Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

First conclusion: God, according to Himself, is supremely knowable. The ground is that God is supremely being in act, since He is pure act.

Second conclusion: God, as regards us, is not supremely knowable. The ground is that He is a disproportionate object, on account of the defect of our intellect.

Third conclusion: A created intellect can see God through His essence. The ground is that otherwise man would never obtain beatitude, or his beatitude would consist in something other than God; which is foreign to faith, and beside reason.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING this article it is to be noted that the vision of God is taken in many ways in Sacred Scripture. First, for the vision by which God is seen in some likeness. And in this way, God was most often seen by the Fathers of the Old Testament. In the second way it is taken for the vision by which God is seen in some creature, which is an image or vestige of God. And in this way Paul says 1 Cor. 13: We see now through a mirror in enigma. And Rom. 1: The invisible things of God, from the creature of the world, understood through the things that are made, are beheld, etc. In the third way it is taken for the vision by which God is seen in an assumed nature. And in this way it is said John 1: We have seen His glory etc. In the fourth way it is taken for the vision by which God is seen through His essence and intuitively, yet not comprehended. And of this St. Thomas disputes in the present question.

IT IS DOUBTED in this article concerning the third conclusion of St. Thomas whether it is true? It is argued first for the negative side. The sense of the power of sight cannot reach, by the absolute power of God, to knowledge of a spiritual thing: therefore neither can a created intellect know God intuitively. The antecedent is known. The consequence is proved; for a created intellect is more distant from God Himself than the power of sight is from a spiritual thing.

Second. God clearly seen is not contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect; therefore He cannot be seen by a created intellect. The consequence is proved. The power of sight cannot see an angel, since it is not contained within the latitude of its object; therefore if God clearly seen is not contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect, it will not be able to see God through His essence. But the antecedent is proved. For if God clearly seen were contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect, then a created intellect would be inclined to it naturally, as it is a beatific and supernatural object; which is impossible. The consequence is proved; for if God clearly seen, as He belongs to the supernatural order, were contained within the specific account of the object of a created intellect, since every power is naturally inclined to its object, it follows that a created intellect would naturally be inclined to a supernatural vision. This is confirmed and explained. Altogether the same formal account is found in God clearly seen, as He is a supernatural object, as is found in any other natural thing; but a created intellect is naturally inclined to knowing a natural thing: therefore it is also naturally inclined to knowing God clearly seen, as He is a supernatural object. The consequence is plain: for the formal account is the same in both. It is confirmed secondly. The power of sight is naturally inclined to every account of the colored wherever it may be, since there is one formal objective account: but the object of a created intellect has one formal account, therefore it is inclined to it naturally wherever it may be; but in God clearly seen, as He is a supernatural object, the formal account of the object of a created intellect is found: therefore a created intellect is inclined to it naturally.

Third. A created intellect has no proportion with God clearly seen; therefore a created intellect cannot reach to God clearly seen. The consequence is good: for between the knower and the thing known there must be proportion. But the antecedent is proved: for God clearly seen is infinite and of a higher order, but a created intellect, even illumined by the light of glory, is finite and limited: therefore.

Fourth. In Sacred Scripture it is signified that it is impossible for anyone to see God, as is plain in John: No one has ever seen God. And 1 Timothy 1 God is called invisible. And 1 Timothy 6 it is said: He dwells in inaccessible light, whom no man has seen, nor can see: therefore.

Fifth. The first part of the argument of St. Thomas is null: therefore his conclusion is false. The antecedent is proved. For the argument of St. Thomas for the first part presupposes that the beatitude of man consists in an operation of the intellect; but many theologians hold that the beatitude of man consists in an operation of the will: therefore that argument is null.

Last. If the second part of the argument of St. Thomas concluded anything, this would be because God clearly seen would be our natural end; but this is impossible: therefore. The antecedent is proved. God clearly seen is of a supernatural and divine order: therefore it is impossible for Him to be our natural end.

On account of these arguments there were certain heretics who said it is impossible for us to know God clearly and intuitively. Of these mention is made among the Parisian articles. The Armenians followed this error, who say that the Blessed do not see the Divine Essence itself intuitively, but a certain brightness diffused from God. Abelard followed the same error, as St. Bernard reports in Letter 190.

Nevertheless the conclusion of St. Thomas is certain according to faith. So St. Augustine says and proves, Letters 11 and 112, where he adduces many testimonies of Sacred Scripture and of the Saints. And it is proved manifestly. For 1 John 3 it is said: We shall see Him as He is. And 1 Cor. 13: We see now through a mirror in enigma, but then face to face». And Matt. 5: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. And ch. 18: Their angels always see the face of My Father, who is in heaven. But the argument of St. Thomas is excellent, and will be explained afterwards.

To the first argument it is answered that when the defect comes from the side of the action, since the action cannot be about such an object, such a defect cannot be supplied by God, from a defect of the object. As St. Thomas says, the action of a creature, by the absolute power of God, cannot reach to nothing, from defect of the object: and therefore it cannot be assumed by God as an instrument for creating. But if the defect comes from weakness of the power, not from defect of the object, God can supply that defect by strengthening the power and elevating it so that it reaches that object. And so God can bring it about that a man who is at Salamanca sees a thing existing at Rome, since there is weakness on the side of the power, not defect on the side of the object. For the colored is contained within the latitude of the power of sight, wherever it may be. To the point at issue, therefore, it must be said that a spiritual thing is not contained within the latitude of the object of the power of sight; and therefore the defect is on the side of the object: since a bodily action cannot be about spirit, by seeing it. But God clearly seen is contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect. And therefore the defect is not on the side of the object, but from weakness of the power. And this defect God can supply by strengthening the power and elevating it, so that it reaches the most excellent object. As He can strengthen the power of sight of the night-owl so that it sees the sun. And although there is greater proportion in the account of being between the power of sight and a created spirit than between a created intellect and God, yet not in the account of power and object. For spirit is not contained within the object of the power of sight; but God is contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect, which is being. A sign of this is that our intellect naturally knows God, although imperfectly; but unless God were contained under the account of the object, He could not even imperfectly be reached by the intellect of a creature.

To the second it is answered by noting that the object of the intellect is twofold. One is adequate, to which the power can extend itself. The other is proportionate, which has proportion with the intellect itself. As the quiddity of a material thing is the proportionate object of our intellect; but the adequate object is being inasmuch as it is being. With this foundation supposed, the first solution is that God clearly seen, as He is something supernatural, is contained within the adequate object of a created intellect, yet is greatly exceeding; and therefore the intellect is not inclined to it. As the sun is supremely visible, and of the same account as other visible things; and yet the power of sight of the night-owl cannot reach to it, since it greatly exceeds. So they say in the point at issue that God clearly seen is contained in the specific account of the object of a created intellect; yet a created intellect cannot reach to Him, since He greatly exceeds the intellect. But this solution is null. For from it follows that a created intellect would have a natural inclination to knowing God intuitively, as He is a supernatural object, although the attainment would be supernatural on account of the defect of the power. For the power of sight is naturally inclined to everything visible, although some power cannot attain everything visible naturally.

The second solution is that God clearly seen, as He is something supernatural, is not contained within the latitude of the object of a created intellect, but the adequate object is natural being. Nevertheless a created intellect can know supernatural being through its order to natural being. As the object of our intellect is real being; nevertheless we can know a being of reason through its order to real being. This solution does not please me. For in the homeland the Blessed know God intuitively, without order to natural being, through Himself immediately; therefore a created intellect can know God intuitively without order to natural being. The last solution is that the adequate object of our intellect is being in confusion, as it abstracts from natural and supernatural being. But afterwards, when we divide being into natural and supernatural, we explain two accounts first diverse not only in the account of being, but also in the account of knowability. For the proper object of the divine intellect is supernatural being. And so a created intellect, by a certain participation, can reach to knowledge of supernatural being, since it is made a sharer in the divine intellect. And so natural being is known by a natural power, supernatural being by a supernatural power, with the proportion of object to power preserved. And so God clearly seen is called the extensive object of a created intellect, since it can be extended to Him by participation. But threefold is the ground of this extension. The first is on the side of the power, since the power is spiritual, and so is capable of spiritual perfection, and can be a sharer in divine knowledge. The second is on the side of the object, since natural and supernatural being have the same mode of moving the intellect, namely, through a likeness separated from all matter. The third ground is on the side of both, since supernatural being is contained under the account of being, which is the specifying account of the intellect. The whole difficulty, therefore, is how a created intellect is not naturally inclined to supernatural being and to God clearly seen, when in these is found the specific formal account of its object? For as this colored thing and that can differ in species in the account of being, yet in the account of the visible are individuals of the same species: so natural and supernatural being, although they differ in species in the genus of being, yet in the account of knowability have the same specific account, and differ only in number. Therefore, if a created intellect is naturally inclined to the one, it is naturally inclined to the other.

It is answered, however, that natural and supernatural being differ in species, even in the account of knowability, indeed in genus; and nevertheless they can specify one power. For the exposition of this it is to be noted that the intellect and the will, since they are the most universal powers, can be specified by some analogous, non-univocal account, even in the account of specifying. As some say that the intellect is specified by being, as it abstracts from real being and being of reason, and yet real being and being of reason do not agree univocally in the account of knowability. For a being of reason is known dependently on real being. Likewise, the object of the will is the good, as it abstracts from the true good or the apparent: yet the apparent good does not have the account of good together with the true good, but the account of good is analogous to both. The ground is: for this is proper to a form, that it makes an effect which it does not have in itself; for whiteness makes a thing white, and yet in itself is not white. And since an object holds itself with respect to a power and a habit as an extrinsic form; therefore an analogous object, which in itself does not have complete unity, can make one power in species. And so master Cajetan in the opusculum On the Analogy of Names ch. 10, and Soncinas 4 Metaph. q. 10 at the fifth, say that metaphysics, which is one science in species, can be specified by one analogous object, namely by the account of being, as it abstracts from God and creatures, from substance and accident. Likewise, it is a probable opinion that the concept of being is one not only in species, but even in number, and yet its object is analogous. So, in the point at issue, the intellect and the will have one specific account of power, and yet their object, even in the account of object, is not one in species, but has an analogous account: whence natural and supernatural being, even in the account of knowability, do not have the same specific account, but differ in genus. And so it is no wonder that a created intellect is inclined in diverse ways to natural being and to supernatural being, to natural being naturally, to supernatural being supernaturally. For the account of knowability is participated unequally by both.

But if anyone should object that a created intellect, in its essence and nature, includes an order to its object; but its object is being, as it abstracts from natural and supernatural being: therefore to both it bespeaks an order naturally. It must be said that a created intellect in its nature and essence includes that it be a certain vital principle which, made in act, can go forth into act with respect to its object. But it is made in act with respect to natural being naturally; with respect to supernatural being, and especially God clearly seen, it is put in act supernaturally.

And for greater explanation it is to be noted that a created intellect, with respect to the beatific vision, is apt naturally, and has obediential potency, so that it can be elevated to it, yet not so that the intellect holds itself merely passively with respect to such a vision. For it has active force so that it can elicit the beatific vision, if only it is first made in act by the light of glory, as Cajetan says below, in q. 79 art. 2, that the intellect, stripped of every intelligible likeness, is a vital principle and a certain animal force which has active force, if only it is made in act through an intelligible likeness. So in the point at issue, a created intellect has force for eliciting a clear vision of God, if only it is made in act. From what has been said the answer to the second argument and its confirmations is plain.

To the third it is answered that a created intellect, even with the divine Essence united to it in the account of a likeness, remains disproportionate in the account of being, yet not in the account of power and object. For an intellect illumined by the light of glory is made powerful for producing an act concerning the divine Essence; but proportion in the account of being is not necessary, otherwise a created intellect could not naturally know God as He is the author of nature. For God, even as He is the author of nature, is infinite, but a created intellect finite. Secondly it is answered, and it can very probably be said, that there is also some proportion in the account of being. For an intellect informed and illumined by the light of glory and actuated by the divine Essence in the account of an intelligible likeness has a certain infinity and is made divine and of the divine order; but God as He is seen by the Blessed is infinite, yet He is not seen infinitely and totally. For to this it is required that the intellect be infinite simply and absolutely.

To the fourth it is answered that those places of Sacred Scripture must be understood in four ways. First of bodily vision. Second of comprehensive vision; for no creature can comprehend God. Third of vision to be had in this life. Fourth of vision to be had by nature; for no one can see God from the forces of nature. And in all these ways God is called invisible in Sacred Scripture. Yet He can be seen by grace.

To the fifth it is answered that the argument of St. Thomas is a theological demonstration, constant from one principle of faith and another known by the light of nature. But the force of the argument of St. Thomas is this: it is of faith that man can attain beatitude; but the beatitude of man consists in the most perfect conjunction with his principle; and this conjunction is made through the intellect: therefore. For the explanation of this it is to be noted that the most perfect conjunction of a rational creature with God is made through the intellect, whether essential beatitude consists in an act of the intellect or in an act of the will. For if essential beatitude consists in an act of the will and in conjunction through love, this conjunction intrinsically presupposes conjunction through the intellect. For nothing is willed unless first known. Whence St. Thomas most rightly gathers that, if beatitude is possible, as faith teaches, conjunction through the intellect must be possible, since it is essential beatitude or something necessary for beatitude. Secondly it is to be noted that that sentence of St. Thomas which asserts that the most perfect operation of man is the operation of the intellect concerning the noblest object is most certain in moral philosophy. For the object of the intellect is something simpler and more abstract, and therefore more perfect. For it considers being inasmuch as being, under this abstraction. But the will has for its object determinate and concrete being, namely the good. Concerning this matter see St. Thomas in 1-2 q. 3 art. 4 and 5, and below q. 82 art. 3, where he disputes concerning the perfection of the intellect. Lastly it is to be noted that the perfection of any creature consists in conjunction with its principle. For a hot thing is then perfect when it is conjoined to fire. For what is to a thing the cause of being is also the cause of its ultimate perfection. And he who gives the form also gives the consequences of the form. But God is the cause of being of a spiritual creature, and so in conjunction with God Himself consists the ultimate perfection of such a creature.

To the last it is answered that St. Thomas does not wish to demonstrate that in man there is a natural desire of seeing God; but with faith proposed, which says the beatific vision is possible, he shows that it is supremely consonant with a created intellect. For it is familiar to St. Thomas to adduce congruous natural grounds to show that the mysteries of faith are supremely consonant with nature and do not conflict with it. And so in 3 p. q. 1 art. 1, from the goodness of God, and since the good is diffusive of itself, which is constant from the light of nature, he infers that

The mystery of the Incarnation is not dissonant from nature, nor does it conflict with it. And in 4 Cont. Gent. ch. 79 he proves that the resurrection of the dead is possible, because the soul is naturally inclined to the body. But this argument does not prove that the resurrection is supremely consonant with nature and does not conflict with it. But this St. Thomas does not prove evidently, but probably and topically. Secondly it is answered that in a spiritual creature there is a certain velleity and a certain imperfect desire of seeing God. From this St. Thomas gathers probably that the beatific vision is possible, lest such a natural desire be frustrated. But whether God clearly seen is our natural end is customarily disputed in 1-2 questions 3 art. 6, 7 and 8; by some it is also customarily disputed in this 1 p. question 1 art. 1. But I confess that the lawful place of this disputation is in the cited place, in 1-2. Nevertheless I shall now briefly set forth what I opine concerning this difficulty.

IT IS DOUBTED therefore, secondly, whether man has a natural appetite for seeing God as He is, and whether God so clearly seen is his natural end? Cajetan in this place and above, q. 1 art. 1, denies that there is an absolute natural appetite in a rational or intellectual creature for seeing God as He is in Himself. And when St. Thomas says, there is in man a natural desire, he speaks of man not considered absolutely according to his nature, but as ordered to eternal life. And in the same way he understands the arguments which St. Thomas makes in book 3 Cont. Gent. ch. 50, where he proves that the natural desire of the angels does not rest in natural knowledge. But Scotus in q. 1 of the prologue on the 1 Sent., and in 4 d. 49 q. 9, says that natural desire is borne to seeing God. For this opinion Durandus is adduced in 4 Sent. d. 49 q. 8. But certainly Durandus only says that there is in man a natural and necessary appetite as an inclination without elicited act toward beatitude in common; yet nowhere does he say that there is such a natural appetite in man with respect to beatitude which is the vision of God in particular. Master Soto, book 1 On Nature and Grace ch. 4 and in 4 Sent. d. 49 q. 2, says three things which bear on the present matter. First he says man has a natural appetite for true beatitude, which consists in the vision of God. He says secondly that this end is simply natural to man. He says thirdly that no one can naturally appetite that true beatitude by an elicited act. And he notes for the explanation of his opinion that a natural appetite is spoken of in two ways. In one way as it is an act elicited by the appetitive power, e.g. all men naturally desire to know. In another way a natural appetite is called the very inclination of nature and propensity to some end, e.g. a stone has a natural appetite for the centre, not through some elicited vital act, but is determined to that place by its gravity. So therefore, in this second way he says there is in man a natural appetite for seeing God. He proves his opinion first from St. Thomas, in many places; in the Prologue on the 1 Sent. he says: Each thing is sweetly disposed when it is placed in its end, which it naturally desires. And this has been conferred on us through Christ, when He led us into eternal glory: therefore man naturally desires that glory. Likewise in this article St. Thomas says: There is in man a natural desire of knowing the cause, the effect being seen. Nor can it be explained in this place of knowledge of the cause as it is known, but not according to its quiddity, as Cajetan seems to insinuate in this place. For St. Thomas immediately infers: It must be granted, then, that they see the essence of God. And certainly he speaks of this mode of knowing in the article, and in book 3 Cont. Gent. ch. 50 he makes the same argument concerning the substance of God Himself, and not as cause. There is likewise another place in 1-2 q. 3 art. 8 where he says: From knowledge of the effects of God there remains in man a natural desire of knowing what the cause itself is.

Secondly, he proves from St. Augustine, book On the Predestination of the Saints ch. 5, vol. 7, where he says: To be able to have faith and charity belongs to the nature of men; but to have grace belongs to the faithful.

Thirdly he proves by argument: the appetite of man is either natural or violent or neither; but the appetite of man for seeing God is not violent or neither; therefore it is natural. It is the argument of Scotus, which Soto uses.

Fourthly he proves, because that man is the image of God is natural to man; for when God said, Let us make man to our image and likeness, He signified that man according to his nature is to the image, and not only according to grace; but everything like naturally appetites its like: therefore etc. And it is confirmed: because the appetite of man rests in no worldly thing, according to that of Aug. book 1 Confess. ch. 1: Thou hast made us, Lord, for Thee, and our heart is restless until it comes to Thee.

Fifthly he argues: each thing has a determinate natural end to which it is borne by its own nature, as fire upward, earth downward; but no other natural end in which he may rest can be assigned to man except God seen: therefore God clearly seen is his natural end.

FOR the solution of this difficulty, let the first conclusion be: The vision of God according to His essence is not the natural end of man. This conclusion is proved. That, simply speaking, is a supernatural end: therefore it is not

natural. Secondly it is proved. A natural end is that to which a thing can naturally attain, as is plain inductively: for a stone is borne naturally to the centre by reason of its gravity, and fire is borne upward by reason of its lightness. Whence Arist. 2 Heavens, text 50, says that if the stars had progressive motion, nature would have conferred on them instruments by which they would be moved with progressive motion. But man cannot naturally attain to God clearly seen: therefore the vision of God according to His essence is not the natural end of man. Thirdly it is proved from St. Thomas 1-2 q. 109 art. 3, where he says that eternal life is not the connatural end of man. And nowhere in St. Thomas is it found that that vision of God is the natural end of man.

Second conclusion: Man can have a natural appetite, that is, elicited from the forces of nature, namely a certain conditional and inefficacious desire of seeing God. It is proved by that argument of St. Thomas in this article: There is in man a natural desire, etc. Which argument he explains more in book 3 Cont. Gent. ch. 49 and 50. But to say that St. Thomas speaks not of an elicited act but of that weight which Soto imagines would have no weight in this argument. For to what end would he say, it is a natural desire in man, the effect being seen, to see the cause? But if he spoke of that weight, it would incline even the effect not being seen. Likewise what he says 3 Cont. Gent. ch. 50: From knowledge of effects a desire is naturally excited to seeing the cause. Likewise some opined that the first created intelligence sees God — so opined Avicenna: therefore it could have a desire of seeing God. It is confirmed: man naturally desires to know that of which he knows he has ignorance; but man can naturally know that God is pure act, is superexcellent: therefore also desire to know what He is and how He is. And Soto himself in 4, where above, says there is no mortal of any sect who, if asked whether he desires to see God, does not answer that he desires it. And it is strange that he adduces this argument to prove there is a natural appetite, and not as an elicited act, although he who says he desires signifies an act of desire. But we have said in this second conclusion that man can have such a desire, because not all have it, as neither do all know God. I have said conditional, because from the forces of nature it cannot be certain to man that such a good is possible; therefore such a desire is conditional, if it were possible: e.g. man can desire and will never to die, if it were possible. And although such a condition is not explicit in the mind, yet it is implicitly contained in the object, which it represents as good and not as possible. But someone will say: What if one thinks it possible, will he then not be able to desire absolutely? It is answered that if one thinks it possible through the forces of nature, he will indeed be able to do those things which he judges necessary for the end. But from 1-2 q. 5 art. 8 at 2 it is said that not everything is a natural desire which can be had from the forces of nature out of an apprehension of reason. For so the appetite of flying (if one thought it possible to fly) would be natural: but a natural appetite is from the natural light, as to good in common, to one's proper good. Moreover, that man so desires out of ignorance, and so acts. Wherefore from this it is not gathered that it is his natural end. As if one prepared medicines by which he thinks to escape death, desiring to live forever. But if a man judges it possible to see God through the grace of God, and so desires absolutely, or has some will of the end and of the means, this is now from grace, and not from the forces of nature.

Third conclusion: Man or angel, from his nature, properly speaking, neither has weight nor inclination nor natural appetite, nor natural potency for a clear vision of God. It is proved first. Whatever belongs to a thing from its proper nature, as a principle of some motion or operation, can be reduced to act by a natural agent: e.g. a stone has a natural weight to downward motion; matter has a natural aptitude only with respect to natural forms, as St. Thomas says 1 p. q. 7 art. 2 at the third: but man cannot arrive at that end through the whole forces of nature, nor through the help of God as He is author of nature only, but as He is author of grace: therefore man has no natural weight. It is confirmed: for otherwise an angel could naturally know it is possible to see God, its own nature being distinctly known. It is confirmed secondly. Man has no natural aptitude in the body for the glory of the body; therefore neither is the aptitude of the soul natural for the glory of the soul. Thirdly it is proved from St. Thomas 3 p. q. 4 art. 1, where he says that the aptitude which is taken according to natural passive potency does not extend to what transcends the natural order; therefore in man there is not that natural passive potency for seeing God. But no one posits in man a natural active potency for seeing God; otherwise man could see God through the light of nature: therefore, as he cannot naturally see God, so he has no natural potency for seeing God.

Let the fourth conclusion be: In man there is a capacity of nature and an aptitude according to obediential potency so that he may be elevated to

see God. It is proved first. A stone cannot be elevated to such an operation, nor any irrational creature, but man can; therefore in man there is a natural capacity of this dignity which is not in other creatures. Secondly it is proved from St. Thomas 1-2 q. 113 art. 10, where he says: Since the soul is made to the image of God, it is naturally capable of grace. And it is to be noted that sometimes St. Thomas asserts that beatitude to be according to the nature of man by reason of this capacity: e.g. 3 p. q. 9 art. 2 at the third, he says: Vision or blessed knowledge is above the nature of the rational soul, because it cannot arrive at it by its proper force. In another way it is according to its nature, inasmuch as according to its nature it is capable of it, insofar as it is made to the image of God.

TO the arguments of Master Soto it is answered. To the first, from the prologue of St. Thomas, I say first that he understands concerning a natural desire, whether absolute or conditioned and inefficacious, and so man naturally desires to see God. I say secondly that because the natural desire of man is borne to beatitude in common, but this account of good in common is not found totally in anything, therefore he says this has been conferred on us through Christ, which we naturally desire, when He led us into eternal life — namely because He placed us in an end having the whole account of good which we naturally desire in common. But in particular we do not simply desire it, because we do not know it to be possible. To the other testimony of St. Thomas, from this article, where he says, there is in man, etc., it is answered that he speaks not of an absolute desire but of a conditioned one. Whence this argument does not demonstrate it to be possible; for it is an article of faith. For in like manner it would demonstrate the resurrection of the dead to be future, because there is in the soul a natural desire for the body: therefore, lest such a desire be vain, man will rise. Likewise you would also prove that prime matter will sometime have every form, because it naturally appetites every form, and its appetite is never sated: therefore, lest the appetite of nature be vain, it will be necessary that such an appetite be fulfilled. And through this the answer to the other place from 1-2 is plain. For we say first that that desire is not absolute. Secondly, even if it be absolute, it is to be understood as natural for knowing the cause as far as is naturally possible. To the second, from Augustine, it is answered that it proves our fourth conclusion. For he speaks of the capacity of the nature of men. To the third it is answered that the appetite, such as it is in man, of seeing God — conditional, namely, if it were possible, as was held in the second conclusion — is natural, that is, from the forces of nature; but from this it is not gathered that there is in man a natural weight and inclination to that beatitude in particular. But if the argument proceeded concerning potency in this way — every potency is either natural etc. — it is answered that man has obediential potency to that end in particular, as wood to a statue. To the fourth it is answered that everything like appetites its like, that is, appetites to be conformed to it insofar as it can: so man is assimilated naturally to God in this, that he operates freely and is lord of his acts. And this is that in which he naturally shows in himself the image of God. To the confirmation it is answered that Augustine speaks of the fact: Thou hast made us, Lord, for Thee — namely through Thy grace Thou hast ordered our nature to Thee. Secondly, Thou hast made us for Thee, that is, capable of Thee, and except in Thee we find no perfect rest. To the fifth argument it is answered that each thing has a determinate end according to the mode of its species, yet not so that every thing wholly rests, its end being had: e.g. the end of a tree is to make fruit; the end of an individual is to preserve the species through generation; the end of living things is some vital operation; and yet in none of these operations does it wholly rest, as is plain inductively. For a tree, after it has made fruit, does not wholly rest, but is still disposed to other fruits. Likewise in all living things, in which the greatest perfection is the operation itself, yet they never have one immutable operation. So also man, if he be considered only according to the natural perfection of his species, has indeed an end determinate by nature, namely to lead a rational life according to the law of nature. But in no operation will he perfectly rest in this life. But if you ask concerning the natural end after this life, it is answered that it belonged to the author of nature, unless he had ordered man from grace to seeing God, that some reward be prepared for the immortal soul, which certainly would consist in the knowledge and contemplation of natural things, but not in God clearly seen. And then I confess the soul would not be perfectly blessed: but it would be blessed as a rational soul could be naturally. Perhaps also such a desire would bring no sadness, because it would not be apprehended as possible or due to it. As now, in fact, less blessed souls do not absolutely desire greater glory but conditionally, if it had been possible, they would desire it: as they desire those to be saved who will be damned. Yet they are not saddened by this, because they do not apprehend it as possible or due to them, except from the grace of God. But they are certain that God has predestined them to such

glory, and not to greater. Wherefore the rest of those souls is not disturbed by such a desire or velleity. From these things it is plainly gathered that when St. Thomas in 1-2 q. 3 art. 8 shows that the beatitude of man consists in the vision of God, he speaks of beatitude simply perfect, not of natural beatitude. Nor do I say, however, that he speaks expressly of the supernatural, but of beatitude perfect according to the capacity of a rational creature. And the weightiest argument of St. Thomas is this: because the will of a rational creature is borne to good in universal, as to its natural object. But because every account of universal good is not together in anything other than God, hence it is that it cannot be perfectly blessed except by seeing God. Yet it does not follow that it would not in its own way have a natural beatitude, which is an imperfect beatitude, if God had not ordered man to a supernatural eternal life, which consists in the vision of God Himself as He is.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: To see God, some likeness of God is required, on the part of the seeing power.

Second conclusion: On the part of the thing seen, which must be united to the seer, the essence of God can be seen through no created likeness.

Third conclusion, to the third: The divine essence is united to the created intellect as understood in act, making the intellect in act through itself, that is, it actuates the intellective power. For to see the divine essence clearly, it is required that the divine essence itself be intimately united to the created intellect as a form constituting the intellect in act.

COMMENTARY.

Concerning the first conclusion there is no special difficulty in this article, but it will be examined in the fifth article. Now it is to be noted, concerning the ground of the conclusion, that the likeness which is on the part of the seeing power for seeing God is highly analogous with respect to its cause, to which it is assimilated only in this, that it makes the power able to see, that is, to produce the vision of God; yet it stands far from the perfection of the divine intellect, which comprehends the divine Essence and infinitely sees what is infinite; but the created intellect, however elevated by the likeness of the light of glory, sees finitely and in a limited way what is infinite, although it sees it as it is.

There is a DOUBT concerning the second conclusion of St. Thomas whether it is true? For the negative side it is argued first with the argument of Aureolus, in Capreolus, in 4 Sent. d. 49, q. 5, art. 2, who holds against St. Thomas; and he first destroys his foundations. It is therefore of this kind. For the reasons of St. Thomas are weak: for all are easily dissolved if it be said that the intelligible likeness can be taken in two ways: first in its to-be, as to its real to-be which it has, in another way in its representing: in the first way indeed there is no need that the intelligible likeness be of the same order as the thing which it represents, nor that it have as much perfection in its to-be as the thing represented has; for it is agreed that the intelligible likeness, which is an accident inhering in a subject, represents a substance, which is a being through itself. But in the second way there can well be (says Aureolus) a created likeness which is of the same order objectively as the divine Essence represented. Behold, therefore, how all the reasons of St. Thomas are dissolved through this distinction.

Secondly. The vision by which the Blessed see God is a natural and expressed likeness of God representing Him as He is, because it is a cognition; but cognition is a natural likeness of the thing, and yet it is something created: therefore there will be able to be given an impressed intelligible likeness representative of God as He is. The consequence is plain: for the account is the same, since vision is something created. But the antecedent is proved: first because it is an actual likeness of God. Secondly from Augustine, book 9 de Trin. ch. 11, where he says that cognition has a likeness to him whose cognition it is. Likewise in book 14 ch. 6 he says that the thought of the mind by which it thinks itself is an image of the mind itself, and ch. 17 he says that a full likeness is then made in us when we shall have perceived His full vision. It is confirmed from that place, 1 John ch. 13: "When He shall appear we shall be like Him etc." Thirdly. There can be given a mental word representing God as He is: therefore much more will there be given an intelligible likeness. The consequence is seen to be clear, for a mental word is an expressed image of the thing which it represents: therefore if an expressed image is given, much more will there be given an impressed and as it were implicit image, such as an intelligible likeness is. But the antecedent is proved, besides that it is of St. Aug. in many places, by the reason of St. Thomas below, q. 27, art. 1, and q. 9 De poten., art. 3, where he says that of the account of one understanding it is to produce a word through understanding, because the action of the intellect must have a produced and intrinsic term at which it is terminated: therefore the intellectual vision of the Blessed, which is most perfect, produces a word, which yet would be created: therefore etc. Fourthly. To understand, as also to sense, is a certain undergoing, as Aristotle says, 2 De Anima ch. 4. But it is verified to be a certain undergoing for no other reason except inasmuch as the intellect receives an impressed intelligible likeness; but this cannot be the divine Essence, therefore a created likeness. Fifthly. The Blessed see God finitely with a certain finite vision, for although they see the infinite, yet they see finitely, and the things which they see in God are also finite: therefore an infinite likeness need not be given for this, but a finite likeness and created species suffices for such an action. Sixthly. There is given a created light concurring efficiently to beatific vision: therefore there can be given an intelligible likeness. The consequence is proved: for an intelligible likeness is posited that it be an effective formal principle proportioned with the action itself concerning such an object. Seventhly. The lower angel knows the highest through an intelligible likeness less immaterial, distinctly and intuitively, than the highest angel is, and through a likeness lower than the one known, and though a likeness, since it is an accident, represents a substance: therefore it is not unfitting that God also be seen through some created supernatural likeness.

On account of these arguments, certain Scholastics follow the side contrary to St. Thomas, asserting that God can be represented distinctly and quidditatively through some created likeness of a supernatural order.

For the resolution, it is to be noted that the likeness on the part of the thing seen or known is threefold: one is called the objective likeness, which instrumentally, through the cognition of itself, represents another thing, to which the movement of the intellect is principally terminated: e.g. the bodily image of Peter is a certain likeness, from the cognition of which the intellect rises to the cognition of Peter; and every creature is a certain imperfect likeness for knowing the Creator. The second is the likeness impressed in the cognitive power, by union with which the power is actuated and proportioned to knowing the thing whose representative likeness it is. The third likeness is a certain concept of the mind, or mental word, which is produced through understanding, as a formal and expressed image, in which the thing is seen or known. Secondly it is to be noted that one thing can represent another either by imposition as a term, and such representation puts no greater perfection in the representer from the greater perfection of the object represented, as the word Deus, the word formica are equal in the account of sign. In another way from its own nature, as a natural likeness and image of it, and such representation, the more perfect the object it is of, puts the greater perfection in the representer, and of this kind are likenesses.

THESE things supposed, let the first conclusion be: There can be no likeness of God of the first kind, namely objective, through which He may be seen, through the cognition of which God is seen as He is. This conclusion is common to all Theologians; indeed there are those who judge the second conclusion of St. Thomas to be understood of such an objective likeness; and so they explain the testimony of St. Augustine cited in the argument On the contrary, which is had in book 15 de Trinit. ch. 9, and the testimony of St. Denis cited in the article, and the reasons of St. Thomas teach this conclusion, especially in that wherein he says that to say God is seen through a likeness is to say the divine essence is not seen; as if he said that to see God by seeing some likeness distinct from God is just as denying the divine essence to be seen: for in this way the Fathers were said to see God, in certain images and figures: and yet Moses after such visions urgently begged of God in prayers, show me thy face, as is read in Exod. 33.

Second conclusion: To the truth of the second conclusion of St. Thomas it does not suffice to deny that such an objective likeness is possible, but further one must deny every created likeness in the second way to be possible through which God may be seen as He is. This conclusion is proved from the first foundation of the article, where he plainly speaks of the form impressed in the cognitive power; and from the solution to the third argument, where he teaches the divine Essence to be united through itself to the intellect in the manner of an intelligible form. He teaches the same in book 3 Contra Gent., ch. 49, most of all with the 4th and 5th reasons. Likewise the reasons of the article, if they avail anything, proceed concerning all likenesses even created, however spiritual they be; and the testimony of St. Augustine speaks of any likeness whatever.

Third conclusion: Speaking absolutely, and not only according to the opinion of St. Thomas, one must deny that any created intelligible likeness is possible which would represent God quidditatively and as He is. This conclusion is proved. Every distinct and intuitive cognition of a thing comes about through a likeness of the thing more immaterial, or not less immaterial, than the thing known is: but there cannot be given a created intelligible likeness equally immaterial with the intelligible divine Essence: therefore etc. The major is plain inductively even in sensitive cognition: for sense is, as Aristotle says in book 2 De Anima, text 121 and text 138, perceptive of likenesses without matter, as wax receives a figure without the matter of iron; e.g. for touch to sense cold distinctly, it does not suffice that my flesh be affected with cold, but it is necessary that the sensorium receive a certain immaterial likeness, that it may sense cold. And hence it is that Arist. said, in the place above, text 95, that the sensible placed upon the sense does not make sensation, because such union is highly material; and so consequently and proportionally in the other higher senses it is agreed that sensation comes about through an immaterial likeness of the material object; and that sense is more excellent which receives a purer likeness in a more immaterial way: e.g. smell is more perfect than touch and taste, because it receives the likeness of the smellable with less alteration; for it is not necessary that the organ of sense be altered, indeed perhaps not even the medium. For vultures scent corpses from a very great distance.

Further, hearing is more spiritual, because without any alteration of the object or of the medium, but through a certain local motion, a certain spiritual likeness of sound is perceived in hearing. Sight, finally, is the most perfect sense among the five, because without any mutation of the object or of the medium or of the organ, but intentionally it is moved by the object.

Proportionally in the common sense likenesses more abstracted from matter are received: and at length in the intellect intelligible likenesses abstracted from phantasms are received by the power of the light of the agent intellect, representing in common, yet immaterially, the quiddity of the material thing. But with respect to an altogether immaterial object, such as separate substances are, there cannot be in us likenesses representing immaterial objects as they are: for every intelligible likeness of ours has a certain materiality, because it is abstracted from phantasms, and through conversion to the phantasm it represents. From what has been said the truth of that proposition will be gathered. But the minor is proved: for God is infinitely immaterial even in the account of intelligible, but no created likeness can have infinite immateriality even in representing: therefore the minor is true. But that second minor is proved: for the more perfect the thing represented is, the more perfect the likeness ought to be which naturally represents that thing; but God is infinitely perfect: therefore the intelligible likeness which would naturally represent Him as He is ought to be infinitely perfect according to the immateriality of its natural representation. It is confirmed: for every likeness which naturally represents a more perfect object has in its to-be a greater perfection than another likeness which represents a less perfect object: therefore what naturally represents an infinitely perfect object must have infinite perfection in its real to-be; for this representation is not by imposition, but natural, which is founded on the perfections of the very to-be of the representing likeness. On this matter see St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 8, art. 1, where he makes very many arguments in confirmation of this truth, and in III Contra Gentes, ch. 49.|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.49

For the solution of the arguments, it is to be noted with Caietanus, in this place, that the intelligible likenesses of which we speak do not have per se that they be accidents or substance, yet it belongs to them per se that they be representative not in the manner of a sign by imposition, but in the manner of a natural likeness: for all cognition comes about through assimilation; and the likeness ought to be the more perfect in this to-be, the more perfect the thing it represents.

To the first argument it is answered that, although that distinction of the intelligible likeness in its to-be and in its representing is rightly admitted, yet because the perfection of the likeness in representing is a perfection naturally according to a certain real to-be, it is plainly gathered that if the thing which is represented evidently and as it is is infinite, then the likeness itself representing also has infinite real perfection and infinite immateriality. With this, however, it stands in truth that the intelligible likeness, which is an accident, can perfectly represent a created substance, because in the account of representing there can be proportion in the likeness of an accident with a substance of finite perfection. Just as accidents contribute and conduce greatly to investigating the what-it-is, and reach even to the production of substance in the power of the substance whose accidents they are, so too the intelligible likeness, although it be an accident, will be able to reach to the perfect cognition of substance and its representation, in the power of the substance which the likeness itself uses, and in the power of the substance whose the likeness itself is. But with respect to God, there can be no effect which represents God as He is, because it can have no proportion in the account of representing: for since such representation ought to be natural, it must be founded on some real perfection and immateriality of the thing, which ought to be of the same genus as that which is represented. Hence there is no consequence that if the intelligible likeness, which is an accident, can represent a created substance as it is, that there can possibly be given also an intelligible likeness which represents God as He is.

To the second argument, Master Soto in 4, dist. 49, q. 2, art. 5, grants vision to be a likeness of God; indeed he says that for this reason a likeness is required which is a likeness of the object in the manner of a habit, that the intellect may be able to produce the cognition which is the actual image of the same object, and so he understands St. Augustine in the place cited. And this vision, he says, St. Thomas calls a participation of the light of glory.

Hence it is answered to the argument that the impressed likeness is a likeness representing the object itself in another way than vision is: for for a likeness to represent is to effect the cognition of the thing, but the mode of representing of a cognition is not to effect, but to be the cognition and representation formally. The first of these it is impossible to attribute to a creature, for God alone is the efficient cause of beatitude.

But yet this doctrine does not agree with the doctrine of St. Thomas. For he himself in the article does not deny a created intelligible likeness to be possible for seeing God because it would be the effective principle of vision, but because it is repugnant that a created form be a natural likeness of God representing Him as He is. Likewise, St. Thomas puts light on the part of the seeing power, by which the intellect is made effective for seeing God; but he puts the intelligible likeness on the part of the thing seen, that the object be united in some way to the seer; to represent, therefore, is not for a likeness to effect, and even if it were to effect, it would not for that reason be not possible for seeing God, for even the light of glory itself concurs efficiently for seeing God, and nevertheless is a certain likeness of God on the part of the seeing power, as St. Thomas says in the first conclusion. To the argument, therefore, the antecedent is denied: but vision is a vital action proceeding from the intellect illumined by the light of glory concerning the divine object united to the intellect.

To the first and second testimony of St. Augustine it is answered that by the name of cognition is understood the intrinsic term of the thought itself or of the cognition, which is the expressed image of the object, which is formed in us in the natural cognition of the intellect.

To the third testimony, where St. Augustine speaks of beatific vision, it is to be noted that the Blessed are like God in this that they are seeing God as He is, and enjoy Him, as God Himself is blessed because He sees Himself and enjoys Himself, yet there is not made in the Blessed a likeness formally representing God as He is: for the divine Essence supplies this through itself. We shall therefore be perfectly like God inasmuch as we shall have the action of seeing the same object which God sees, and so St. Augustine is explained.

To the third argument, Ferrariensis, book I Cont. Gent., ch. 55|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-primus:liber.1/capitulum.55, says problematically that it can be defended that the Blessed form a word even in the doctrine of St. Thomas. For the affirmative side can be proved by the third argument. Nor does it stand in the way that the divine Essence can be represented through no created likeness as He is. For it will be said that this is true of the likeness which is the likeness of the intellect, and of the likeness which is the conception produced from a created likeness, but not of the expressed likeness which is from an uncreated infinite form, such as the divine Essence is, by whose power, just as the Blessed produce vision, so also a word. Nor does the other argument stand in the way, that beatific vision ought to be immediately of the divine Essence, but a word is a certain medium in which the thing known is seen, therefore the divine Essence will not be able to be seen immediately and in a created word. For it is said to this argument that an intrinsic medium to the knower and to the cognition, as it were completive of it, does not hinder the thing from being known in itself, and of this kind is the word which the Blessed produce by their understanding, but it is not a word in which they know God and see Him as in His image.

But that the negative side can be sustained is proved. For just as the Blessed see the divine Essence through no other intelligible likeness than through the essence itself, so through no other word do they see, but the divine Essence itself stands as the immediate term of understanding.

It remains, therefore, to answer to the third argument that St. Thomas speaks of the understanding of a created nature and naturally befitting it, but he does not speak of the understanding of our intellect through a supernatural and infinite form. And Caietanus follows this sentence here. For all the reasons of St. Thomas in the article proceed much more concerning the expressed than the impressed likeness, which is the intelligible likeness. But what the opposite opinion says, that a word is posited in the Blessed not that in it the divine Essence is seen but that it be the intrinsic term completing the understanding as a point terminates a line, does not fully satisfy the difficulty, for still that word ought to be a natural and expressed likeness of God representing Him as He is, which is impossible for a creature. Likewise, according to this way of speaking, in every sensitive and exterior cognition one must oppose an intrinsic term to sensation completive of it, e.g. when a wall is seen, there must be in use not only vision but also as it were a word and expressed idol of the object itself.

But Capreolus, in I Sent. dist. 27, q. 2, says that beatific vision is terminated to a single word had of the beatific object essentially and in act; but the blessed one has several words habitually concerning the attributes and concerning the creatures seen in God. Whence sometimes he forms several, sometimes fewer words. But yet, in 4 Sent., dist. 49, q. 5, he says it is commonly held that the Blessed have no other word than the divine Word on account of His intimate presence to the blessed intellect.

But then the former opinion of Capreolus seems altogether false, for concerning the divine attributes there is a single account of knowing, namely the divine Essence itself. Whence one attribute cannot be seen without another, just as neither can one person be seen without another, and the same single essence is the account of knowing those things which are seen in the word, and not through a proper likeness, wherefore neither concerning the attributes nor concerning the creatures seen in God do they form several words, even if it be added that they produce a word. Yet there pleases us more, according to the sentence of St. Thomas, that the Blessed form no word, but beatific vision is altogether and immediately terminated to the divine Essence.

To the fourth argument it is answered that the understanding of which the article speaks is of men, inasmuch as the human intellect, which is called possible, before it understands receives the intelligible likeness from the object, and therefore it is said to be a certain undergoing, because our understanding presupposes a undergoing, that is, the reception of the intelligible likeness.

To the fifth argument it is answered that although the Blessed see the divine Essence finitely, and finite creatures in it, yet because they see the infinite thing as it is, there cannot be given a created likeness sufficient to represent God as He is.

To the sixth argument, the consequence is denied. For the blessed light is posited on the part of the seeing power to elevate and strengthen it, that it may be able to elicit vision concerning such an object, and as the light is finite, so too is vision finite: for it is a certain vital act proceeding from a finite principle. But, because the object is infinite, there cannot be given anything which would supply the union of the intelligible object with the intelligent power. But it is necessary that such an object be united through itself. Whether, however, the divine Essence itself in the account of an intelligible likeness concurs effectively to vision, we shall say in the following doubt.

To the last argument it is answered that the intelligible likeness by which the lower angel knows the higher is of the same order in representative to-be as the object represented: as also the lower angel himself is of the same genus as the higher in the to-be of nature. Nor then does it stand in the way that the angelic intelligible likeness is an accident and lower in the to-be of nature than the substance which is known. The reason is: for the likeness itself is not what understands but concurs effectively to understanding, in the power of the intelligent angelic substance and hypostasis. Whence it comes about that the action can reach to the cognition of things of the same genus and immateriality. But only this is gathered from it, that the lower does not know the higher as perfectly as the higher knows himself or even the lower as to natural to-be, for free thoughts are not known except by him whose they are.

IT IS DOUBTED, secondly, concerning the third conclusion, whether the divine Essence is united to the intellect of the Blessed as form and intelligible likeness?

For the negative side it is argued first. Of the account of an intelligible likeness it is to be received in the intellect informing it and constituting it in act; but the divine Essence cannot be as a form in a subject: therefore etc.

Second argument. It is impossible that any power operate through some formal principle which is not intrinsic to it, as in a subject or as a part of the operator itself; but the intelligible form is posited as a formal principle of the intellective power through which it operates proportionately to the to-be which it has: therefore if the divine Essence is an intelligible likeness, it is necessary that it be received as a form actuating the intellect.

Third argument. Of the account of an intelligible likeness it is that it formally assimilate the intellective power to the intelligible object, for all cognition comes about through assimilation; but it implies a contradiction that the divine Essence be the formal likeness of the creature to God: therefore it cannot be an intelligible likeness.

Fourth argument. Of the account of an intelligible likeness it is that it constitute one thing with the intellect in intelligible to-be. Whence likeness and intellect stand as matter and form, as Caietanus says in this article; but this is repugnant to the divine Essence, for if the divine Essence were a form informing and bestowing some formal to-be on the creature distinct from the essence itself.

Arg. 5. Of the account of an intelligible likeness there is some potentiality: therefore it cannot belong to the divine Essence. The antecedent is proved: for of the account of an intelligible likeness it is to constitute the intellect in first act; but such constitution still remains in potency to second act; therefore the form constituting the intellect in first act has something of potentiality, otherwise it would also constitute it in perfect second act.

Lastly. Of the account of an intelligible likeness it is that it be the form by which and the principle by which the intelligent brings about the vital action of knowing; but it implies a contradiction that the divine Essence be the principle by which a created power operates: therefore etc. The minor is proved: for otherwise the divine Essence would be a principle subordinated to the created principal agent. The consequence is proved; for every formal principle by which an agent operates is something subordinated to the agent, which operates as principal agent and subsisting through itself; and so the Blessed would use the divine Essence as it were as an instrument and principle for the vital action, which is the beatific vision itself. Caietanus strives to explain that to the account of an intelligible likeness, speaking absolutely, it does not belong that it constitute the intellect in act or in habit, but that it constitute the intellect in complete second act: for to this the intelligible likeness as such is posited, that the intelligent be the understood in complete act, and as form is the principle of the existing of matter, so the intelligible likeness stands as the principle of understanding, not that it be the act itself of understanding, but that it stand to second act as form stands to the to-be itself which is communicated to matter; and therefore, although in some way the intelligible likeness is active with respect to understanding, yet its better and stronger proportion is formal than active with respect to understanding. Yet this sentence seems obscure, nor fully satisfying the argument to the opposite. Wherefore the whole difficulty seems to us to be posited in explaining of what kind the union of the divine Essence with the blessed intellect is, in the account of an intelligible likeness.

FOR the explanation, let the first conclusion be: It is certain that the divine Essence is immediately united to the intellect of the Blessed as the principal agent of Vision, on which Vision depends in its becoming and in its being conserved as on a supernatural agent and the special author of grace and glory. This conclusion is demonstrated with a universal reason from those things which were said in q. 5 concerning the immediate existence of God in all things. With the immediacy of power and of supposit, that God intimately gives to-be to all things.

Second conclusion: It is certain also to be the doctrine of St. Thomas that the intelligible likeness, which is a certain quality inhering in the intellect, concurs effectively together with the intellect to understanding. This conclusion is plain from St. Thomas, book 1 Cont. Gent. ch. 53|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-primus:liber.1/capitulum.53, where he says that such a likeness is in our intellect, through which as through its proper form it understands the thing itself and by whose power it forms in itself the intention of the thing understood, which we call a word. And the reason is: for as each thing is, such things it works. Whence the intellect must first be made in act through the intelligible form before it produce the expressed image of the thing itself. Likewise it is proved inductively, for every form of an agent, to which the effect is assimilated per se, concurs effectively as its effective principle, as is plain, whether it be a substantial or an accidental form; e.g. the soul of man is the effective principle of the begotten, because the begotten is assimilated per se to the begetter animated with a rational soul; and likewise the generative power itself is an effective principle, to which the begotten is assimilated per se: likewise fire, through the medium of form and heat, efficiently generates fire and the hot.

Third conclusion: The divine Essence, inasmuch as it is united to the intellect as an intelligible form and in the account of an intelligible form, does not concur effectively with the intellect to producing beatific Vision; but the intellect alone with the light of glory elicits beatific vision efficiently. This conclusion, as to its first part, is proved from the proof of the minor made in the last argument. Then it is proved from the doctrine of St. Thomas in this article, where on the part of the seeing power he puts light, by which the power is rendered effective for vision; but on the part of the object, that the object be united to the power, he puts the divine Essence to be united in the account of an intelligible likeness; but this is not to effect: therefore it is not posited for effecting. It is confirmed: for if the divine Essence inasmuch as intelligible likeness, as such, concurred effectively to Vision, it would already stand on the part of the seeing power, inasmuch as through it, namely as through an effective principle, it would produce vision. Then the second part is proved, and the first confirmed, from St. Thomas in Quod. book 7, art. 1, where he teaches expressly that in other understandings not only does light concur effectively, but also the likeness of the object, which is an effective power for the cognition of the same object. But in beatific Vision St. Thomas posits no other effective power with the intellect except the light of glory. And the reason of this difference is assigned by St. Thomas because the divine Essence, which is the object of that vision, is totally intelligible light. Whence the light of glory descending from the divine Essence itself into the intellect does this with respect to the divine Essence in the intellect which the likeness of the thing understood does together with light with respect to other intelligibles which are not light only. He teaches the same to the second and fourth, in the same place.

Fourth conclusion: Nevertheless it must be said that the divine Essence itself is united to the blessed intellect properly in the account of an intelligible likeness, so that Vision depends on the divine Essence not only in the account of a terminative object, but also as on an intelligible likeness, whose proper office is to unite

the object with the power. This conclusion is plainly gathered from the doctrine of St. Thomas in the solution to the third, and wherever he makes mention of this matter, as in 4 Sent. d. 49, q. 2, art. 1, and De Verit. q. 8, art. 1, and book 3 Cont. Gent. ch. 51|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.51, where he says that the divine Essence is what is seen and that by which it is seen. From which place some gather that the divine Essence concurs effectively in the account of an intelligible likeness. But yet the sense of St. Thomas is that the divine Essence is that by which it is seen, as an intelligible form united to the intellect. And the conclusion is proved, moreover, because the intellect of the Blessed cannot see God without an intelligible likeness, but no created likeness can terminate that dependence of the intellect: therefore it is necessary that the divine Essence be united to the intellect in the account of an intelligible likeness. The major is proved: for the intellective power must first be united with the object before it produce Vision concerning it; but this union cannot come about unless the divine Essence be united in the account of an intelligible form: therefore. It is confirmed: for every other union with the intellect is either that of the efficient cause conserving the intellect with the light of glory, or that of the terminative object of Vision; therefore it is necessary to posit another union in the account of an intelligible form. It is confirmed secondly: for the divine Essence is intelligible truth, eminently containing whatever of perfection there is in a created likeness; therefore through itself it will be able to have the proper account of an intelligible likeness, because this includes no imperfection, just as the divine Essence includes the proper account of Wisdom, although wisdom in us is a certain inhering quality. But someone says that it intrinsically includes imperfection to have the account of an intelligible likeness, as was proved in the last argument for the negative side, namely that the divine Essence would be an efficient and elicitive principle subordinated to the created intellect. To this, however, I say that of the proper account of an intelligible likeness, as such, it is not to be an efficient principle of cognition, but only to unite the object with the power in knowable to-be. And the reason is: for that the intelligible likeness be active with respect to cognition rather holds on the part of the power, whose it is to elicit cognition; but of the account of an intelligible likeness as such there is only that which holds on the part of the object: therefore it is not of its proper account that it effect.

But observe especially that in the cognition of natural things there is a particular reason why the intelligible likeness concurs effectively, as a form and power inhering in the intellect, namely because the intellect, although it has force and efficacy for eliciting cognition, informed with a lower light, yet does not have a sufficiently determined power for eliciting such a kind of cognition, but this determination comes about with the accession of the intelligible likeness, which constitutes the intellect in first act, that it be effective of such cognition concerning such an object, and this comes from the imperfection of the power and of the light; but the light of glory most sufficiently determines the intellect of the Blessed, that it be effective not only of vision but of such vision, provided the object be united to it, which union is not an action of the intellect or of the object. Whence neither does the intelligible likeness, which per se primo formally makes this union, concur efficiently to Vision: indeed some of the moderns judge that neither do our intelligible likenesses concur efficiently to cognition, but only formally, as to the specification of the act. But yet these are deceived, as we said in the second conclusion. We can also adduce an example to explain the third and fourth conclusion. For it is the common sentence that an angel needs no other intelligible likeness for the cognition of himself than his own essence itself, which is united to the angelic intellect not only in natural to-be, as a subject with its proper accident, but is also united in intelligible to-be. This supposed, it is certain that the essence of the angel concurs effectively to vision, inasmuch as it is the total form of the principal agent, from which the intellect itself flows and has the to-be of inexistence; and in this the intellect is subordinated to the essence as to a stronger principle of operating. But in the account of an intelligible likeness the essence of the angel cannot concur effectively, unless we wish to posit a double efficiency in the essence of the angel, one principal and another subordinated to the intellect, as proceeding from the intelligible likeness elicitively, in the power of the intellect to which it is united, as the likeness which is an accident concurs to understanding: which is not only superfluous but also absurd to attribute to the angelic essence, this subordination in effecting. So we say that the divine Essence concurs to beatific Vision as the principal agent of vision, inasmuch as it is the Author of grace and glory. Whence that other effective concurrence is superfluous, nor befitting the divine Essence, since it suffices that in the account of an intelligible likeness it be united to the intellect through itself, making the object present, in which office no account of effecting is found, but only of terminating the dependence of the intellect and of the light on the presence of the object; and this especially befits the divine Essence, which according to itself is properly a subsistent and intelligible form, eminently containing every perfection of intelligible forms inasmuch as such, as it contains every account of to-be. There is another example to explain this truth. It is certain

indeed that the humanity, in Christ, is united to the personality of the Word, so that not only does the Word with its personality terminate the dependence of the humanity, which is of faith, but also with its proper existence terminate the dependence of the human nature in that which is to exist, so that the soul and humanity of Christ exist through no other created existence, which the common and safer opinion of Theologians holds, whatever Scotus may say. Just as, therefore, God through Himself can supply the account of existing of a created nature, because God is the first to-be subsisting through His essence, so, since He is the first intelligible, He can supply through His essence through Himself the account of an intelligible form, without any injury to the Divine Majesty, through a certain ineffable union with the intellect illumined by the light of glory, in the account of an intelligible likeness, without His being received in the intellect as in a subject in that imperfect way in which our existence is received in our essence.

TO the arguments it is answered. To the first, the major is denied, speaking per se of the intelligible likeness as such, as it is not of the account of wisdom that it be a quality, although this belongs to created wisdom; but to the intelligible likeness as such belongs per se primo that it unite the object with the power. To the second it is answered that it proves the third conclusion: whence I grant the major and the minor, and I deny the consequence: for for the divine Essence to be united to the intellect as an intelligible form is not to be the principle by which the intellect elicitively effects vision, but to be an intelligible form, by which, once united to the intellect, the intellect with light elicits vision. To the third, I grant the minor, if we speak of a created intelligible likeness; and so I grant the minor, and I deny the consequence: for of the account of an intelligible form, speaking absolutely, it is not to be a formal likeness existing and received in the intellect: but it suffices that it be an intelligible form intimately assisting and making the object present. To the fourth it is answered that all those perfections are found in a created intelligible likeness, yet they do not belong per se primo to the intelligible likeness as such. To the fifth, the antecedent is denied. To the proof it is answered that if to constitute be taken as it says the imperfection of an inhering material or formal cause, it does not belong per se primo to the intelligible likeness to constitute the intellect in first act, although it belongs to a created intelligible likeness. But if to constitute in first act be understood and taken for that which is to supply the place of what constitutes as to the union of the object with the power, so the divine Essence, in the account of an intelligible likeness, constitutes the intellect in first act, inasmuch as it unites the object with the power.

To the last, the major is denied speaking per se primo of the intelligible likeness, whence there is no need that such efficiency in the account of a subordinated principle, by which the creature operates, belong to the divine Essence.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

Conclusion is negative. The reason is: An act is proportioned to that whose act it is; but the power of sight is the form of a bodily organ: therefore its action cannot extend to incorporeal things.

COMMENTARY.

THIS article is clear. See St. Augustine, in Epist. 111 and 112; and note that St. Thomas could have assigned a special reason on the part of the object of bodily sight, under which the Divine Essence is in no way contained. But he wished to assign a more universal reason, by which he would show that no sense can be raised to seeing God. But, against the reason of St. Thomas it is argued first. The rational soul is the act of the body, and yet it can be raised to the vision of God: therefore action need not be so proportioned to that whose act it is that, if the latter be the act of the body, the action is about body. Second. The fire of hell acts really upon demons by tormenting them, though they are incorporeal: therefore at least by the power of God bodily sight can be raised to seeing the Divine essence. To the first it is answered that the soul is the act of the body in such a way that it has to-be independently of the body, as do its operations also; but St. Thomas speaks of the act of the body which by its nature depends on the body. Hence consequently in the operation, which cannot extend to incorporeal things, just as the subject whose power it is depends on the body. To the second it is answered that the fire of hell can instrumentally be raised to a transeunt action upon a spirit, by the power of the principal agent, who is God: but in immanent and vital actions, the proximate agent, in which the power of operating must be, is the principal agent, which operates insofar as it is in act through its own form. For this is intrinsically included in the definition of vital action. Hence in no way can the soul be raised to the vital action of seeing God with bodily eyes, in the character of an instrument, since this exceeds the proportion of its power; but the account is not the same for transeunt actions: some substance can be assumed by way of instrument and raised beyond its own force and power to the effect of the principal agent.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The FIRST conclusion is negative. The second conclusion: To know subsistent to-be itself is connatural to the divine intellect alone.

COMMENTARY.

NOTE, concerning the first conclusion, that it is certain according to Catholic faith. For there was once, in the year of our Lord 1311, around the times of John XXII, the error of the Beghards and Beguines, asserting that every intellectual nature is in itself naturally blessed, and not by the grace of God. That error is condemned in the Council of Vienne, and is had in the Clementine Ad nostrum, On heretics. And it is proved from that passage Rom. 6: "The grace of God is eternal life"; and John 14, the manifestation of God is promised as the reward of one who loves God. But it is agreed that we cannot love God from the powers of nature so as to merit God: therefore we cannot see God by nature. It is confirmed: faith necessary for eternal life is not by the powers of nature, but from grace: therefore neither will that vision itself be from the powers of nature. See St. Thomas in 3 Against the Gentiles ch. 52; Capreolus in 4 d. 49 q. 4 where he best explains the argument of the article. But Cajetan explains the same, and answers the arguments of Scotus.

IT IS DOUBTED whether the argument of St. Thomas is sufficient? It is argued against it. For from that foundation that what is known is in the knower according to the nature of the knower, there does not follow the equality which St. Thomas intends, namely, that the nature of the knower must be equaled to the object: but it can only be gathered that knowledge is a perfection proportioned to the knower. It is confirmed: for from the proportion between object and potency there rather follows dissimilarity and inequality, as between mover and movable, between matter and form: for such is the proportion between potency and object.

Second. For if the argument of St. Thomas were worth anything, it would follow that the lower angel would not see the higher, since the mode of being of the higher exceeds the mode of being of the lower angel.

Third. For from it there would follow, against the conclusion of the first article, that a created intellect, even illumined by the light of glory, could not see God. The consequence is proved: since the mode of being of God exceeds every mode of being of a created intellect, however illumined by the light of glory.

Fourth. For from the same argument it would follow that the Blessed would never see God as he is. The consequence is proved: since the mode of being of God exceeds every adequate account of the object of a created intellect. Scotus makes these arguments in 1 d. 3 q. 3 and in Quodlib. 14, art. 2, and in 4 d. 49 q. 11. But for the solution it must be noted that the conclusion of St. Thomas expressly speaks of evident knowledge by which a thing is known as it is. For the rest, concerning confused and obscure knowledge, it is not needed for a thing to be known that there be so great a proportion between the mode of being of the knower and of the thing known. Note second, that the root and beginning of knowledge comes from this, that some nature is not only what it is, but also other things besides itself. But since being other things besides itself does not happen in only one way, hence it is that diverse orders of knowers arise from diverse modes of being other things besides itself. Again, diverse modes of being other things besides itself arise from diverse modes of the natures themselves: and therefore according to the order of the knowing natures themselves, diverse modes must be posited by which the knower is the known. Whence from the first to the last it follows that to-be known is modified according to the nature of the knower, and not conversely. Hence also the natural measure of knowledge must be the nature of the knower itself: and this is the reasoning of St. Thomas, when from the manifold mode of being of the thing he gathers that knowledge of God as he is cannot be connatural to any creature.

To the first argument it is answered that although from that foundation there does not follow equality of knower and known in specific natural being, it is gathered nevertheless that one who connaturally knows a thing as it is cannot be of a lower nature than what is known, as regards the mode of being which is the root of the mode of knowing: e.g. the rational soul, as long as it has the mode of being united to the body as form, cannot know an angel as it is, since the knowledge of the soul is not without turning to a bodily phantasm, inasmuch as it is itself the act of the body, and thus naturally it cannot evidently know except a quiddity in matter. To the confirmation it is answered that St. Thomas does not infer equality between the known and the cognitive nature according to itself and specifically, but only as regards the generic mode of being according to which the grades of being are distinguished, and consequently the grades of knowing.

To the second, the consequence is denied. Since the lower angel has the same mode of being as the higher, although the higher in its specific difference is more excellent; but nevertheless the modes of being which distinguish the modes of knowing are not naturally distinguished by the specific differences of things, but by the generic grades according as to-be is received in matter, or is received without matter, yet limited in essence therein, or wholly subsistent. And again that first mode of being is distinguished by St. Thomas into two modes. One is when to-be itself is so received in a material essence that that essence or form cannot have to-be except in matter, and this is the lowest grade of all corporeal things apart from man. The other mode is proper to the rational soul, which holds a certain middle between higher and lower things. For thus it is the act of the body, by which it can exist naturally without the body, and hence comes a twofold mode of knowing of it: one of which is so bound to corporeal things that it extends only to individuals, of which sort is all sensitive knowledge; but according to the other mode of knowing, it is connatural to man to know those things which have to-be only in individual matter, yet he is not bound of himself to know them according as they are in matter, but also according as they are abstracted by the consideration of the intellect from individual matter; and thus the quiddities of material things are known in the universal, which exceeds the faculties of sense; but the angelic intellect, of itself first, knows the quiddity of the angel himself, and by its power other quiddities which have the same mode of being: this nevertheless does not hinder but that the angel naturally and evidently knows material quiddities, since what is more excellent can reach by its action what is lower; but what is lower cannot naturally be raised above its nature.

To the third, the consequence is denied: for the argument and conclusion of St. Thomas is understood of natural knowledge. For the rest, what is naturally known by confused and obscure knowledge will be able to be known supernaturally by distinct knowledge, from the fact that it falls under the account of the object of the intellect at least in common and in confusion. For example, the eye of the night-owl can be strengthened and raised by God above its nature to see the light of the Sun distinctly; but it cannot be raised to know sound, from the fact that sound in no way falls under the object of sight. So likewise the human intellect, although it has for its proportioned object the quiddity of a material thing, yet its adequate object is being in all its community, which also includes, although in confusion, that being which is wholly subsistent of itself, to-be itself. Wherefore by supernatural power, derived from the same first being, the intellect will be raised to see subsistent to-be itself, which is pure and infinite light. So much concerning this article 4.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The FIRST conclusion is affirmative. The reason is: because everything that is raised to something which exceeds its nature must be disposed by some disposition which is above its nature; but when any created intellect sees God, it is raised to so great a sublimity that the divine Essence itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect; therefore it must be disposed by some disposition above nature, which is indeed an increase of the power of understanding, and this increase of power we call illumination. And the reason can be taken from the conclusion of the preceding article. The intellect cannot by its natural powers see God; therefore it needs some disposition above its own nature.

But it should be noted that, because this reason could be dissolved if one were to say that the intellect is raised by the concurrence of God alone, just as water is raised to the sanctification of the soul, therefore there is need for us to use the preceding reason together with this one.

The Second conclusion, to the first: such created light is not necessary for the Divine Essence to become intelligible, but for the intellect to become able to understand, just as a power becomes more powerful through a habit.

The Third conclusion, to the second: this light is not required for seeing the Essence of God as a likeness in which God is seen, but as a perfection strengthening the intellect for seeing God.

COMMENTARY.

IT IS DOUBTED first, concerning the first conclusion, whether it is certain according to faith? It is argued first, for the affirmative side. For in the said Clementine Ad nostrum, the error of those saying that the soul does not need the light of glory for seeing God and blessedly enjoying Him is condemned: therefore.

Second. According to faith it is certain that the blessed Vision is a certain action of the intellect which it cannot exercise by the powers of nature; therefore some superadded power is necessary for the intellect to be properly said to see God. The consequence seems manifest by natural light. For it belongs to the intrinsic account of a vital action that it proceed from an intrinsic and proportionate principle, through which the agent is in act for acting, not only as an instrument but as a principal agent: but unless we posit in the intellect some supernatural quality, the blessed cannot be in proportionate act so as to have such an action of seeing, as a principal agent: therefore it is an error in faith, at least secondarily, to deny such a superadded quality, because it immediately follows that the Blessed themselves do not see God with a proper vision.

Hence also concerning this difficulty there are various ways of speaking. For Cajetan, here, and Ferrariensis in 3 Against the Gentiles, ch. 53, and Capreolus in 4 d. 49 q. 4 concl. 2 judge the conclusion of St. Thomas to be certain after the Council of Vienne, according to Catholic faith, where it is said in the condemnation of the fifth error of the Beghards: "Whoever shall have said that man does not need the light of glory raising the intellect to see God, passes judgment even on God, is a heretic." Aureolus, however, in Capreolus, in the same place, says that the Council determines something other there than what St. Thomas teaches: for he himself says that a habitual light is required, while the Council says only that a raising light is required, whether it be habitual or actual, as the vision itself is. But this solution clashes with the Council, which asserts that a light raising to the vision itself is required: therefore the vision is not sufficiently posited to be the light of which the Council speaks. For this reason Master Soto, in 4 d. 49 q. 2 art. 4, says the Council is to be understood otherwise, so that the sense is that a light is required which is either a habit disposing the intellect or a special help raising the power to see. Thus the conclusion of St. Thomas, which speaks of a habitual light, or a certain quality inhering in the intellect, is not certain according to faith, although it is very consonant with the manner of speaking of Sacred Scripture and of the Councils. This opinion of Master Soto is commonly accepted by the moderns.

For the explanation of this difficulty, suppose two things, about which there is customarily dispute in 1. 2. p. 3. art. 2. The first is that our supernatural beatitude consists essentially in an operation of the soul, whether that be principally of the intellect, as pleases St. Thomas; or of the will, as Scotus holds; or of both powers, as other Doctors think. This assertion is against Henry of Ghent, in Quodlib. 3 q. 12, where he says that Catholic faith places beatitude not in an operation of the soul but in the very essence of the soul; and this beatitude consists in a certain inward inflowing of God into the soul. But this opinion is not only false and dangerous and rash, but perhaps erroneous, because in Sacred Scripture the beatitude which is promised to us as our reward is called and is a certain operation, as Matthew 5: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God"; and 1 John 3: "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And 1 Cor. 13: "When that which is perfect comes, that which is in part shall be done away." And explaining what this perfect thing is, the Apostle says: "Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known." And certainly the holy Doctors, when speaking of our Beatitude, always make mention of our operation, namely vision or fruition; and so all the Scholastics, in 4 d. 49, think. The second thing to be supposed is that the blessed Vision is a certain vital action elicited by the powers of the soul of the Blessed himself. This is against the opinion of certain men asserting that this Vision is effected by God alone, with the intellect of the Blessed disposed merely passively. So holds Marsilius, in 3 q. 10; and Ockham in 1 d. 1 and Paludanus, in 4 d. 49 quaest. 1 artic. 2; Scotus too in 4 dist. 49 q. 2 is not far from this opinion. Buridan likewise in book 10 and here, q. 5, reckons it very probable. Nevertheless this opinion seems to us false and dangerous. It is proved: because according to Catholic faith, the Blessed sees God as He is; but to see, according to true philosophy, is a vital action: therefore the Blessed effects that immanent action. It is confirmed: because otherwise the Blessed would improperly be said to see God, just as a man would improperly be said to run who does not by his own power swiftly move his feet, but were drilled and moved by some extrinsic agent. Likewise, in the cited Clementine, light is posited for raising the intellect to see God: therefore it is posited as a power of the intellect for the action of seeing. Likewise, it would follow that the act of fruition is effectively from God alone. The consequence is clear, because the account is the same; but the consequent is false, because the charity of the way, which is a habit for eliciting that fruition, is the same in the way and in the fatherland; but in the way it effectively concurs toward the love of God and desire: therefore in the fatherland it effectively concurs toward love and fruition. And finally, these Doctors do not place our beatitude in our operation, or at any rate they must deny that vision is beatitude or a part of beatitude. And finally, these Doctors seem excused from error against faith by ignorance of philosophy.

THESE things supposed, let the first conclusion be: Saving Catholic faith, it can be denied that the light of faith is an infused habit superadded to the power. This is proved: because, as Master Soto says in the place cited, the Council and Sacred Scripture are sufficiently explained concerning an actual illumination which is a special help of God, strengthening the intellect by Himself for that action of seeing. Likewise, because many learned men in our times so opine and teach that it is not necessary according to Catholic faith to posit that light by way of habit; indeed, not even the opinion of Scotus, in the place cited, and of Durandus q. 2, denying the conclusion of St. Thomas, is marked with any grave censure. Finally, the mind of the Council of Vienne was to condemn the error of the Beghards asserting that God can be seen by the powers of nature alone: therefore whoever posits a supernatural help of God, and says this help is the light of which the Council speaks, asserts nothing against faith.

The Second conclusion. Nevertheless, in our judgment, what is defined by the Council can hardly be understood unless, besides the help and special concurrence of God, some quality is posited as the form and principle of seeing. This conclusion will be proved in the explanation of the following doubts; but now it is proved by the second argument made for the affirmative side. It is confirmed: because one who sees God as He is holds himself as a cause, and not as an instrument, of seeing: therefore the concurrence of God the supreme agent does not suffice, but some form in the second cause is also required, so that the effect is proportioned to the second cause itself: therefore the light which the Council asserts to be necessary for raising the intellect is not only the help of God and an actual concurrence, but also something by way of a form received in the intellect; otherwise the action of seeing God as He is would be attributed to the Blessed himself only perhaps as to an instrument; and then that action of seeing would denominate God as the principal agent, and God would see Himself through the Blessed as through an instrument: which is absurd. And through this, the answer to the arguments is clear.

IT IS DOUBTED second: Whether the light of glory is deservedly and reasonably posited by way of a certain habit infused in the intellect of the Blessed? It is argued first, for the negative side, by the argument of Ockham, in the place cited. If the light of glory is necessary, it is most of all that the intellect may produce vision; but this is not so: therefore. The minor is proved: because vision is produced effectively by God alone: therefore not by the intellect. The antecedent is proved: because vision is our reward: therefore it comes effectively from God alone. The consequence is clear: because merit comes effectively only from the one meriting: therefore reward is from the rewarder, precisely as from an efficient cause. It is confirmed: because otherwise the creature would beatify itself effectively, nor would vision be altogether supernatural, if indeed it were produced by a natural power.

Second, it is argued by the argument of Scotus. Because if the light of glory is posited, it would follow that an angel can see God through the very essence of the angel himself. The consequence is proved: because an essence, which is a spiritual substance, is much more perfect than the light of glory, which is an accident: therefore if through the light of glory the Blessed see God, much more clearly will the angel see through his own essence, which more clearly represents God.

Third. Because, with the light of glory posited in the intellect, it follows that the vision of God is natural to some creature. The consequence is proved: because now through the created light of glory the intellect is rendered proportionate to such an action: therefore vision is natural to it, just as if a blind man were supernaturally illuminated, vision is nevertheless natural to him.

Fourth. What was more to be posited is not posited: therefore what was less to be posited ought not to be posited. The major is explained: because an intelligible likeness of the Godhead was more to be posited, and it is not posited: for a likeness perfects the intellect in first act, while light perfects it in second act; therefore an intelligible likeness was more to be posited than light: therefore whoever does not posit an intelligible likeness ought not to posit light.

Fifth, from Durandus, in the place cited: because this light, which is posited by St. Thomas for strengthening the power, either strengthens the power by intensifying the very force of the power, just as the heat of water is intensified by the heat of fire, or strengthens it as a partial agent, just as two men carrying a stone help one another, or just as two lamps intensify the light of the diaphanous: but strengthening does not occur in the first way, because the intellect is not a quality capable of intensity or remission; and even if it were intensible, it could not be intensified by a light of a higher order; for what is formally intensified by something is of the same species as it. But neither can it occur in the second way: because the intellect would have in itself power for effecting a supernatural act, like the power of another partial and supernatural agent: and thus the intellect and the light would be of the same order, since they mutually help one another.

Sixth. A power by itself tends toward its object present to it, as sight at once sees a present color; but God is the object of our intellect, since He is contained under being, which is the adequate object: therefore the intellect by itself, without supernatural light, will be able to see God present.

Seventh. Such light is posited by St. Thomas so that the intellect be proportionate to that union of the Divine Essence in the account of an intelligible likeness; but with light still posited, the intellect remains disproportionate to the union of such an infinite form, since it remains finite: therefore it is posited in vain.

Last. Because the vision itself, for which light is posited, is supernatural; but again the light itself is also supernatural: therefore for receiving it, some supernatural disposition must be posited, and so there will be a process to infinity: therefore.

For the decision, let there be a single conclusion: Very reasonably is the infused light of glory posited, by way of habit, as a legitimate disposition of the power for seeing God as He is. It is proved first; because we must philosophize about divine things proportionally to what is naturally known; but nature has so ordained it that every natural agent has a formal and proportionate principle for exercising its action: therefore one acting supernaturally must necessarily have a proportionate and formal and supernatural principle for exercising a supernatural action. This minor can be proved inductively, without any exception, if we speak of agents concurring not instrumentally but as principal causes. The consequence, indeed, is very reasonable, as is clear from the major. It is proved likewise by the second argument made for the affirmative side in the first doubt. Besides, it is strange that for the action of believing from Catholic faith an infused habit of faith is posited for making proportion with such an act, and that for seeing God as He is the intellect should lack a habit, and nevertheless the action be proportionate to the power. See on this conclusion St. Thomas 3 Against the Gentiles ch. 53 where he proves it with many reasons; and ch. 54 he dissolves the contrary objections.

TO the arguments to the contrary it is answered. To the first, I deny the minor. To the proof, I deny the antecedent; and again to the proof of the antecedent, I deny the consequence. For it does not pertain intrinsically to the account of a reward that it be effectively from the rewarder, or even precisely from him, for even among men coins are customarily the reward of the hireling, and they are not effectively from the rewarder. And likewise there could be a reward among men in one enjoying for his labor the fruits of a tree: and yet neither the fruits nor the enjoyment is effectively from the rewarder: therefore for God to be called the rewarder it is not required that He alone effect the vision, which is beatitude: but it suffices that He Himself be the Author of the light of glory, and effectively concur with me, so that I effect the vision. Indeed, even in this life merit is not precisely from the one meriting effectively, but also from God, who wills our merits to be ours, which are His gifts. To the confirmation it is answered that the creature does not beatify itself, although it effectively concurs toward the Vision, which is beatitude. And the reason is that the principle of that action is the light which is efficiently produced by God alone: but to beatify oneself implies conferring on oneself what is necessary for beatitude. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that in some way the creature beatifies itself: either because it merits beatitude, or because it also efficiently concurs toward the Vision itself. As for what is inferred in the same place, that the blessed Vision would not be purely supernatural, if this is understood to mean that in every respect it has a supernatural principle, I grant the consequence: for indeed the natural power concurs effectively, and is the subject of that action. But an action is called supernatural without qualification which is of a supernatural object, and under a supernaturally formal account.

To the second, I deny the consequence: because although the essence of an angel is a spiritual substance, and the light of glory is an accident, yet the light of glory is of a higher order; hence it can reach an action of a higher order, which the essence of the angel cannot reach.

To the third, I grant that the blessed vision is connatural to the intellect illumined by the light of glory: but this is not to be natural without qualification, but to be of a higher nature.

To the fourth it is answered that although a likeness was more to be posited than light, yet not a created likeness. For the rest, because a likeness holds itself on the side of the object, God can by Himself supply the place of an intelligible likeness; yet He cannot by Himself supply the place of light: because light holds itself on the side of the power as its own principle subordinated to the operator, just as the power itself, on whose side light holds itself.

To the fifth it is answered that light is posited for neither of those, but is posited as a form superadded to the power, and as the ground of producing vision, just as heat is posited in water as necessary for water to heat.

To the sixth it is answered that the presence of the object does not suffice for the power to operate concerning it, if the power does not have a principle proportionate to action concerning such an object. Second it is answered that God is not present in the account of an object or intelligible likeness except to one having the light of glory.

To the seventh, I deny the minor: because although the intellect with the light of glory still remains finite, yet it remains proportionate, because through that light it is made of the divine order and connatural to God: hence it will be able to produce a finite action concerning an infinite object. And this is the proportion of the power with its proper action and with the object, insofar as it is finitely visible by the created intellect.

To the last it is answered that for the ultimate form in each order a disposition is required, but for a disposition no disposition is required. But the ultimate and as it were formal thing to which the intellect of the Blessed is ordered is the union of the Divine Essence in the account of an intelligible form: hence for this a disposition is required, but not for the light, which is a disposition toward the union of such a form.

IT IS DOUBTED third: Whether by the absolute power of God it can come about that a created intellect see God without the infused light of glory? It is argued first, for the affirmative side. Whatever God can do with a second cause, He can do by Himself alone: but through the light of glory, as through an effective principle, He produces Vision: therefore by Himself alone without light He can bring it about that the intellect see God.

Second. Light is posited by St. Thomas as a disposition of the intellect toward the union of the Divine Essence in the account of an intelligible likeness; but God can unite any other form whatever to a subject without a disposition: therefore He will be able to unite Himself in the account of an intelligible form without any disposition of the intellect.

Third. In fact, the water of Baptism is raised by God to concur efficiently toward the sanctification of the soul, without any power which is in the water as its form or disposition; but by the divine concurrence alone the water attains so great an effect: therefore God will be able, by His special and supernatural help alone, to raise the intellect to see God as He is.

Fourth. God can by absolute power bring it about that the Blessed love Him in the fatherland without the habit of charity: therefore that he see without the habit of light. The consequence seems good: because neither power is naturally proportionate to such an action. The antecedent is proved: because according to the common opinion, even in the way, a man can without the habit of charity have an act of charity with a special help alone, and even with efficacious love attain a supernatural end: therefore much more will this be possible in the fatherland, because there it is easier to love God clearly seen than here, obscurely known.

Fifth. God could bring it about that our intellect, without the habit of first principles, assent to first principles, with only the likenesses of the things themselves remaining: therefore He will be able to bring it about that a created intellect, without the habit of light, see God united in the account of an intelligible form.

Sixth. It is a most probable opinion that Paul and Moses in this life saw the Divine Essence, and yet they did not have the habit of the light of glory: therefore God can do this.

Last, because nothing is to be denied to the divine power as possible, except what implies contradiction; but in this, that a created intellect see God aided by supernatural help, there is no implication of contradiction: therefore.

Concerning this difficulty, there are various opinions of the Doctors in 4 d. 40, where Scotus and Durandus say that, even without a habit and without special help, a created intellect can see God by this alone, that God make Himself present to the intellect in the account of an object. The opinion of these men Master Soto explains, in the place cited. Yet this opinion, if it speaks of what is fact, is erroneous and against the definition of the cited Clementine. If, however, it speaks of the absolute power of God, it is false, because the presence of the object does not suffice, if it is above the powers of the natural power, for having action concerning it: therefore, just as when the object is natural the power cannot without the general concurrence of God attain that object; so when the object is supernatural the power will not be able, without the supernatural help of God, to have action concerning it. Likewise, that presence of the object which these Doctors imagine is in reality not presence of the object in the account of an object, but in the account of a thing, in the way God is present in all things: therefore just as the light of the sun is not present to the eyes of the night-owl in the account of a visible object, much less will God be present to the created intellect in the account of an object, unless the intellect is illumined and strengthened by supernatural light or help. The second opinion is that God by absolute power cannot bring it about that a created intellect see the Divine Essence without some infused light superadded to the power. So hold Cajetan, here, and Ferrara 3 Against the Gentiles, ch. 54 and Capreolus in 4 dist. 49 and Soto q. 2 artic. 4 although he once held the opposite. The third opinion is a middle one, of certain moderns, namely that a created intellect, with the supernatural help of God alone, will be able without the light of glory to be raised to see the Divine Essence, yet not so that this vision be connatural and proportionate to the created intellect; but only belong to it in the account of an instrument moved by God. But this opinion, in my judgment, does not penetrate the account of a vital act, of whose intrinsic definition it is that whoever receives denomination from it necessarily have in himself a formal and proportionate principle with the act itself. And the reason is that a vital act is one which proceeds from an intrinsic principle of the living thing and remains in it. It is confirmed: because if the Blessed concurs only instrumentally toward that vision, it is necessary to posit some seer as principal cause; but this can be none but God Himself: therefore God sees through that Vision as principal cause, which is absurd. To us, therefore, the second opinion is pleasing: wherefore we posit a single conclusion.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for a creature to see God unless it have a supernatural light proportionate to the action of seeing. It is proved: because it belongs to the account of an efficient cause universally that it act insofar as it is in act, as Aristotle said in 5 Physics; but no creature, without that light, is in act so as to be able to be the efficient cause of Vision: therefore without it it cannot see God. This reason is to me a demonstration, if we speak of a cause that is not instrumental, as indeed the Blessed is not instrumental with respect to that vital action of seeing God. Nor does it avail to say that through the natural intellect the creature is in act toward the vital action of understanding, but yet by the concurrence of God it can be raised to such a vital action of seeing God. This answer, I say, does not avail, because toward the action itself of seeing the Blessed also holds himself as principal cause: therefore with respect to it he must have some formal principle through which he is in act. It is confirmed: because it is most received that the effect must be so proportioned to its cause that it not exceed its power, but it need not be proportioned to the instrument: therefore if the Blessed does not hold himself as an instrument of seeing, it is necessary that he have proportion with that action; otherwise it will be the same to say that he has no proportion with the action of seeing and that he does not see as a cause of seeing. Besides, it cannot come about through any power that water heat as principal cause unless it have heat or some more eminent form: therefore neither will any creature be able to see God without infused light, which makes proportion in the seer with the action itself. Finally, this conclusion is proved by the arguments made for the conclusion of the preceding doubt.

TO the first argument it is answered that it is one thing for God to effect some effect by Himself alone, and another for Him to bring it about that another second cause effect without a principle and without an efficient form: this second implies contradiction, for it would be to say that something is a cause and is not a cause. Then that maxim, to be universally true, is to be understood of substantial effects and of accidents which do not in their definition include actually proceeding from some created power: e.g. sensation intrinsically implies being an action of sense. Hence it implies that God by Himself alone effect sensation, unless perhaps, as some say, sensation is considered as it is a certain accident, and not in the account of sensation; and so they say that God could take that accident which is now sensation away from its subject and place it in a stone; but then neither would the stone sense, nor would it properly be sensation.

To the second, I deny the consequence. And the reason is that the union of other substantial forms, as such, primarily regards matter as its proper and natural subject: for accidents, which are dispositions, are not subjected in matter itself immediately, but in the whole composite; but the Divine Essence is united to the intellect in no other way than in the account of an intelligible form: hence for its intelligible presence light is required on the side of the power. For the rest, the Divine Essence in the account of a thing and in the account of an efficient cause conserving to-be is intimately in all things and much more in the intellect.

To the third, I deny the consequence: because the water of Baptism concurs merely instrumentally toward the sanctification of the soul, while God alone concurs as principal cause of grace; but the Blessed with respect to vision is not an instrument of God seeing, but is a principal cause which sees God; hence he must have in himself a formal principle of seeing.

To the fourth, I deny the antecedent first: on the contrary the will of the Blessed needs some principle raising it to so sublime a love of God and of a higher order, which from its own nature it cannot have; and just as we have said that divine help does not suffice for beatific Vision without infused light, so it does not suffice for that love with respect to the will, unless the will receive some infused quality so as to be in act toward an action so sublime as supernatural love is. Second it is answered by denying the consequence. Because the will, since from its own nature it is an inclination to a known good, will now, with the intellect raised through the light of glory, be able to tend toward God clearly seen with supernatural help alone, in such a way indeed that the Blessed is a proportionate cause toward such love in the account of a principle which formally is in the intellect, and is the root of proportioning the act of the will. For the rest, whether in the way the will can without the habit of charity have an act of love of the same species as the act which proceeds from the infused habit is a dispute among Theologians which belongs more to the matter of the virtues. To us, however, the negative side has always pleased more. Of this the reason, for now, let the same proportionally suffice which has been rendered by us for the conclusion of the present doubt. For the power of a principal cause must be proportioned to the very action of the power; hence since the will, from its own nature, is not proportionate to tend efficaciously toward God as toward a supernatural end, it is necessary that it be perfected through some form raising the power to such an end: for infused virtues are not to be judged conferred on us so that we may better exercise acts of believing, hoping and loving God, as a supernatural object and Author of grace and glory, but are given so that we may without qualification exercise such acts; hence in the doctrine of St. Thomas infused virtues have also the account of supernatural powers, and not only of habits.

To the fifth, some grant the antecedent, but I judge it to imply contradiction. Because our intellect, without some light perfecting the power itself, is not proportionate to judge of first principles, although it have the simple likenesses of the things themselves which it now has. For the rest, whether that light is given by way of a permanent habit or by way of a passing disposition makes no difference with respect to the divine and absolute Power. And through this the answer to the sixth is clear, for if Paul and Moses saw the Divine Essence, they had the light of glory by way of a passing disposition, as St. Thomas teaches, 2. 2. q. 175 artic. 3, to the third.

To the last it is answered that it implies contradiction for any creature to see God and not to have a proportionate principle for seeing. Because, as has been said, the creature seeing does not concur as an instrument toward that vital and immanent action.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The FIRST Conclusion is affirmative.

Second Conclusion: That one sees more perfectly than another will not be through any more perfect likeness of God in one than in another.

Third Conclusion: That difference of vision will be through this, that the intellect of one has a greater faculty and power for seeing God, not from its own nature, but through the light of glory.

Fourth Conclusion: He will share more in the light of glory who has had more charity in the present life.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING this article, note that the first conclusion is certain according to the Catholic faith and defined in the Church. For there was once the heretic Jovinian, asserting that all the Blessed will be equal in the future, as St. Jerome reports in the Exposition of the Symbol to Damasus, vol. 2, 57, and the reason of this heretic was that he held with the Stoics that all vices are equal, and likewise that virtues are equal, as St. Augustine reports in On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, heresy 42. Luther also held the same error, not because he thought sins to be equal or virtues, but because he held that all those justified from sin are justified by the sole justice of Christ imputed to them; and since it is one single justice, all were equally just, and consequently all equally Blessed. This error was once condemned at Rome through the efforts of Victorinus and Pamachius, as St. Jerome reports, bk. 2 against Jovinian. It was condemned also in the Council of Aquileia, assembled at Aprica by order of Pope Siricius. It was condemned also in the Council of Florence in the Letters of union, where it is said: «Those who depart this life wholly cleansed of sin are at once received into heaven, where they see God as He is, but according to diversity of merits one more perfectly than another». Likewise in Sacred Scripture the conclusion is proved from that passage John 14: «In my Father's house there are many mansions». Which all the Holy Doctors explain of the diversity of degrees in beatitude: so Anselm, St. Thomas on that passage, St. Augustine in the book On Holy Virginity, ch. 26, and St. Jerome in the place above, St. Gregory Nazianzen in bk. 1 of his Theology, and St. Gregory in bk. 4 of the Morals, ch. 42, St. Bernard in the Letter to Abbot William, first part, at the end.

It should be noted however that, for this conclusion to be of faith, it makes no difference whether beatitude essentially consists in vision or in love itself and fruition. For all theologians agree in this, that these three stand proportionately to one another, namely vision, love, and fruition: for he who enjoys more, loves more, and he who loves more sees more perfectly; wherefore in whatever act beatitude consists, it will not be equal in all. But the heretic Jovinian objected that in the parable found in Matt. 20, of the laborers in the vineyard, it is said that an equal reward was bestowed on those laboring unequally. To which however it must be said, with St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 5, art. 2, ad 1, and 3 Contra Gentiles, ch. 53, that by the denarius given to the laborers is understood the very object of beatitude, which is one; but by the diverse mansions are understood diverse degrees of attaining that object. And this is the common explanation of the Scholastics in 4, dist. 49; and it is that of St. Augustine and Jerome in the places cited.

There is however a DOUBT concerning the third conclusion: whether a more perfect intellect according to its own nature, with an equal light of glory, sees God more perfectly and intensely than another intellect naturally less perfect, with the same light nonetheless?

For the affirmative side, it is argued first: for a sharper bodily sight sees more perfectly than another less sharp with equal light: therefore proportionately it will be so in the spiritual eye. Second: the natural intellect concurs actively in the Vision of God, as the elicitive principle of the vital action: therefore, other things being equal, the more perfect intellect acts more perfectly and will see God. Third: the Blessed produce the Vision with their whole effort; but the more perfect intellect strives more vehemently: therefore with equal light it will see more perfectly. Lastly it is argued from St. Thomas, 3rd part, q. 10, art. 4, ad 2, where he says that the degrees of intensity of beatitude are taken more from the order of grace than from the order of nature: therefore in some way they are considered from the order of nature.

In this difficulty Cajetan, in the 3rd part in the place above, on account of the arguments made holds the affirmative side. But for the decision of this question note that one must beware of the error of some who assert that a more imperfect intellect can never attain the degree of perfection in beatitude which a more perfect intellect has: e.g. that a man through grace can never attain to the perfection of the degree of beatitude of the lowest angel. St. Thomas refutes this error, 3 Contra Gentiles, ch. 57, from that passage Matt. 22: They shall be as the angels of God. But most of all from that passage ch. 10 of the Apocalypse: «The measure of man and of angel shall be the same!» And it is the common consensus of the Church that the Blessed Virgin has been exalted above the choirs of angels in beatitude. It is true however that among the angels themselves, according to the common opinion of the Scholastics, the comparison of grace to grace and of nature to nature holds proportionately, so that those more excellent in nature received more excellent grace and glory, etc.

This supposed, let the conclusion be: the least intellect, as far as lies on the side of its own nature, will see God more perfectly if it has been illumined by a more perfect light of glory, and will see equally if it has been illumined by an equal light as even the most perfect angel. And so the whole ground of the measure of the perfection of beatitude must be considered precisely from the quantity of the light of glory. It is proved first from St. Thomas in this article, ad 3, where he says that the diversity of seeing will be through a diverse faculty of the intellect, not indeed natural but glorious. Likewise in the Council of Florence in the place above: «the diversity of degrees of the beatific Vision is reduced to the diversity of merits». And it is confirmed: for from Cajetan's view it follows that if some man should merit by equal merits as much as another, if he be of more perfect intellect, he will be more blessed. It is proved: because he will receive an equal supernatural light as the reward of equal merits. But to say that he receives less light so that a proportion of quality may come about in the blessed Vision — this is utterly unfitting: because hence it would follow that some degree of essential beatitude would not be radically from grace or from merits, but rather from nature itself; and consequently would not be from the merits of Christ. Third it is proved: for from Cajetan's view it would follow that one having less light of glory could see God more perfectly than another who has more intense light of glory. The consequence is proved: suppose, e.g., an angel who with a light of glory as six sees God with an intensity as eight on account of the vivacity of his intellect; and suppose likewise an archangel who with an equal light as six will see God more intensely than the angel, e.g. as ten: then if some supreme Seraph had had an equal light with the angel and the archangel, he would exceed notably in intensity of vision, e.g. as sixteen. Whence it is gathered that the supreme Seraph, with less light, would see more intensely than the angel, because nature supplies what is less in light. Fourth it is proved: the natural intellect and the light of glory are not of the same order: therefore they cannot concur to increase the intensity of one species, namely of the divine order; but rather the whole ground of intensity must be taken from the side of the light elevating the intellect above its own nature, and consequently to a supernatural operation: therefore if it elevates to that more perfect operation, it is necessary that the intellect be more perfectly elevated by a more perfect light, according to that maxim: as the unqualified stands to the unqualified, so the more stands to the more.

To the arguments to the contrary it is answered. To the first, the consequence is denied. The ground of the difference is that bodily sight has a natural power for seeing color, and is of the same order as the visible object: but God, as He is in Himself, has no connaturality with the created intellect. Hence the natural power of the intellect makes no difference to a more perfect vision. To the second, the consequence is denied: because the intellect is elevated to concur actively in that vision by the light of glory alone; and so the quantity of activity arises from the quantity of the light, since that action is entirely of a higher order. To the third, the minor is denied: because the greater effort does not arise from perfection of nature, but only from the supernatural faculty. To the last it is answered that that particle «more» is not taken there comparatively, but rather adversatively, as if he said that it is considered from the order of grace, and not from nature itself. It must be noted here however that if anyone holds that view that by God's absolute power the created intellect can see God by a mere supernatural aid, without any infused light, he will scarcely be able to reduce the intensity of the Vision to any cause. For if he reduces it to a greater aid of God, it does not seem intelligible how that aid is greater or less except in some effect, since in God Himself there is nothing greater or less. But to distinguish that greater or less on the side of the effect will be, according to this opinion, just the same as saying that this vision is more intense because it is more intense: the consequence is clear, since there is there no other effect to which that greater and less is reduced, except only the vision itself.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

First conclusion: It is impossible for a created intellect to comprehend God.

Second conclusion, to the first: By imperfect comprehension as it is opposed to pursuit, the blessed will comprehend God, according to that 1 Cor. ch. 9: «So run, that you may comprehend.»

Third conclusion, to the second: God is not called incomprehensible for this reason, as though there were something of Him which is not seen; but because He is not seen as perfectly as He is visible.

Fourth conclusion, to the third: When it is said that the blessed sees God as He is totally, there is signified not the mode of knowledge, but of the object known.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING this article, note that the first conclusion is certain according to the Catholic faith, if we speak of comprehension, as much as is knowable from its nature. It is proved from that Jer. 32: «Great in counsel and incomprehensible in thought»; and Job 11: «Shall you comprehend the footsteps of God, or find out the Almighty unto perfection? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? He is deeper than hell, and whence shall you know?»; likewise 1 Tim. 6: «Who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light». Which is certainly understood as regards comprehension, not as regards vision. Rom. 11: «O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God, how incomprehensible are His judgments and unsearchable His ways!» This conclusion was denied by certain heretics, the Annomeans or Annomians, who lived about the year of the Lord 358, whose leader was the heretic Eunomius, who said that they comprehend God, even in this life, as they do themselves. Against them Chrysostom writes five homilies on the incomprehensible nature of God: see Theophylact ch. 3, on Ephesians, and St. Augustine Epist. 112 ch. 9, Epiphanius bk. 3 On Heresies, heresy 76. The same error was followed by a certain Augustine of Rome, as regards the soul of Christ, of which he said that it comprehends God. That error was condemned in the Council of Basel, Session 22, and in the Lateran under Innocent III, whose words are had in ch. Firmiter, where are also reported the words of Clement I in Epist. 1 to James the brother of the Lord, where he says: «God is altogether simple and incorporeal and incomprehensible by us». From what has been said it follows that when St. Augustine, in the place above, says that that is comprehended, nothing of which is hidden from the seer, it must be explained from St. Thomas, to the second, through the third conclusion posited, as can also be gathered from the same Augustine bk. 12 On the City ch. 18 where he says, «that that is comprehended which is bounded by the knowledge of the knower», that is, when the knowledge of the knower is equated to the knowability of the thing. But against this way of explaining the incomprehensibility of God, there is an argument. No creature, even an ant, can be known by a created intellect as much as it is knowable: therefore no creature is comprehended except by God alone. The antecedent is proved, for however perfectly an ant is known by a perfect Seraph, it is more perfectly knowable by God; therefore it is known by no creature as much as it is knowable. On account of this argument Ockham, in 4, q. 13, said, «that God alone can comprehend a creature». But this is absurd. For it would not be proper to God to be incomprehensible to knowledge. It is answered, therefore, that for a creature to be more knowable can come about from a twofold source. In one way from the quiddity of the creature, which is the ground of knowability; in another way from the perfection of the knower, through a more excellent light and a more immaterial intelligible likeness. It must be said, therefore, that for the account of comprehension it is not required that a thing be known in this second way, as much as it is knowable on the part of the knower; but it suffices that in the first way it be known as much as it is knowable on the part of its quiddity and its properties: whence man comprehends a triangle through knowledge of its definition, although an angel knows a triangle in a more perfect mode, on the part of the knower, not on the part of the thing known. But on the contrary, it follows that each blessed comprehends God. The consequence is proved, for each blessed knows distinctly the quiddity of God: therefore on the part of the thing known each knows Him as much as He is knowable. It is confirmed. Each knows through an infinite intelligible form: therefore he sees infinitely. The consequence is proved: for operation is proportioned to the form, which is the principle of operation. But the antecedent is proved: for each blessed sees, as through a principle, through the Divine Essence, through which he is made to be in act for that Vision. To this argument, according to our opinion — we who hold that the Divine Essence in the account of an intelligible likeness does not concur effectively unto Vision — it is easily answered that vision, as regards the perfection of its intensity, is not measured from the perfection of the quiddity known, or of the intelligible likeness united on the part of the object, but only from the quantity of the effective and proximate principle, which is the intellect as informed by the beatific light. Second it is answered, according to the opinion of those asserting that the Divine Essence in the account of an intelligible likeness concurs effectively unto Vision, that the measure of intensity is considered not only on the part of the likeness, but at the same time on the part of the light, which is finite, and determines the infinity of the intelligible likeness, as regards the effect of Vision, which likeness from its nature would be sufficient for infinite Vision. It must be said therefore to the principal argument that although all the blessed see the quiddity of God, yet, on the part of the quiddity itself, they do not see as much as it is visible. And the ground is: for the quiddity of God is itself subsistent and infinite to-be, which is the ground of knowability, and therefore the quiddity of God is not known on its own part as much as it is knowable. But the quiddity of a creature is finite in many ways, whence on its own part it can be known by a finite intellect as much as it is knowable.

IT IS DOUBTED first, concerning the solution of the second argument, and the third conclusion: Whether each blessed sees all the attributes and all the perfections which are formally in God? It is argued first, for the negative side. If the blessed sees all attributes of this kind, it follows that his vision is infinite. The consequence is proved: for to see one perfection of God a certain perfection of the intellect is required; and to see another, a greater perfection: therefore to see the infinite perfections of God, an infinite power of the intellect is required. Second. He who would know distinctly all the quidditative predicates of man would comprehend man: therefore he who knows all the essential and quidditative perfections of God comprehends God. Third. If the blessed sees all the perfections which are formally in God, he sees for this reason, because he sees the Essence of God itself, which he sees distinctly: but this ground does not suffice: therefore. The minor is proved: for the counsels of God and the providence of future things are the Divine Essence itself, and yet they are not seen, from the very fact that someone is blessed; otherwise the blessed would see all future contingents, and the thoughts of hearts, and the day of judgment: therefore. Fourth it is argued from Augustine in the book On Seeing God, where he says that God is a voluntary mirror: therefore He shows in Himself what He wills, and to hide what He wills, He can, that is, to manifest certain attributes, and to hide certain ones. Fifth. No blessed sees all the ideas of possible things, and yet the ideas are attributes which are formally in God: therefore none sees all the attributes. The major is proved: for the ideas are infinite in respect of the infinite possible species of creatures. The minor is proved: for naturally there are in God exemplars of created and possible things: since indeed the Father begets the Son from knowledge of Himself and of creatures, even possible ones: therefore naturally there are in God exemplars of this kind, since indeed the generation of the Son is natural. Sixth. One of the divine attributes is omnipotence, but this none can know distinctly, therefore nor see. The minor is proved. No power is known distinctly, except through respect to the things which it can do, but none knows distinctly the respects to all the things which God can do: otherwise, he would comprehend the omnipotence of God: therefore none of the blessed knows the omnipotence of God distinctly.

For the decision of this difficulty it is to be noted that this question can have a twofold sense. One is, whether by ordinary power, and in fact, every blessed sees all the things which are formally in God. The other sense is, whether by absolute power it can come about that a blessed sees the Divine Essence, and does not see all the attributes which are formally in God, or all the personal properties. In the first sense the dispute is now. Ferrara, bk. 3 Against the Gentiles, ch. 56, near the end says that the blessed do not see distinctly all the divine perfections, which are infinite, although they see that most simple Essence immediately containing infinite perfections unitedly and simply without any distinction. M. Vittoria is said to have held the same opinion.

But the opposite opinion is that of St. Thomas in this article, to the second, where he says that God is not called incomprehensible for this reason, as though there were something which is not seen: therefore all the divine perfections are seen by the blessed; and in the 3rd part, q. 10, art. 1, to the second, he teaches the same of the soul of Christ the Lord. And this opinion is common among theologians. See Capreolus in 4, dist. 49, q. 6, and Durandus q. 5. But Master Cano, because he held that all the divine perfections are finite in number, namely, three relative and one absolute, easily granted that all the divine perfections are seen by the blessed, for all see God three and one.

Let the first conclusion be: Every blessed sees all the things which are formally God Himself. This conclusion seems to certain moderns to be held according to the Catholic faith. And it is proved first from that 1 John 3: «When He shall appear, we shall see Him as He is»: but he who would see God wise, and would not see another attribute, namely of mercy, or of justice, would not see God as He is; therefore the conclusion is certain according to faith from that testimony. Second. The vision of God is a clear and distinct cognition: but he who does not see all the essential perfections does not see the thing clearly and distinctly: therefore he who does not see all the attributes which are formally in God does not see God clearly and distinctly. The consequence is plain. The major is of faith, the minor is known by natural light: therefore the opposite of the conclusion is error against faith. To me, however, it seems a very grave censure to condemn the opposite of the conclusion as error: for although it would be error to deny that the mystery of the Trinity is seen clearly by all the blessed, and all the other attributes, of which we have cognition in the way, from divine effects natural and supernatural, of which we have a fuller and evident cognition in the fatherland: yet if someone says that it is possible for some attribute formally to be attributed to the Divine Essence, which has not yet been attributed by the blessed, I do not see how he errs against faith. For that testimony, We shall see Him etc., does not prove that all the attributes, which the infinite Divine Essence can found, are known distinctly by the blessed, but it suffices to say that that vision will be manifest, in respect of the Divine Essence and of certain attributes, which the intellect of the blessed attributes and distinguishes, which are formally in God Himself. And although all the attributes are the Divine Essence itself formally, yet, on account of its eminence and infinity, it is not visible by a creature according to all the things which can be attributed to it distinctly, whose number is infinite syncategorematically. Nor does the second argument prove the conclusion to be of faith, for the minor can be distinguished: for if it is understood of the perfections which are distinguished by reason alone, since they are one and most simple and infinite perfection, it is false. For even if the blessed does not see how that simple perfection founds the infinite perfections which can be attributed to it by a created intellect on account of its eminent infinity, yet he knows that one perfection distinctly, as it is in itself, subsistent and illimited to-be itself. The probability of this opinion can also be aided by the arguments for the negative side, especially the fifth argument. For the ideas are multiplied in God and are formally divine perfections: for the Divine Essence itself has the account of several ideas, so that this is true, The idea of man is not the idea of a horse, which ideas nevertheless, since they are infinite, are not known distinctly by any creature: therefore it is not error to deny that all the perfections which are formally in God are known distinctly by the blessed.

Hence let the second conclusion be: The blessed do not know, indeed nor can they know distinctly all the perfections which are formally in God, which import a relation of reason to possible creatures; on which account, the first conclusion must be limited by this one. This conclusion is proved: for the blessed do not know the Divine Essence, as it is distinctly referred to the single species of possible creatures: therefore. The antecedent is proved, for relations of reason of this kind are infinite, according to the infinite multitude of possible creatures; and thus infinite ideas in God are distinguished by theologians; therefore they cannot be known distinctly by a created intellect. And if someone says that the ideas are not several attributes which belong to God formally, it is answered that the formal definition of attribute belongs to an idea. For God is not only eminently, but formally, the idea of man, as He is formally wise. Since therefore several ideas are distinguished in God, it must be said that they are several attributes of ideas. And finally it is confirmed: for every distinction of these attributes is taken from distinct relations to possible creatures, but these are infinite, and consequently attributes of this kind; therefore they cannot be known distinctly by the blessed. But how the divine attributes are distinguished among themselves, whether by reasoning reason or by reasoned reason, will be said below, q. 28, art. 2.

To the first it is answered that the attributes which are formally in God not importing relations to creatures are not infinite in number: e.g. that God is understanding, wise, eternal, and the like; but those which are distinguished by relations of reason in order to possible creatures are infinite. Wherefore not all those are known distinctly, but more or fewer according as one is more or less blessed. But the other attributes are all known distinctly, the Divine Essence being known, nor is greater power required to see all those attributes than to see two or three. For, as Christ says, John 14, He who sees me, sees the Father also, because the ground of knowing is the same, namely, the Divine Essence itself. All the blessed nevertheless agree in this, that they know all the divine attributes which bespeak relation to the species of things which have already been made according to the order of nature, and according to the common order of grace, as will be explained more fully in the following article. To the second, the consequence is denied. And the ground of the difference is, for whatever predicate of a creature is finite; but the things said of God essentially are each infinite, so that the chief ground of incomprehensibility is taken not from the infinity of the attributes, according to multitude, but from the fact that each one is infinite, e.g. infinite wisdom, infinite power: which infinity is none other than what is understood in this, that the divine to-be is its essence and subsistent, and consequently whatever God is, is infinite. To the third it is answered that the major is true, if we speak of the attributes which do not import relation to creatures. Whence the minor is denied, for the counsels of God and the providence of future things import relation to creatures, and through such relation they are distinguished. Wherefore it is not needful that all things of this kind be seen, the Divine Essence being seen, but it suffices that of these those be seen which regard the beatitude of each one, as will be said in the following article. To the fourth, it is answered that God is called a voluntary mirror in two ways: first, because He manifests Himself to whom He wills to manifest Himself through His grace; second, because after He has manifested Himself, still more or fewer of future contingents He manifests to the blessed according to His free will: yet He is not called a voluntary mirror because, in manifesting His essence, He can hide His wisdom, and other attributes of this kind, which do not bespeak relations to creatures. To the fifth, it is already plain from the second conclusion. For the Divine Essence does not have the account of several ideas, except as it is comparable to several species of creatures, and because infinite are possible, that is, not so many but that there may be more, therefore theologians posit infinite ideas in God, which nevertheless are all the Divine Essence itself, which is one and most simple perfection. To the sixth, the minor is denied, and to the proof it is answered that just as for the manifest knowledge of some finite power, it suffices to know the respect which the power has to its formal object, even if all the things which can fall under that account are not known distinctly: e.g. an angel knows distinctly and comprehends the art of some artificer, and yet does not know distinctly all the species of figures which can be introduced through matter, since they are infinite; but it suffices to know that the same is the account of the art for introducing this figure and infinite others. So therefore, and much more in respect of the divine power, which is not specified by some extrinsic object, it is true that the blessed know the divine power and art clearly, knowing the Divine Essence to be one and infinite certain account and perfection, in which is the power for producing infinite species of things, although the infinite producible species of things are not known distinctly: for this would be to comprehend the Divine Essence, if all those things were known distinctly, as will be plain in the following article.

The second DOUBT is, whether by the absolute power of God some blessed can see the Divine Essence not seeing the attributes, of which it was spoken in the first conclusion of the preceding doubt, or even the distinction of the Persons of the Trinity? Scotus, in 1, d. 1, q. 2, art. 2, says that each is possible. And it is proved first. For God can bring about that the intellect of the blessed abstract the concept of the essence from the concept of the person. Which is proved: for everything prior can be abstracted from its posterior; but the essence is formally prior than the persons are: therefore the essence can be seen, the persons not seen. Second. The intellect of the blessed can be quieted in the vision of the Divine Essence alone: therefore it will be able not to see the other attributes. The antecedent is proved: for the whole ground of beatitude, on the part of the object, is the essence, since it is the whole ground of perfection. Third. The Divine Essence can be seen, the Holy Spirit not seen: therefore also the Father or the Son not seen. The consequence is plain: for the ground is the same concerning one Person and concerning another. The antecedent is proved: for the Son can be seen, the Holy Spirit not seen, since they are not said relatively to each other: therefore.

But in opposition is the common opinion of theologians. Concerning which see Cajetan, 2. 2, q. 2, art. 8, where he excellently impugns the opinion of Scotus. First: for the vision of God is of Him as He is; but the Divine Essence so exists on the part of the thing that it is in three Persons: therefore he who sees the Divine Essence, as it is, sees it as it is in three Persons. It is confirmed: if the Divine Essence existed only in one supposit, it could not be seen as it is, unless that supposit were seen: therefore since it really exists in three supposits, it is necessary that the three supposits be seen, that it be verified that God is seen, as He is. Second. An essence being seen, unless the complement of it in which it is sustained as in a subject, or supposit, be seen, the intellect is still unquiet; since therefore the Divine Essence is sustained in three supposits, the intellect does not rest until it sees them. Third. Whatever is naturally in God is the Essence of God itself, really and formally and quidditatively; therefore if the Divine Essence is seen, it is necessary that all things with their properties be seen. The antecedent is proved: for if the opposite is wanting, it would follow that something would be accidental to God, and that He would not be most simple: since indeed there would be something in the Divine Essence which is not itself formally. And finally it is proved: for God, by His nature, is three in Persons: therefore intrinsically, in His quidditative definition, the three Persons are included: and consequently the Divine Essence cannot be seen, unless the three Persons are seen.

To the first argument of Scotus it is answered that it is impossible that one seeing the Divine Essence abstract the concept of the essence from the concepts of the persons. First, indeed, because through that vision of God as He is, no concept is formed. Then, because the Persons themselves are intrinsically included in the concept of the Divine Essence. Likewise, third, because the Divine Essence is not prior, except only in respect of our imperfect and obscure knowledge. But Scotus urges against this solution. The Divine Essence is something absolute, but a Person is something relative; but the absolute, from its nature, is prior intelligible than the relative: therefore the Divine Essence, through intuitive cognition, can be known prior than the Person. It is answered that the Divine Essence on account of its infinity contains most simply the absolute and the relative, so that the absolute is of the intrinsic account of the relative, and the relative of the intrinsic account of the absolute, and so through intuitive cognition neither can the absolute be known in abstraction from the relative, nor the converse, but both must be known at the same time by one and the same cognition. Relatives also, if compared among themselves, must be known by the same intuitive cognition, both because they are in the intrinsic account of the Divine Essence, and so by a single intuitive concept it is necessary that they be known at the same time with the essence, and also because they are mutually referred. From these, the solution to the second is plain. To the third it is answered, I deny the antecedent. To the proof it is denied that the Son can be known, by intuitive cognition, the Holy Spirit not known, on account of a twofold ground. The first is, because the Holy Spirit is of the intrinsic account of the Divine Essence. The second, because, by intuitive cognition, the Son is known, as He is, naturally on the part of the thing: but the Son naturally is spirating on the part of the thing: therefore He must be known as spirating, and consequently the Holy Spirit must be known at the same time, who is the term to which the Son is referred, as He is spirating. But concerning the absolute divine perfections it is plain from what has been said that one divine perfection cannot be known, the others not known, by intuitive cognition.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: No created intellect seeing God through His Essence sees in Him all things that God does and can do.

Second conclusion: Of those things which God does or can do, the created intellect knows so many more, the more perfectly it sees God.

Third conclusion, to the fourth: Each Blessed sees in the Divine Essence all the species, all the genera of created things, and their accounts.

Fourth conclusion, to the "how many": No Blessed sees in the Divine Essence all individuals, all their thoughts, and all things that have not been made but yet can be made.

COMMENTARY.

In this article it is to be noted that St. Thomas, as is clear from the letter, does not speak of the perfections which are in God formally, but only of those which are in God eminently: and of this kind are the perfections which belong to creatures.

There is a grave doubt in this article: Whether the Blessed sees some creatures in the Divine Essence, and whether he sees all, even possibles? On the matter of this doubt, the Scholastics dispute in 4, d. 49, and some in 3, d. 14. And on this matter four opinions are current. The first opinion asserts that the Blessed, in the Divine Essence, sees no creature; but the knowledge of creatures is had by the Blessed outside the Word, through likenesses implanted by God. Whence this opinion infers that when the Holy Fathers and the gravest Theologians teach that the Blessed see creatures in the Word, the sense in this expression is not formal but causal, that is, that from the fact that the Blessed gaze upon the Word there result in them implanted likenesses representing creatures in their proper genus. This opinion is taught by Gabriel in 3, dist. 14, q. unica, and Major in 4, d. 49, q. 3, and Ockham in the same dist., q. 15. This opinion is proved first. The blessed vision is an intuitive cognition clearly and distinctly representing its object; but what represents the Divine Essence cannot clearly and distinctly represent a creature: therefore the Blessed, in the divine and beatific Vision, knows no creature through the Divine Essence. The minor is proved. Every distinct and express representation must come about through the proper likeness of the thing represented; but the Divine Essence is not the proper likeness of any creature: therefore. And it is confirmed: the Divine Essence does not represent creatures according to the mode which the creatures themselves have; therefore it does not represent them distinctly and clearly. The antecedent is proved: creatures have in themselves a potential mode of being; but the Divine Essence represents as pure act having no potentiality: therefore it does not represent them as they are. It is confirmed, second: the knowledge of a thing which is had in the image or in the effective cause of the thing itself is not a clear and intuitive knowledge of that thing, because through that knowledge the thing is not known in itself but in another: therefore the knowledge of creatures which would be had in the Divine Essence would not be an intuitive knowledge of them. The consequence is proved: because creatures would be known not in themselves but in their image and effective cause. It is proved second: that the Blessed gazes upon some creatures in the Divine Essence does not follow necessarily from the fact that he sees the Divine Essence itself: therefore it is gratuitously asserted that each Blessed sees some creatures in the Divine Essence. The consequence is manifest, but the antecedent is proved. In the Divine Essence no creature can be known unless the Divine Essence itself is seen by the created intellect as it bespeaks a respect to creatures, and insofar as it is the idea, exemplar, and effective cause of them: but from the fact that the Divine Essence is seen according to itself, it is not necessary that it be seen as it bespeaks a respect to creatures, and as it is the exemplar and cause of them: therefore. The major is manifest: since the Divine Essence is not the ground of knowing creatures except as it is the exemplar and cause of them. The minor was proved above, in the preceding article, doubt one, conclusion two. And it is confirmed first, by the argument used by Henry of Ghent, Quodlib. 6, art. 4, who perhaps was the first author of this opinion. If the Divine Essence is known by the created intellect as it is the exemplar and cause of creatures, it follows that the created intellect knows all the creatures that God can produce; the consequent is impossible, since this would be to comprehend the divine power; therefore. The consequence is proved. The Divine Essence, known intuitively as it is the exemplar and cause of creatures, equally represents all possible creatures: therefore the created intellect, by the ground by which it knows some creatures in the Divine Essence, can also know all. It is confirmed second. The Divine Essence, as it is the idea of creatures, is a form conceived by the divine intellect, as we shall say below in q. 15: therefore from the fact that the Blessed gazes upon the Divine Essence itself it does not follow necessarily that he knows it as it is the idea of creatures, and so it is not necessary that he know some creatures in it. It is confirmed third. For if from the nature of the Beatific Vision it followed necessarily that the Blessed knows some creatures in the Divine Essence, and that he knows the Essence itself as it is the idea and exemplar of creatures, it would follow that by absolute power it could not come about that the Blessed gaze upon the Divine Essence without knowing some creatures; but the consequent appears most false; therefore. The consequence is proved. By absolute power it cannot come about that the Blessed gaze upon the Divine Essence without seeing some formal attribute, for the reason that it is of the intrinsic account of the Beatific Vision that, the Essence being seen, all its formal attributes are seen; therefore the account is the same in our case. Other arguments for this opinion can be seen in Gabriel, ubi supra; and in Durandus, in 4, dist. 49, quaest. 5.

There is a second opinion, which at the other extreme says that each Blessed gazes in the Divine Essence upon all possible creatures and their accounts, both as to their essences and as to their actual existences. This opinion is reported among the authors named by St. Thomas in q. 8 De Verit., art. 4, and Durandus, ubi supra. It is proved first. The intellect can know, by a single intellection, all those things that are represented to it through a single likeness; but to the blessed intellect there are represented through a single likeness, namely through the Divine Essence united in the account of a likeness, all things that God does and can do, and their accounts: therefore, by a single Beatific Vision, it knows all these. It is proved second. That the Divine Essence represents to the blessed intellect some creatures and does not represent others does not come from the Will of God alone, nor from the Divine Essence united in the account of a likeness, nor from the light of glory: therefore the Blessed knows all creatures, even possibles, without any limitation.

The antecedent is proved. And first, that it does not come from the Will of God alone is manifestly clear: since besides the divine Will there must be constituted some intrinsic ground of the Beatific Vision through which that limitation to representing certain creatures comes about. That it does not come from the Divine Essence is proved: for the Divine Essence is equally disposed to representing all creatures, both created and possible: therefore. That it does not come from the light of glory is proved: for the light of glory of itself primarily elevates the intellect to seeing the Essence of God; but as it were secondarily to seeing creatures, as they are represented in the Divine Essence: therefore, if on the part of the Divine Essence all creatures are equally represented, the light of glory causes no determination to knowing certain and determinate creatures. To this argument some Theologians answer that the determination to knowing certain creatures in the Divine Essence is taken from the actual existence of the creatures themselves, within the order of the Universe. Thus the Divine Essence represents first the existing creatures, and of the non-existing it represents to some Blessed those creatures which have greater similitude and affinity with the existing creatures. This solution seems not to have displeased St. Thomas, q. 8 De Veritate, art. 4, ad 12. But against it is argued: the Divine Essence and the Divine Power is in no way determined or changed by the actual production of things ad extra: therefore, by the actual existence of things, it is not determined to representing existing creatures rather than non-existing. And it is confirmed: for from this solution it will follow that each Blessed would gaze in the Divine Essence upon all individuals and singulars which exist a parte rei, or will exist at some difference of time; the consequent is false, and against St. Thomas in this art., ad 4. Second, the same solution is attacked. For from it follows that two Blessed in an equal degree of beatitude would of necessity see in the Divine Essence exactly the same creatures. But the consequent is false; since it can happen that some creatures pertain to the state of one Blessed and not to the state of another, e.g. Blessed Dominic and Blessed Francis are perhaps equal in Beatitude, and yet Blessed Dominic sees some things in the Word, and Blessed Francis others: since Blessed Dominic sees those things that regard the Dominican family; Blessed Francis, indeed, sees those that pertain to the religious order instituted by him. Third, it is proved, and at the same time the argument is refuted by which St. Thomas in this article proves the first conclusion. From the fact that the Blessed knows in the Word all the effects producible by God, it does not follow that he comprehends the Divine Essence: therefore there is no repugnance in the Blessed knowing all things in the Word. The antecedent is proved. For the comprehension of the Divine Essence, an infinite knowledge extensive of all those things that are in God eminently does not suffice; but there is required an infinite knowledge of them intensive, that is, by which they are known in every mode in which they are knowable; but from infinite knowledge extensive there does not necessarily follow infinite knowledge intensive: therefore. The minor is proved: all the formal Attributes of God are known by the Blessed with infinite knowledge extensive: since all are known, which are infinite, and yet they are not known infinitely intensive: therefore. And it is confirmed first: from the fact that the Blessed knows one effect it does not follow that he comprehends the Divine Essence as it is the cause of that effect: therefore from the fact that he sees all effects universally it does not follow that he comprehends the Divine Essence as it is the cause of them all.

It is confirmed second: if the created intellect knew all the effects producible by God in themselves, it would not comprehend the divine power: therefore if it knows them all in the Divine Essence it does not comprehend the divine power. The antecedent is proved. All producible effects, if they were in fact produced per impossibile, would not equal the divine power, since the whole of created being does not equal the perfection of uncreated being: therefore the knowledge of them all does not equal the perfection of the divine power, and, consequently, does not comprehend it.

Fourth, the same opinion is proved. From the fact that the Blessed sees every formal perfection of God it does not follow that he comprehends Him: therefore neither from the fact that he sees all things that are in God eminently. The antecedent is clear from what was said in the preceding article. The consequence is proved. If two perfections belong to the same subject in a certain order, and one is the total ground on account of which the other belongs to that subject, if from the knowledge of the former the comprehension of the thing does not follow, much less from the knowledge of the latter; but the formal perfection of God is the whole ground on account of which all creatures are eminently in God: therefore if from the knowledge of the formal divine perfection the comprehension of God does not follow, neither does it follow from the knowledge of all creatures which are eminently in God.

It is proved last: the Divine Essence represents all creatures universally, as a voluntary mirror, as St. Augustine teaches in the Letter to Paulina; but, the mirror having been seen, all those things that are represented in it are necessarily seen: therefore.

The third opinion is, and consists in two points. The first is. Each Blessed gazes in the Word upon all creatures, both produced and producible, as to their essences and essential accounts. It is proved: all creatures are represented naturally in the Word as to their proper essences and essential accounts: therefore. The second is: no Blessed knows necessarily and from the nature of the beatific Vision any creature as to its actual existence; but the knowledge of the actual existence of any creature whatever depends on the disposition of the divine will. This is proved: no creature is represented naturally in the Word as to its actual existence: since the actual existence of creatures depends on the divine and free will of God: therefore. The consequence is proved: since those things alone are necessarily seen by the beatific Vision which are represented naturally in the Divine Essence. This opinion is taught by Godfrey, cited by Cajetan and by Capreolus, in 4, dist. 49, quaest. 6; Durandus, in the dist. just cited, quaest. 2.

The fourth and last opinion is the one St. Thomas teaches in this article, and it is to be explained by us. Deliberately, in this place, I pass over the opinion of Scotus in 5, dist. 14, quaest. 2, since there will again be occasion to speak of his opinion in art. 10 following. For the resolution of this doubt it is to be noted that this question can be disputed in a twofold sense. One is de facto, namely whether all the Blessed see in the Word all creatures universally. The other sense is de possibili, namely whether by the absolute power of God it can come about that some created intellect sees in the Word all things that are eminently contained in God; and in each sense this question is to be resolved by us.

Let the first conclusion be: No Blessed sees in the Word all things that God does and can do, nor can this come about by the absolute power of God. This conclusion is the express opinion of St. Thomas in this article, and in 4, dist. 49, quaest. 2, art. 5, and wherever he speaks of this matter. But he proves it elegantly, 3 Contra Gent., cap. 56. St. Thomas is followed by the gravest men, St. Bonaventure, Marfil., and other Scholastics, besides the authors cited in the preceding opinions. And as to the first part, which speaks de facto, it is so certain that the opposite is either heresy or proximate to heresy. And it is proved first. From the Sacred Scriptures it is most openly established that the blessed Angels do not see in the Word all the mysteries of grace, and the account is entirely the same for the other Blessed: therefore. The major is proved from that of Isaiah, 63: Who is this, that comes from Edom? etc. With this testimony another of Psalm 23 agrees: "Who is this king of glory? etc." These testimonies the Holy Fathers interpret of the interrogation of the Angels doubting concerning some mysteries pertaining to Christ the Lord and to the reparation of the human race. So interpret St. Ambrose in the book On the Institution of the Virgin, chapter 5; St. Dionysius, in the chapter on the Celestial Hierarchy; St. Jerome on this place of Isaiah, and on those words of Paul to the Ephesians, 3: "That there may be made known to the principalities and powers through the Church the manifold wisdom of God." This testimony strongly confirms our conclusion, especially according to the interpretation of Jerome and Chrysostom. And the preceding words are to be weighed, namely, What is the dispensation of the sacrament hidden for ages in God, who created all things. Further, according to faith it must be confessed that the blessed Angels do not know the last day of Judgment, according to that of Mark, 13: "Of that day no one knows, not even the angels of God": therefore. Further, third: the blessed Angels do not fully know all the thoughts of God, nor all those mysteries that depend on the free dispensation of the divine will: therefore. The antecedent is proved from that of Paul, 1 Corinthians, 2: "The things that are God's no one has known but the Spirit of God." In which place, as is clearly gathered from the context, Paul was speaking of the thoughts and counsels of God. The second part of the conclusion, which proceeds de possibili, is not as certain as the preceding; and so its opposite could be affirmed without error. But still our conclusion is much more in agreement both with the Sacred Letter and with the testimonies of the Holy Fathers, which seem to proceed even de possibili. And it is proved, together with the first part of the conclusion. If the Blessed knew all things that God does and can do, he would comprehend the Divine Essence; but the consequent is impossible, and contrary to faith: therefore. The consequence is proved: he would know the whole that is in God both formally and eminently: therefore he would comprehend God. Someone will say that although he sees the whole, still he does not see it wholly, and so does not comprehend. Against: no perfection of God would be hidden from him, nor any mode of the divine perfection: therefore he would see God wholly, which is on the part of the object. I said, which is on the part of the object, for what is on the part of the seeing power he would not see wholly, since the divine intellect sees more clearly and perfectly. But this does not remove comprehension. For indeed the angel comprehends the nature of the ant, since he sees it wholly on the part of the object, although on the part of the power he does not see it wholly, since the divine intellect gazes upon it more clearly and distinctly. Second, the same part of the conclusion is proved. Whoever knows the total and adequate effect of some power comprehends it in the account of a power, but whoever knew all being creatable by God would know the adequate effect of the divine power: therefore he would comprehend it. The minor is evident. The major is proved: the whole strength of a power is explicated in the total and adequate effect of the power: therefore. To this argument can be reduced the argument of St. Thomas in the body of the article. But concerning it, it is to be observed that when St. Thomas says that the more effects of some cause the intellect knows, the more perfectly it knows the cause itself, he does not mean, as Scotus falsely opines ubi supra, that the more perfect knowledge of the cause depends per se on the more perfect knowledge of the effects: but St. Thomas intends only this, that the more perfect knowledge of the effects which is had in the cause presupposes the more perfect knowledge of the cause itself.

The second conclusion: no Blessed knows in the Word all producible effects, as to their essences. This conclusion is asserted against the third opinion; and although its opposite is not an error certain in faith, it is still proximate to error, if we speak de facto. It is proved first. Since it is opposed to the common opinion of all Theologians, and does not agree well with the Sacred Letter and the testimonies of the Holy Fathers cited in the first conclusion. It is proved second. Whoever thus saw in the Word all producible creatures would comprehend the omnipotence of God, speaking simply; but this is opposed to faith: therefore. The major is proved: he would designate by the intellect something beyond which the omnipotence of God could not extend itself: therefore. And it is confirmed: the Angel would comprehend the whole strength and power of human nature, since he knows all effects as to their essences to which the strength of human nature can extend itself, although he does not know the actual existence of them all; since their actual existence depends on the free will of man. Likewise, whoever knew all the effects of a craftsman to which the art of some craftsman could extend itself, although he did not know when the craftsman would produce effects of this kind, would comprehend the art of that craftsman: therefore, for comprehending some power, speaking simply, it suffices to know every possible effect of it as to essence, although one does not know it as to actual existence. It is proved third: if God from eternity had decreed to produce no creature, whoever knew all possible effects as to their essences would comprehend the omnipotence of God: therefore whoever now has a like knowledge of possible effects would comprehend the omnipotence of God. The antecedent is clear: since he knows in God the whole that is knowable in Him. But the consequence is proved: the omnipotence of God is not increased from the fact that God decreed to produce creatures ad extra: therefore that knowledge of God which then would be the comprehension of the divine power, also now would be its comprehension. Fourth and last it is proved. The Divine Essence as naturally represents all the possible existences of things as their essences: therefore just as the blessed intellect, according to the opinion of Durandus, knows all the essences of things, by the same account it would also know all their possible existences: and so it comprehends the whole power of God. It is true, however, that the existences of things as they actually exercise the office of existence are not represented naturally in the Divine Essence; since, as to this actual office, they depend on the free will of God, but as is established from the preceding arguments, for comprehending the divine power it is not necessary to know the existences of things in this way.

The third conclusion: Each Blessed in the Divine Essence sees some creatures. This conclusion is asserted against the first opinion, but it is taught not only by St. Thomas in this article, but by the whole school of the ancients. It is proved first from St. Augustine, book 4 On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, chapter 23, and in the following, where he distinguishes a twofold knowledge of creatures in the blessed Angels. One by which they know them in the Word, and this he calls morning; and the other by which they know the same creatures in their proper genus, and this he calls evening; but the account is the same for the other Blessed: therefore all contemplate some creatures in the Word. It is proved second: all the mysteries of faith which in the way we know through faith, each Blessed gazes upon in the Divine Essence; but many mysteries of faith pertain to created effects, of which kind are all the mysteries of the Incarnation of the Lord and of the reparation of the human race: therefore. The major is proved in two ways. First from that of Paul, 1 Corinthians, 13: "We see now through a mirror in enigma, but then face to face." This testimony is much more fittingly and more according to the mind of St. Paul explained of all the mysteries of faith universally than of the Unity of the Divine Essence alone and the Trinity of Persons. Second, that major is proved. The facial vision of God, according to the common doctrine of the Theologians, in 4, dist. 49, is the dowry answering to faith: therefore that vision extends itself to manifesting all the mysteries of faith universally. Third, the conclusion is proved. The soul of Christ the Lord sees all things that God knows with the knowledge of Vision, as is explained in 3 pars, quaest. 10, art. 2, ad secundum; but it cannot easily be understood in what way the soul of Christ knows all these through proper likenesses, since they are infinite: therefore it knows them in the Word. It is proved fourth: God in His Essence clearly and distinctly knows all creatures universally: therefore the created intellect also will be able clearly and distinctly to know some creatures in the Divine Essence. It is proved last. If the Blessed do not gaze upon some creatures in the Word, it follows that there are not diverse degrees in essential beatitude, but that all the Blessed have an equal degree of essential beatitude; the consequent is opposed to faith, as is established from what was said above in this question: therefore. The consequence is proved. The diversity of degrees of essential Beatitude can consist in this alone, that one Blessed knows more creatures in the Word than another: therefore, with the knowledge of creatures removed, there is no diversity of degree in essential Beatitude. On account of these arguments some most grave men teach that the first opinion opposed to this is a manifest error in faith. But I would believe this censure to be very rigid, since all the arguments set forth have an apparent solution. But nevertheless that opinion, besides being opposed to the common doctrine of the ancient Theologians, is not very agreeable to faith, and so is to be avoided.

The fourth conclusion: each Blessed sees in the Divine Essence all the genera, all the species of produced creatures, their accounts, the whole order of the universe, all the mysteries which of themselves regard faith: and finally all things universally which regard the proper state of the Blessed. This conclusion is asserted by St. Thomas in this art., ad 4, and 3 Cont. Gent., c. 59, and is the common opinion of the Theologians. It is proved: the Beatific Vision satiates every reasonable and just desire, but all those things universally which we have set in the conclusion fall under the reasonable and just desire of those who are beatified: therefore. The minor is proved. First: the genera and species of creatures, and the whole order of the universe, fall under the natural desire of the rational creature. For of these things is verified that of Aristotle at the beginning of the Metaphysics, Every man by nature desires to know. Then the mysteries of faith also pertain to just desire. For all the faithful reasonably desire, with a certain supernatural desire, to know clearly and evidently in the Fatherland those things which in the way they believe through obscure faith; and this desire is very agreeable to the nature of our intellect, since it is naturally inclined to having evident knowledge of those things which are proposed to it. Finally, it is a manifest thing that each one reasonably desires perfect knowledge of those things which regard his proper state. But which are those things that pertain to the state of each Blessed, we shall explain in art. 10 following.

The fifth conclusion: by the absolute power of God it can come about that some Blessed clearly gazes upon the Divine Essence and knows no creature in it. Durandus teaches this opinion ubi supra, and it is commonly received by almost all the disciples of St. Thomas. See Cajetan below, q. 57, art. ult., at the end of the Commentary. But it is proved: there is no implication in some knowledge attaining the primary object of itself and not attaining the secondary object; but the Divine Essence is the primary object of the Beatific Vision, while creatures pertain to the secondary object: therefore. And it is confirmed: that the blessed intellect sees in the Word more or fewer creatures comes from the greater or lesser intensity of the light of glory: therefore the light of glory can be so remiss as only to show the Divine Essence, which is the primary object, and no creature. This conclusion is to be understood of the particular and distinct knowledge of creatures. For in common and in a certain generality it is necessary that everyone who clearly sees the Essence of God know all creatures, even possibles, as was explained above in the preceding article, doubt 1, to the last argument.

To the arguments of the first opinion it is answered. And to the first, I distinguish the minor: if the adequation is weighed on the part of the likeness, the Divine Essence does not adequately represent any creature, but inadequately rather, since it does not represent precisely one creature, but all as the most universal likeness; but if the adequation is weighed on the part of the thing represented, the Divine Essence adequately represents any creature whatever, that is, it represents any creature whatever according to every account and mode which the creature has a parte rei; and so it represents one creature as exactly and distinctly as if it represented that alone; and this adequate representation on the part of the thing is fully sufficient for the intuitive and clear knowledge of the thing itself. To the first confirmation, I distinguish the antecedent: on the part of the mode of representing, I grant; on the part of the thing represented, I deny that the Divine Essence does not represent the creature according to every mode which the creature itself has. Just as in natural things, the likeness of a stone which is in the eye, on the part of the mode of representing, does not adequately represent the stone, namely on the part of the thing: since the likeness represents in an intentional and immaterial mode, while the stone has a material mode in itself. For the rest, on the part of the thing represented, it represents the stone according to every mode which it has in the thing, so that it represents the very materiality of the stone. To the second confirmation it is answered that it proceeds of the knowledge which is had in an imperfect image. For the knowledge of a thing which is had in an image which is of a higher order and which represents exactly and adequately on the part of the thing represented is the most perfect and intuitive knowledge of the thing represented through the image. To the second argument it is answered that the Divine Essence represents to the blessed intellect only those creatures for representing which it is united to the blessed intellect. Whence the antecedent is distinguished: the knowledge of creatures does not come from the vision of the Divine Essence, seen absolutely and according to itself, I grant; it does not come from the vision of the Divine Essence seen insofar as it is the exemplar of creatures, I deny. And then I say that, as is established from the arguments adduced for the third and fourth conclusions, not gratuitously but reasonably we assert that each Blessed gazes upon the Divine Essence not only according to itself and considered absolutely, but also as it is the exemplar of creatures. To the first confirmation it is answered that no created intellect can see the Divine Essence as it is the exemplar of all creatures; yet it can see it as it is the exemplar of certain creatures. To the second confirmation it is answered that it proves our fifth conclusion, which proceeds of the absolute power of God: yet it does not prove that de facto the Divine Essence is not united to the blessed intellect as it is the exemplar and idea of certain creatures. To the third confirmation, the consequence is denied; and to the proof I say that it is not of the intrinsic account of the Beatific Vision, speaking absolutely, that through it some creatures are known: since creatures pertain to the secondary object of the divine Vision, and the Divine Essence alone is its primary object. To the arguments of the second opinion, it is answered. To the first I say that the Divine Essence according to itself is representative of all creatures; but still it cannot unite itself to any created intellect as it is representative of all creatures, on account of the limitation of the created intellect. And on account of the limitation of the light of glory. And indeed there is no problem in the Divine Essence representing in a limited way with respect to the created intellect; since this limitation is respective and induces no imperfection in the form which is limited. See what was said above in the preceding article, shortly before the first doubt. To the second argument it is answered, and first I say that the solution assigned there is without doubt not sufficient, and is refuted most effectively by the arguments made there. And with other solutions passed over, it is to be noted for the true solution that creatures are in God in a fourfold way. First by mode of simplicity and perfection: thus every perfection and entity of creatures, with imperfections removed, is in God one most simple essence, and is God Himself. In which sense is verified that of John 1: "What was made, in Him was life"; and that common saying of Augustine and the Theologians, The creature in God is the creative Essence; and according to this mode creatures are formally in God. In the second way creatures are in God as an effect in the active cause which has the strength to produce all creatures according to every account and mode of the creatures themselves. In this way creatures are in God not formally but eminently: since they are in God with all their natural imperfections. Thus the stone according to all the materiality which it has a parte rei is contained in God as in the active cause. In the third way creatures are in God as in an inadequate exemplar, inadequate, I say, on the part of the exemplar itself; for on the part of things it is an adequate exemplar, as we explained in the solution of the first argument of the first opinion. Fourth and finally, creatures are in God as in an adequate exemplar, both on the part of the exemplar and on the part of the exemplified. And in this way creatures are in God according to ideal accounts, for indeed the Divine Essence as it is the idea of some creature is its adequate exemplar: e.g. the Divine Essence, as it is the idea of man, is not the idea nor the exemplar of the lion or of another, as will be explained more broadly below, quaest. 15. Second, it is to be noted that if creatures are known in the Divine Essence as they are in it in the first way, they are indeed all known; but this knowledge is not properly of creatures, for creatures insofar as they are thus in God are not creatures but God Himself, as we have said. But if they are known as they are in God in the second and third way, all creatures are indeed known, but still according to the common account of creatable being, and not according to their proper and distinct accounts: since the Divine Essence does not represent creatures, as thus contained in it, according to their distinct accounts, but by mode of unity, and inadequately. For the rest, if they are known as they are in God in the fourth way, they are known distinctly and particularly, according to their proper distinct accounts. This doctrine I seem to myself to gather from St. Thomas, 3 Cont. Gent., cap. 54. From which it follows that creatures cannot be known distinctly in the Divine Essence unless the Divine Essence is known as it is the manifold idea of creatures. These things being posited, it is answered to the argument that the determination of the representation comes from those three principles posited in the argument. And first, from the light of glory comes it that the Divine Essence does not represent to the blessed intellect all possible creatures universally, as I explained in the solution of the preceding argument. But that it represents these and not those comes from the divine Will, by which God wills to unite His Essence to the created intellect as it is representative and the idea of these creatures and not of those; and from the fact that the Divine Essence is not necessarily representative of itself as it is the idea of all creatures. And for this reason it is called by Augustine a voluntary mirror. And when the argument urges that the Divine Essence naturally represents all creatures equally, it is answered by distinguishing: with respect to the divine intellect comprehending its essence, I grant; with respect to the created intellect, I deny. Just as the Divine Essence necessarily and naturally represents to the divine intellect all the thoughts and volitions of God Himself, but to the created intellect it necessarily represents none, but with entirely free will represents those thoughts that it wills. And the a priori ground is: since, as was said in the preceding art., doubt 1, conclusion 2, those formal attributes of God which intrinsically import an actual respect to creatures are not necessarily known when the Divine Essence is seen, but the Divine Essence, as it is the adequate idea and exemplar of any creature whatever, intrinsically imports an actual respect to the creature: therefore it is not necessary that, the Divine Essence being seen according to itself, it also be seen by the created intellect as it is the idea of some creature, but this depends on the free will of God. To the third, the antecedent is denied, for it is sufficiently established from what was said concerning the first conclusion that, for the intellect to know all creatures extensively in the Divine Essence, it must know the Essence itself wholly and totally, as far as is on the part of the thing known; and consequently, that it know it infinitely intensive. To the first confirmation it is answered that the Divine Essence cannot be comprehended by the created intellect, speaking simply, even as it is the cause of some effect in particular: since the created intellect cannot attain every account and mode which can belong to some creature as it is subject to Divine Providence. It is true, however, that just as the created intellect can know every account and mode which belongs to the creature according to its natural power: so it can comprehend the Divine Essence as it is the natural cause of some creature; but this is comprehension secundum quid. To the second confirmation, first the consequence is denied, since from the fact that the intellect sees all creatures in the Divine Essence it manifestly follows that it knows all things that are in the Divine Essence, both formally and eminently, but this does not follow from the knowledge of all creatures in themselves. Second it is answered, distinguishing the antecedent: they do not comprehend the divine Power entitatively and according to the perfection which it has in itself, I grant; and this the argument by which the antecedent was proved effectively proves; for the rest, extensively and as the divine power is explicable in its total and adequate effect, I deny. To the fourth, I deny the consequence. To the proof I say that the maxim of Scotus has truth only in those things which are in the subject in the same mode, but in the present case the formal perfection is formally in God, while creatures are eminently in God. To the last, it is answered with Cajetan, in this art., that as is gathered from St. Thomas, q. 8 De Veritate, art. 4 and q. 12, art. 6, the Divine Essence, properly speaking, is not the mirror of creatures, nor are creatures contained in it as in a mirror. Since it is of the account of a mirror that it represent through distinct likenesses received from the very things represented. Creatures are contained, therefore, in the Divine Essence, properly speaking, as in the effective and exemplary cause, and so they are contained by mode of unity, and in the same mode they are represented. And consequently it is not necessary that, the Divine Essence having been seen, all creatures be known distinctly in it. But the Divine Essence is called a mirror metaphorically, for the reason that it most clearly represents all creatures. And with these things said, the argument of Durandus remains solved.

Concerning the solution to the fourth, see St. Thomas, 3 Cont. Gent., cap. 59, in which place he reduces to three those things that the Blessed do not see in the Word. First: no Blessed sees in the Word all producible creatures; he proves from that of Job, 11: "Perhaps you will grasp His footsteps?" that is, creatures. But of these producible creatures which are produced in act, very many of the Blessed, indeed perhaps all, see some in the Word, more or fewer, according to the quantity of the light of glory. Second: no Blessed sees in the Word all the thoughts and volitions of God Himself, but more or fewer according to the quantity of light; St. Thomas proves from that of 1 Cor. 2: "The things that are God's no one knows but the Spirit of God"; the things that are God's, that is, the divine counsels. Third: no Blessed knows all the accounts of created things; he proves from that of Ecclesiastes, 8: "I understood that of all the works of God no one can find the account." But it is to be observed that the accounts of creatures are of a twofold difference: some are those which follow of themselves upon the nature and quiddity of the thing: and all these each Blessed knows in the Word, and of these St. Thomas speaks in this solution to the 4th; but some are those which belong to the created thing as it is subject to the divine Power; and all these no Blessed knows in the Word, but according to the quantity of light, more or fewer. Since these accounts are drawn from the infinite Omnipotence of God, and consequently are infinite, and of these proceeds this third dictum. See Ferrara, 3 Cont. Gent., ubi supra. But whether each Blessed sees in the Word all individuals and singulars of any specific nature whatever will be explained in art. 10 following.

The conclusion of the article is negative.

COMMENTARY.

On this conclusion see what we said in the preceding article, concerning the third conclusion, and note the solution to the second of this article.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The Conclusion is affirmative. The reason is: because the things seen in God are seen through a single intelligible likeness, which is the Divine Essence.

COMMENTARY.

IN this article there is a doubt concerning the truth of the conclusion. And it is proved false. First. If the Blessed see at once in the Word all the things that concern their state, it follows that their knowledge is very imperfect; the consequent is not to be admitted: therefore. The consequence is proved from that common principle, intent on many things, sense is less toward each single thing: therefore the intellect of the Blessed, if it knows many things at once in the Word, contemplates them imperfectly and faintly. Second. If the soul of Christ the Lord beholds at once in the Word all things that concern its state, it follows that its beatific vision is infinitely more perfect than the vision of any other Blessed. The consequent is not to be admitted: therefore. The consequence is proved. The soul of Christ the Lord sees in the Word all the things that God knows by the knowledge of Vision, as is said in the 3rd part, q. 10, art. 2, ad secundum; De Veritate, q. 8, art. 4; but these are infinite, as is explained in the same place: therefore if it sees all things at once, its Vision exceeds in infinity the vision of any other Blessed. The consequence is clear: for every other Blessed sees finite things in the Word. Third. Each Blessed knows all singulars and individuals of each created specific nature; but he does not know them at once: therefore. The antecedent is proved. The natural knowledge of an Angel extends itself to all individuals and singulars of each specific nature; but the blessed vision is more perfect than any natural knowledge: therefore it too extends itself to singular individuals. And it is confirmed. Knowledge of singulars belongs to the perfection of the intellect: therefore the beatific vision extends itself to all singulars. The consequence is proved. Because the blessed vision confers every perfection on the intellect. The antecedent is proved from St. Thomas, below, q. 14, art. 11. Further, it is proved by reason. To know future contingents and the thoughts of hearts is a great perfection of the intellect, and so knowledge of them is attributed to the divine intellect alone; but these are certain singulars: therefore. Further, prudential knowledge greatly perfects the intellect, but this knowledge is concerned with singulars: therefore. The minor is proved, namely, that all these singulars cannot be known at once. Singulars are not known except when they actually exist; but they do not all exist at once: therefore. The major is asserted by St. Thomas below, q. 89, art. 8, where he says that each Blessed knows in the Word the things done among us, and in the 3rd Contra Gentes, c. 59|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.59, he says that the Blessed know all singulars existing under species: therefore, according to St. Thomas, the Blessed know only existing singulars. Fourth. Each Blessed knows in the Word all things that concern his state, but he cannot know these at once, but successively: therefore. The minor is proved: the things that pertain to the state of the Blessed are not all at once when the Blessed begins to see God, but happen successively afterwards: e.g., it belongs to the state of Blessed Dominic to know the things done in the Dominican Order, but these happen in succession of time: therefore. And it is confirmed: it belongs to the state of any Blessed whatever to know the prayers and petitions poured forth to him; but he does not know these at once, but knows each prayer when it is sent forth to him: therefore. It is confirmed secondly: it belongs to the state of the Angels to know all the things committed to their care and governance; but the Angels do not know these at once, but successively: therefore. The minor is proved from what is read in Daniel 10, that the angels to whom was committed the governance of the Israelite people and the Persian kingdom did not know what was to be done concerning the departure of the Israelite people from the Persian kingdom. In this doubt, Scotus in the 3rd book, d. 14, q. 2, speaking specially of the soul of Christ, says that the soul of Christ sees in the Word all the things that God knows by the knowledge of vision, yet not actually but habitually; that is, the actual vision of the Word is a habitual knowledge of creatures, so that successively the soul of Christ the Lord can now know some one creature in the Word, and afterwards another, and so successively of all. Major in the 4th book, d. 49, q. 5, holds this opinion probable, and each hints that the same is to be said of the other Blessed. But notwithstanding these, the opinion of St. Thomas contained in the conclusion of the article, which excludes all succession from the Beatific Vision of any Blessed whatever, is to be held as most certain. And the opposite, though it is not an error in faith, is nevertheless improbable. It is proved first from St. Augustine, in the 15th De Trinit., c. 16, the passage cited by St. Thomas in the argument On the contrary, and in book 83 of the Quaestionum, q. 25, where he says that the soul of any Blessed whatever, and his wisdom, are measured by participated eternity, and by the name of wisdom Augustine understands the Vision of the Divine Essence; but the things measured by participated eternity are wholly at once, nor do they admit any succession: therefore the blessed Vision is wholly at once according to Augustine. Second it is proved by reason. All the principles of the blessed Vision remain unvaried through all eternity: therefore in the beatific Vision there will be no change nor variation, and so it is wholly at once. The consequence appears good; the antecedent is proved. The light of glory will neither grow nor diminish through all eternity; the Divine Essence will always be united in the same way to the blessed intellect in the account of intelligible likeness, and these are all the principles of the beatific Vision: therefore. And it is confirmed. The Blessed knows creatures in the Divine Essence, according as they are represented in it; but creatures are represented in the Divine Essence in the same way through all eternity: therefore they are always known in the Divine Essence in the same way. This reason, with its confirmation, proceeds a priori, and is most efficacious. See the other reasons in this article, and in the 3rd Contra Gentes, chap. 60.|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.60

To the arguments to the contrary it is answered. To the first, the consequence is denied. And to the proof I say that the axiom, Intent on many things, etc., has truth only when many things are known in the manner of many; but in the blessed Vision many creatures are known not in the manner of many, but in the manner of one; for they are known through a single likeness, and insofar as they come together under one formal and primary object, which is the Divine Essence. To the second, it is briefly answered that the blessed Vision of the soul of Christ is more perfect than any other blessed Vision, indeed infinitely, but not infinitely simply, but in a certain respect: because the soul of Christ sees infinite creatures, not simply infinite, but in a certain genus. But the knowledge of the soul of Christ is disputed at length in the 3rd part, quaest. 10. To the third, it is answered first: with the major granted, I deny the minor. To the proof it is to be answered that those testimonies of St. Thomas are to be taken in this sense, that each Blessed will see from the first instant of his Beatitude all singulars that will have existence in some difference of time, excepting however thoughts and volitions. For these singulars the soul of Christ alone beholds in the Word: because knowledge of them belongs to its state. Ferrara, in the 3rd Cont. Gent., chap. 59|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.59, thinks it can probably be said that the Blessed, in the first instant of his Beatitude, knows in the Word only those singulars which then actually exist, or existed in past time. Future singulars he knows afterwards in the Word, successively according as they come to be and exist. As is commonly said of the knowledge of angels, that the angelic likeness without any change of itself represents singulars to the angel successively, according as they actually exist in the nature of things. But this opinion, though it can in some way be defended, is nevertheless false, and contrary to the doctrine of Saint Thomas in this art. and in the 3rd Cont. Gent., c. 59|summa-contra-gentiles-liber-tertius:liber.3/capitulum.59, and in q. 8 De Veritate, art. 4: in which places he most openly excludes all succession from the blessed Vision. Further, the likeness which is the principle of the beatific Vision represents all things actually, with all potentiality and succession removed, which is not found in the likenesses of angels: therefore. Second it is answered, as more probable to me, that each Blessed knows in the Word only those singulars that pertain to his state. And it is of these singulars that St. Thomas is to be understood when he asserts that each Blessed sees the things done among us, and sees singulars existing under species. Hence to the argument, the major is denied; for certainly if each Blessed beheld all singulars in the Word, it would be asked in vain by the Theologians whether each Blessed sees in the Word all the things that concern his state. To the proof, with major and minor granted, the consequence is denied. And the reason is: because the likenesses of angels do indeed represent all singulars, but yet successively, according as they come to be in the nature of things. But this succession of representation is unfitting for the beatific Vision. To the confirmation it is answered that we can speak of the intellect in two ways, both as speculative and as practical. If we speak of the intellect as speculative, knowledge of singulars is not its perfection, properly speaking, as Saint Thomas teaches in art. 8 of this question, ad quartum: it is however a sign of perfection, so that a more perfect and more universal knowledge extends itself to more singulars, and in this sense St. Thomas is to be understood below, q. 14, art. 11; and in the same sense it holds true that knowledge of future contingents is a great perfection of the intellect. But if the discussion concerns the intellect as practical, I grant that knowledge of singulars belongs to its perfection, not indeed of all singulars, but of those whose knowledge is required per se for judgments of prudence concerning matters of the moral virtues. And all these singulars each Blessed knows in the Word. To the fourth, Cajetan in the 3rd part, q. 10, art. 2, teaches that each Blessed knows in the Word all the things that pertain to his state for the first instant of his Beatitude; the rest, which in the course of the Beatitude pertain to his state, he knows indeed in the Word, yet not formally but causally, that is, from the vision of the Word there arises that peculiar revelations concerning such things be made to him. From this opinion Durandus in the 4th book, d. 49, q. 3, in the solutions of the arguments of the second and third, does not recede far, an opinion which without doubt is probable, and from it many difficulties commonly raised in this place are solved. But nevertheless it seems to me more probable, with Ferrara in the place cited above, that each Blessed sees in the Word formally all the things that concern his state in the whole course of the Beatitude, and sees all these from the first moment of his Beatitude without any succession. But it is to be noted that since the beatific state is invariable, all the things that concern the state of each Blessed for the whole progress of the Beatitude pertain to him for the first instant of the Beatitude, at least radically, e.g., to the state of Blessed Dominic pertain all the things of any moment in the Dominican family, and in the first instant of his Beatitude all these pertained to his state radically, because the whole Dominican order itself already then pertained to him. But someone will argue: if each Blessed beholds in the Word formally all things that concern his state, it follows that a less Blessed can see more creatures in the Word than one who is more blessed; the consequent is false: therefore. The consequence is proved. For more things can pertain to the state of one Blessed than to the state of another more Blessed, for example, suppose St. Lawrence is more blessed than Blessed Dominic, it is certain that more things pertain to the state of B. Dominic than to the state of B. Lawrence: because to B. Dominic belong all the things done in his order. To this argument certain Theologians say there is no unfittingness in admitting that a less Blessed sees more singulars in the Word, because knowledge of singulars does not cause greater essential Beatitude. Yet this solution is improbable: because he who knows more singulars in the Divine Essence sees the Divine Essence itself more perfectly, and consequently his beatitude is essentially more perfect. To the argument, therefore, it is answered that the excess of singulars in which the less Blessed exceeds is compensated in the more Blessed through knowledge of other creatures, whether existing or possible, which are seen by the more Blessed in the Divine Essence, and not by the less Blessed. To the first confirmation: Cajetan, in 2nd-2nd, q. 83, art. 4, near the solution ad secundum, thinks that each Blessed beholds in the Word from the first instant of his Beatitude all the prayers to be poured forth to him in the whole course of his Beatitude. And this opinion has some foundation in St. Thomas, in that solution ad secundum. But the truer opinion appears, and one more received by the Theologians, that each Blessed knows all the prayers poured forth to him through special revelations. Thus he knows them in the Word not formally but causally. And this St. Thomas openly teaches in that solution ad secundum, if the words are truly weighed. This therefore supposed, to the confirmation I say that to know the prayers of the faithful does not pertain intrinsically to the state of any Blessed whatever, except only of Christ the Lord. For Christ the Lord, because he is the mediator of God and men, is also our advocate with the Father. And so it belongs to his state to know the prayers of all men to be poured forth to him in all eternity. It is true, however, that as St. Thomas teaches in the place above, in 2nd-2nd, it belongs to the excellence of all the Blessed to know the petitions poured forth to them by wayfarers. This excellence, however, is not intrinsic to the beatific state of any Blessed, Christ excepted, but is per se consequent upon that state. For since all the Blessed are friends and intimates of God, indeed even table-companions, from a natural consequence there arises that they have free faculty of presenting our petitions to God, and of interceding for us. From this it follows that it is not necessary for the Blessed to know our petitions and prayers formally in the Word; yet it is necessary that they know them causally in the Word. To the second confirmation it is similarly answered that it does not pertain per se to the beatific state of the Angels to be deputed to the custody and governance of some province or kingdom, or to be sent to execute some ministry in the Church militant, but this belongs to them not as they are Blessed, but as they are Ministers of God, sent into ministry for those who receive the inheritance of salvation; Heb. 1. It is true that such ministry redounds to their excellence, because to serve God is to reign. Concerning the reason of St. Thomas in this art. it is to be noted first that the opinion of St. Thomas that the intellect cannot be informed at once by many likenesses is to be understood of actual information. Thus there is no unfittingness in the intellect being at once informed by very many likenesses in the manner of a habit: but it cannot at once use many likenesses in the manner of many. This understanding is had expressly in St. Thomas, 1st-2nd, q. 54, art. 1, ad ultimum. Second it is to be noted that this same opinion is to be understood of likenesses of the same order. For there is no unfittingness in the intellect being at once perfectly actuated by many likenesses of diverse order, e.g., the soul of Christ the Lord at once knows through the divine likeness, that is through the Divine Essence, and through a per se infused created likeness, and finally through a per se acquired likeness. And the reason of this is: because a likeness of a higher order eminently contains a likeness of a lower order. Thus the Divine Essence in the account of likeness most eminently contains the infused likeness, and the acquired. Likewise the per se infused likeness eminently contains the per se acquired likeness. Wherefore when the intellect is at once actuated by these three likenesses, it is not reckoned to be actuated by many likenesses speaking simply, but by a single likeness perfectly explicated according to all its power. See Cajetan in this article, near the reason of the article.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

Conclusion: No mere man can see God through the Essence, unless he be separated from mortal life.

COMMENTARY.

IN this article it is to be noted, first, that its conclusion is not to be understood of the natural faculty. For already above, art. 4, St. Thomas explained that through the natural faculty no created intellect can see the Divine Essence. Hence the conclusion is to be understood of supernatural power. Second, it is to be noted that, since supernatural power is twofold, one ordinary, namely that which is bound by the laws established by God, the other absolute, which is constrained by no laws, the conclusion of St. Thomas is not to be understood of absolute power, but of ordinary power. For as St. Thomas himself confesses in the reply to the second objection, St. Paul and Moses, though set in this mortal life, saw the Divine Essence through the absolute power of God. Ferrara, 3 Cont. Gent. chap. 47, seems to expound this conclusion of St. Thomas of the absolute power of God, so that it would be unfeasible by any power of God for anyone in this mortal life to behold the Divine Essence. But Cajetan, in this commentary, expounds the conclusion of the letter of the ordinary power of God. Yet there is no contradiction between these authors, since they understand that conclusion of St. Thomas in different ways. Cajetan so understands it, that no man in this mortal life can see the Divine Essence, even if in that Vision he should use no sense, nor see without a turning to phantasms. And the conclusion, in that sense, without doubt cannot be verified except of ordinary power, because through the absolute power of God it does not involve a contradiction that such a vision of the Divine Essence be communicated to a man existing in mortal life. Ferrara, however, so expounds the conclusion, that no man in this life can see the Divine Essence in such a way that his vision would depend on the use of some sense, and come about through a turning to phantasms; and the conclusion, expounded in this sense, holds true even according to the absolute power of God. But it is to be observed that the conclusion of St. Thomas, expounded in the sense of Ferrara, is not certain according to faith, though it is the common opinion of the theologians. And it is proved by a most efficacious reason: since the Divine Essence, insofar as it is the likeness through which that vision comes about, has no dependence or connection with a phantasm, nor can it have any: therefore it is impossible that a vision which comes about through the Divine Essence should depend on a phantasm. For the rest, if the conclusion is taken in the sense expounded by Cajetan, and understood according to ordinary power, it is manifest faith, defined in the Council of Vienne against the Beghards and Beguines. And it is proved from John 1: No man hath seen God at any time, and chap. 3: He that is of the earth, of the earth he speaketh; he that cometh from heaven is above all; what he hath seen, that he testifieth. In which place Christ the Lord openly declares that no man besides Himself, who descended from heaven, has seen the mysteries of faith in the Divine Essence. And 1 Tim. 6: Who inhabiteth light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see. Exod. 33: Man shall not see Me and live. These testimonies and the like are at minimum to be understood according to the ordinary power of God.

Concerning those words of St. Thomas in the body, namely that man in sleep is fitter for perceiving spiritual revelations than in waking, etc., it is to be noted, first, that the intellect in its operation has two offices: one to apprehend, and the other to judge. Now I say that this sentence of St. Thomas holds true as regards apprehension, but not as regards judgment. And the reason is: because for perceiving the likenesses of spiritual things a man is disposed by the fact that he ceases from operation concerning material and sensible things — which cessation takes place above all in sleep; but judgment comes about through resolution to sensible things perceived by the senses; and hence judgment is better done in waking than in sleep. This truth can be gathered from Gen. 28, where Jacob, after he had seen in sleep a ladder touching heaven, said upon waking: Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. Behold how Jacob in sleep had seen the ladder touching heaven, and angels ascending and descending by it; yet until his waking he had not perfectly judged that God was truly in that place. Second, it is to be noted that this sentence of St. Thomas is to be understood of sleep in which the imagination is not dulled and disturbed, as it is in those who sleep after much food and drink; but it is required that in sleep only the exterior senses be bound, while the imagination remains free so that it can minister subtler likenesses to the intellect of the sleeper. See Cajetan on this article.

There is a grave doubt concerning the reply to the second objection: whether St. Paul and Moses saw the Divine Essence while they were in this mortal life? This question has its proper place in 2-2, q. 174, art. 4, and q. 175, art. 3. But since that passage of St. Thomas is rarely treated in the Schools, it will therefore be disputed here. And first, the negative side is urged from all those testimonies which we adduced to prove that the conclusion of the letter is to be held according to faith. For in those testimonies it is openly declared that no man, Christ the Lord excepted, has in this life seen the Divine Essence. But above all that passage of John 1 is to be weighed: No man hath seen God at any time. For in the preceding words the Evangelist had said: The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And he at once subjoins: No man hath seen God at any time, but the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. By which words the Evangelist assigns as the reason why the law was given through Moses, and yet grace and truth came not through Moses but through Christ, that Christ alone had seen God: therefore Moses did not see the Divine Essence.

Second, it is argued from the testimonies of the Holy Fathers. St. Jerome, book 3 Against the Pelagians near the end, and on chap. 6 of Isaiah, most openly says that no prophet ever, nor any man, has seen God in His Essence, but in figures and enigmas. The same teaches St. Chrysostom concerning Moses, Homily 14 on John, and he says the same of Paul, though not so assertively, on 2 Cor. chap. 12. Gregory Nazianzen, book 2 of his Theology from the beginning; Gregory the Great, book 18 of the Morals, chaps. 37 and 38; and St. Cyril on John, book 1, chap. 22. These Holy Fathers speak more openly of Moses than of Paul. The same opinion teaches Dionysius in the book On Mystical Theology, chap. 1. But what presses most vehemently: this opinion is taught most assertively by Pope Evaristus in his first Decretal Epistle, expounding those words of Paul 1 Tim. 6: Who inhabiteth inaccessible light, etc.; he says that no prophet ever saw God in His Essence, but only in enigma and figure.

Third. It is never licit to except anyone from a general rule contained in Sacred Scripture without a most grave foundation; but it is a general rule contained in Sacred Scripture that no one ever saw the Divine Essence, or can see it: therefore to except anyone from this general rule is not licit without a most grave foundation. All this needs no proof. Further, but there is no foundation for saying that Moses and Paul saw God through the Essence in this life: therefore. This last antecedent is proved. First concerning Moses: for all the testimonies of Sacred Scripture in which it is asserted that Moses saw God face to face, or spoke with God mouth to mouth, can fittingly be expounded through that understanding by which St. Thomas in the reply to the first expounds those words of Gen. 32 spoken of Jacob: «I have seen the Lord face to face». Moreover, concerning St. Paul, what is contained in 2 Cor. 12, that he was caught up even to the third heaven, does not compel, since these words have manifold understandings, as may be seen in St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 175, art. 3, to the last. But there is no other passage in Sacred Scripture from which we could gather that Moses and Paul saw the Divine Essence: therefore there is no foundation.

Fourth. From Sacred Scripture it is gathered that neither Moses nor Paul saw the Divine Essence: therefore. The antecedent is proved. And first concerning Moses, from Exod. 33, where after Moses had asked the Lord to show him His glory, it was answered him: «Thou canst not see My face»; face, that is, Essence. Concerning St. Paul it is gathered from 2 Cor. 12: «I heard secret words, etc.». For hearing pertains more to faith, as St. Paul says to the Romans 10, «Faith cometh by hearing», than to Vision. And indeed it is unusual, both among sacred and among profane authors, that hearing be taken for seeing. Lastly. From the opposite opinion it follows that St. Paul in the rapture did not have faith, even in habit. The consequent is false: because Paul was then a wayfarer, and consequently a believer. The consequence is proved. For the clear vision of God could not have been had by Paul without the light of glory, but faith even in habit cannot stand with the light of glory: therefore. You will say with St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 175, art. 3, to 2, that the light of glory in Paul did not have permanent being, but was given him after the manner of something transient, and thus was compatible with faith in habit. Against: the clear and the obscure light are opposed as habit and privation: therefore they cannot be together, not even for one instant, just as a man cannot at once be seeing and blind, not even for one instant; but faith and the light of glory are related as the obscure and the clear light: therefore. And it is confirmed. From the opposite opinion it follows that St. Paul, even with that clear Vision ceasing, could not have an act of faith; the consequent is most false: therefore. The consequence is proved. St. Paul, with the vision ceasing, remembered having seen in the Divine Essence all the mysteries of faith, as St. Thomas teaches in this question above, art. 8, to 2; but an act of faith is not compossible with such recollection, just as he who remembers having seen Rome has not faith, but rather evidence, that he was once at Rome: therefore.

The opposite affirmative opinion is taught by most weighty men. St. Augustine, book 12 on Genesis according to the letter, chaps. 27 and 28, and in Epistle 112 to Paulinus, and Sermon 46 to the brethren in the Desert, most expressly affirms that both Paul and Moses saw the Divine Essence, just as the blessed angels see it. The same teaches concerning Moses St. Basil in Homily 1 on the Six Days from the beginning; St. Ambrose, book 1 on the Six Days, chap. 2; he teaches the same concerning Moses and St. Paul. He holds the same on 2 Cor. chap. 12, expounding that word, Paradise. St. Anselm and the Venerable Bede teach the same on this passage of Paul. And Hugh of St. Victor on the same passage, quest. 34; Lyra and Burgensis teach the same in the same place. Abulensis, on chap. 5 of Matthew, q. 47, reckons this opinion the more common. Durandus teaches the same in 4, dist. 49, q. 6. Finally St. Thomas with nearly his whole School unhesitatingly teaches this opinion in 2-2, in the passages cited. Cajetan, in 2-2, q. 175, art. 3, follows St. Thomas; but he deserts his opinion on chap. 12 of Numbers. And this opinion is proved: first concerning Moses; Exod. 33: after Moses had asked the Lord to show him His glory, the Lord said to him: «I will show thee all good»; but the showing of all good cannot come about unless the Divine Essence, which is all good, be shown: therefore at some time God fulfilled this promise to Moses. Likewise Num. 12: God, wishing to show the excellence of Moses above all the prophets, says: «Plainly, and not by enigmas and figures, he saw God». Behold a manifest testimony. Concerning St. Paul it is proved from that celebrated testimony 2 Cor. 12: «I heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter». In which passage it is asserted that Paul was caught up to the third heaven, and into paradise. In this testimony three things are to be weighed. First, that word, third heaven: which is most certainly and fittingly expounded of the vision of the Divine Essence, as the Interlinear Gloss expounds it. Second, that word, Paradise: which is also most aptly expounded of the Vision of the Divine Essence, insofar as from it there results delight and enjoyment in the will. And this acceptation of Paradise is customary in Sacred Scripture; and so Christ hanging on the Cross said to the thief: Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise, which consists in the vision of the Divine Essence. Third, that phrase, I heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter; these secret words were certainly the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. With this supposed, the passage is thus weighed. It is granted to man to utter these mysteries, if they are taken only as revealed through faith; therefore for the saying of Paul to be verified, these mysteries must be taken as they were revealed to him in the Divine Essence. Then, this opinion is proved by reason: Moses was instituted by God to be the first master and doctor of the Synagogue; and Paul was assumed by God to be the master of the Gentile people, who had before heard nothing of God: therefore it appears most fitting that God should reveal the mysteries of faith to these Saints by open vision, that they might be eyewitnesses of them, so as to be able to say: what we have heard and seen, this we testify.

For the resolution of this doubt, let the first conclusion be. The negative opinion is quite probable, and the arguments proposed strongly confirm it; but the second affirmative opinion appears more probable and more likely, as being more in agreement with Sacred Scripture, as is plain from the testimonies adduced, Exod. 33, Num. 12, and 2 Cor. 12.

Second conclusion. It is not licit to extend this privilege of seeing the Divine Essence in this life to any other of the Saints. I say this on account of certain theologians who extend this privilege to St. Benedict. They are moved by a certain miracle related by St. Gregory, book 2 of the Dialogues, chap. 35, where he relates a certain wonderful vision by which St. Benedict thought he saw the whole universe. But as St. Thomas proves most efficaciously, Quodlibet 1, art. 1, that Vision of the whole universe was not had in the Divine Essence, but through a certain illustration made outside the Divine Essence. Moreover, it is not credible that St. Gregory granted this privilege of seeing the Divine Essence to St. Benedict, when he denied it to Moses and St. Paul. The conclusion is briefly proved: to except anyone from a general rule of Sacred Scripture without great foundation is signal rashness; but there is no such foundation for excepting any saint besides Moses and Paul from that general rule, No man hath seen God at any time: therefore. In this second conclusion we do not comprehend the Blessed Virgin, for without any rashness, indeed with great probability, it could be said that she saw the Divine Essence when she conceived the Only-begotten Son, or when she bore Him, or at another time. And the reason is: because, as Cajetan learnedly observes, 3rd part, q. 27, last art.: «Every grace and prerogative granted to any saint is to be granted to the Blessed Virgin»: therefore the privilege granted to Paul and Moses is to be granted also to the Blessed Virgin. Whether the first parent Adam saw the Divine Essence when God, Gen. 2, cast a deep sleep upon him, is not a settled matter: St. Thomas, below q. 94, art. 1, lightly touched on this matter, but did not define it. The affirmative opinion seems gathered from Augustine, book 9 on Genesis according to the letter, last chap., where he says: «Adam in that sleep was present at the court of the angels»; and from St. Bernard, in Sermon 2 for Septuagesima, where he says: «Adam then slept with his gaze upon unchangeable truth». Briefly, however, I say that it can be said with less improbability that Adam saw the Divine Essence than that St. Benedict or any other Saint saw it. It is proved, because it has a probable foundation in the testimonies of St. Augustine and Bernard, and also in that passage of Genesis 2, as gathered by St. Bernard in the place above. And moreover, because Adam was the head and first master of the whole human race. But yet, I say second, this opinion has little probability, namely that Adam saw the Essence of God; because it can scarcely be gathered with any show of reason from that testimony of Gen. 2. And to the testimonies of Augustine and Bernard it is answered that these Fathers teach only that Adam in that sleep was in ecstasy, and had a wonderful and divine revelation, yet in prophetic manner and outside the Word. See on this question Peter of Palude on the second chapter of Genesis; William Pepin cites him on this passage of Genesis.

To the arguments. To the first it is answered that those testimonies are to be understood according to the ordinary power of God; but Paul and Moses were admitted by the absolute power of God to the vision of the Divine Essence. Second, it is answered that those testimonies speak of the comprehensive Vision of God, which no creature can have. And to that weighed testimony from John 1, it is answered with Cajetan in the same place that Christ the Lord excelled Moses in this, and even the blessed angels: that Christ, as the natural Son of God, was admitted to the Vision of the Divine Essence by hereditary right. Moses, however, and also the Blessed, were admitted from the grace and liberality of God. Moreover, it can be said, second, that Christ excelled Moses in that He comprehended the Divine Essence insofar as He was God, and thus comprehended all the mysteries of grace. To Moses, however, there were revealed in the Divine Essence some particular mysteries of grace, according to the disposition of the divine Will. To the second it is answered that those holy Fathers held the opposite opinion, which we reckon probable. Pope Evaristus, however, in teaching that opinion, bore himself as a particular doctor, expounding a private opinion, and not as a Pope defining. To the third it is answered that, as is established from the arguments made for the second opinion, we have sufficient foundation for excepting Moses and Paul from that general rule.

To the fourth it is answered; and first to that passage Exod. 33, «Thou canst not see My face, etc.». It is answered, following St. Augustine in Epistle 112, chaps. 11 and 12, on Genesis according to the letter, chap. 27, that in this sense God denied to Moses the vision of His Essence: that he could not at once use the senses and the other powers, but it was necessary that he be abstracted from all sensible operation; and the following words insinuate this: «No man shall see Me and live». In which place it is to be observed with St. Thomas in this reply to the second objection that every man who in this life shall have seen the Divine Essence must be wholly abstracted from the senses; and this abstraction befell Moses and Paul, from the fact that Paul says, 2 Cor. 12, that he knows not whether in the body or out of the body he was caught up to the third heaven. St. Thomas assigns the reason for this in 2-2, q. 175, art. 4, On Truth, q. 15, art. 3, in the body near the end. Second, it is answered that the vision of the Divine Essence was denied to Moses by God not absolutely, but for that time for which he was asking; yet at another time it was granted him. To that passage concerning Paul, I heard secret words, etc., it is answered that the vision of the Divine Essence is there called hearing, because through that vision Paul was instructed concerning the mysteries of grace as through the teaching of the highest mastership and as a disciple of God, that he might afterwards become the master of the Gentiles. To the last it is answered that the solution assigned there is sufficient. To the rejoinder it is answered that the habit of faith is not a formal light, but a causal light, that is, productive of actual light, and I say the same of the light of glory. Hence the habit of faith and the light of glory are not properly opposed as habit and privation, but as two contrary habits. To the confirmation, Cajetan, 2-2, q. 175, art. 5, says that Paul in the rapture did not see all the mysteries of faith, but some. Then he gathers that, with the divine vision ceasing, in respect of those mysteries which he had not seen in the rapture he could have an act of faith; but in respect of the others which he had seen, he had faith only in readiness of soul, just as we now have faith that God is one. This solution is probable. But Master Medina, 1-2, q. 67, art. 4, second doubt, says that, just as an act of faith is compatible with evidence in the attester, so with that evidence of the mysteries of grace which Paul had from remembering that he had seen them in the rapture, an act of faith was compatible, since that evidence was evidence only in a qualified sense, because it did not proceed from likenesses clearly and distinctly representing those mysteries. This solution is quite likely, if it be well expounded. For its explication, the teaching of St. Thomas is to be recalled, art. 9 of this question, to the second, that St. Paul in the rapture, from the vision of the Divine Essence, could form in himself likenesses representing the particular mysteries which he beheld in the Divine Essence. Hence it is to be noted that this teaching can be understood in two ways. First, that Paul, with the beatific vision continuing, formed in himself such likenesses, which afterwards remained with the Vision ceasing. Second, that Paul formed those likenesses at once as the beatific Vision ceased; and each of these ways is probable. The first, however, is intimated by St. Thomas in that reply, and by Cajetan below, q. 56, last art., at the end of the Commentary. For the rest, whether in the first or in the second way those likenesses were formed, this is most certain to me: that those likenesses could not produce a certain and determinate recollection of those mysteries unless aided by the light of faith, yet strengthened and fortified from the conjunction it had with the light of glory in the rapture. And the reason for this is: since those likenesses needed a light by which they might be ordered to effecting that recollection of the mysteries; and moreover that light had to be of the supernatural order. From this it follows, first, that if, with the beatific vision ceasing, the intellect of Paul had not been endowed with the light of faith, it would not have had a certain and determinate memory of those mysteries which it had seen in the Divine Essence; but its recollection would have been confused and uncertain. It follows, second, that the certitude inhering in that memory was not to be resolved wholly into that evidence which Paul had in the beatific Vision, because it depended in great part on the light of glory. It follows, third, that that recollection of the mysteries had greater clarity and evidence than any act of faith, since it rested not only on the light of faith but also on the past beatific Vision and the light of glory. From whose conjunction the light of faith remained strengthened in order to making that recollection together with the likenesses formed in virtue of the Divine Essence. Hence I would believe that that recollection was a more evident knowledge of the mysteries of grace than any prophetic knowledge. Yet it was not simply evident, because it rested on faith, and therefore was compatible with an act of faith, even in respect of those same mysteries. And in this sense the solution of Master Medina is to be expounded. Read the two following articles.