatures, of which sort are the concepts of all perfections simply at their highest. And the most perfect concept, in which as it were in a certain description we most perfectly know God, is by conceiving all perfections simply and at their highest. However, the concept possible for us that is more perfect at the same time and more simple is the concept of ‘infinite being’. For this is more simple than the concept of good being, true being, or other similar concepts, because ‘infinite’ is not a quasi-attribute or property of being, or of that of which it is said, but it states an intrinsic mode of the entity, such that when I say ‘infinite being’ I do not have a concept as it were per accidens of subject and property, but a concept per se of the subject in a certain degree of perfection, namely of infinity – just as an intense whiteness does not state a concept per accidents as ‘visible whiteness’ does; rather intensity states a degree intrinsic to whiteness in itself. And so the simplicity of this concept ‘infinite being’ is plain.

The proof of the perfection of this concept is, first, because this concept, among all the concepts conceivable to us, virtually includes more things – for just as being virtually includes in itself true and good, so infinite being includes infinite true and infinite good and every perfection simply under the idea of infinite; second, because, by a demonstration-that, ‘to be’ is ultimately proved of infinite being, as appears from the first question of the second distinction [Ord. I d.2 nn.74, 111-136, 147]. And those things are more perfect that are known from creatures last of all by a demonstration-that, because to prove them from creatures is, on account of their distance from creatures, very difficult.

If you say of supreme good or supreme being that this states a mode intrinsic to being, and includes virtually the other concepts – I reply that if ‘supreme’ is understood comparatively [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.41 q.2], in this way it states a respect to what is extrinsic; but ‘infinite’ states a concept to itself. But if you understand ‘supreme’ absolutely, that is, that from the nature of the thing the perfection of it could not be exceeded, it is more expressly conceived in the idea of infinite being. For ‘supreme good’ does not in itself indicate whether it is infinite or finite. – From this becomes clear the rejection of what was said [n.20] in the preceding opinion, that it is most perfect to know the attributes by reducing them, on account of divine simplicity, to divine existence. For knowledge of divine existence under the idea of the infinite is more perfect than knowledge of it under the idea of simplicity, because simplicity is communicated to creatures, but infinity (in the way it belongs to God) is not.

Fifth [n.24] I say that these things that are known about God are known through species of creatures, because either the more and the less universal are known through the same species of the less universal, or each has its own intelligible species proper to it; at any rate, what can impress a species of the less universal on the intellect can also cause a species of anything more universal; and thus can creatures, which impress their proper species on the intellect, also impress species of the transcendentals that belong in common to them and to God. And then the intellect can, by its own virtue, use many species together to conceive together those things which these are species of, as for example by the species of ‘good’ and the species of ‘supreme’ and the species of ‘act’ to conceive some ‘supreme and most actual good’. This is plain through an argument a minori: for the imaginative power [sc. which is lesser than the intellectual power] can use the species of diverse sensible things to imagine a composite of those diverse things, as is plain when imagining a golden mountain.¹

From this is evident a refutation of what is said in the preceding opinion [n.21, interpolated text] about the [cognitive] ‘digging down’; for by digging never is what is not under the dig found by the dig. But there does not exist under the concept of a creature any concept or species representing something proper to God that is of an altogether different idea from what belongs to a creature – as was proved by the second argument in the second article [n.35]. Therefore, by digging down is no such concept found. – And as to what is added, the simile, about the estimative power [n.21, interpolated text], I say that it seems a falsehood is being adduced to confirm another falsehood. For, if a sheep remain in the same nature and with the same natural affection for the lamb and yet it were changed, by a miracle, to be like a wolf in all sensible accidents, as color, shape, and sound and the rest of this sort, the lamb would flee the sheep thus altered just as it would flee a wolf. And yet in the sheep thus altered there would be no meaning of the harmful but of the agreeable. Therefore, the estimative power of the lamb would not dig down to discover under the sensible species the intention of the agreeable, but would be precisely as moved in accord with its sense appetite as the sensible accidents would move it. If you say that the intention there of the agreeable does not multiply itself, because such accidents are not agreeable to such intention and the intention of the agreeable is not reduplicated without agreeable accidents – this is nothing, because if a lamb were to flee a wolf on account of the perception of something harmful conceived by its estimative power, and if the perception is not reduplicated along with the sensible accidents (because it is not reduplicated with them in this tendentious case), then either there is here a digging down of the lamb to an intention of the harmful that is null, or if the lamb does not flee here because of digging down to it, then not otherwise either.