Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

St. Thomas, q. 14.

I suppose 1° that God understands most perfectly¹: for all understand God to be a supremely perfect being, the most orderly first mover, the wisest ruler of the world, and the first cause of all things. But without understanding he would not be a supremely perfect being, since this is the greatest perfection; he would be a blind mover and a most imprudent ruler; nor would he be the cause of all things, since he would not confer upon us an understanding which he himself lacked.

Likewise, a being is cognitive to the extent that it is immaterial, or raised above the conditions of matter². But God is in the highest degree of immateriality, inasmuch as he is pure act³. Therefore. — Proof of the major. Cognition occurs insofar as the knower has in itself the form of the thing known, while retaining its own. But that something should have in itself the form of another while retaining its own arises from immateriality and elevation above the conditions of matter. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. That something should have in itself both its own form and the forms of others arises from its amplitude and unlimitedness; for the more things a thing embraces, the more ample and unlimited it is. But that amplitude and unlimitedness arises from immateriality; for it is matter that limits form and prevents it from being communicated to another subject under the same individual character, which is to make it its own alone. Therefore. Hence a greater or lesser capacity for knowing is apportioned according to a greater or lesser immateriality, a greater or lesser elevation above the conditions of matter: as is evident in all cognitive things.

I suppose 2° that, in God, understanding and the intellect are one and the same, without virtual distinction; because in God only those things are virtually distinguished which are equivalent to several created things distinct in formal object and belonging to different lines. But the intellect and actual understanding belong to the same line and are concerned with the same formal object. Therefore.

I say 1°: There is, in God, knowledge properly so called. It is common, against Vasquez.

[Proof 1°, by this most profound and evident reason adduced by the Angelic Doctor, hic, q. 14, a. 1, o: « In God there is knowledge in the most perfect way. To make this evident, it must be considered that knowing things are distinguished from non-knowing things in this respect, that non-knowing things have nothing but their own form only; but a knowing thing is of a nature to have the form of another thing as well, for the species of the thing known is in the knower. Whence it is manifest that the nature of a non-knowing thing is more constricted and limited, while the nature of knowing things has greater amplitude and extension, on account of which the Philosopher says, in III de anima, that « the soul is in a certain way all things. » Now the constriction of form comes through matter: whence we also said above that forms, insofar as they are more immaterial, to that extent approach nearer to a certain infinity. It is clear, therefore, that the immateriality of a thing is the reason why it is cognitive, and the mode of cognition follows the mode of immateriality. Whence it is said in II de anima that plants do not know, on account of their materiality. But sense is cognitive because it is receptive of species without matter; and the intellect is still more cognitive, because it is more separated from matter and unmixed, as is said in III de anima. Whence, since God is in the highest degree of immateriality, it follows that he himself is in the highest degree of knowledge. »]

Proof 2°. Knowledge properly so called is nothing other than certain and evident cognition of things through their causes⁴. But God knows things certainly and evidently through their causes; for he knows them in every way in which they are knowable, and they are knowable through their causes. Therefore.

I say 2°: Knowledge in God is his attribute.

Proof. An attribute is an absolute formality, existing formally in God, and consequent upon the divine nature already constituted, drawing it to a different line: as is clear from what has been said about the attributes. But such is knowledge in God. — And first, it is established from the first conclusion that it is an absolute formality existing formally in God. — It is proved as to the remaining particulars. The divine act of understanding, as constitutive of God, regards the divine essence absolutely and precisely as intelligible; the act of understanding, as scientific, regards the divine essence in a determinate manner, namely under the aspect of cause. Therefore it follows upon the nature already constituted, and by reason of a different object it draws it to a different line.

You will say: The divine act of understanding, as constitutive of the divine nature, is scientific. Therefore knowledge is not an attribute of God, but the divine essence itself. — The antecedent is proved. The divine act of understanding, as constitutive of the divine nature, attains it as the formality of the attributes and the cause of creatures; for since it is infinite and comprehensive, it knows the divine nature in every way in which it is knowable. Therefore.

I answer, I deny the antecedent. To the proof, I distinguish the antecedent. The divine act of understanding, as constitutive of the divine nature, regards it as the root of the attributes, as the formality which is attained, I concede the antecedent; as the formality under which the attributes themselves are attained, I deny the antecedent. For thus it is attained by knowledge, and this suffices for the constitutive act of understanding and the scientific act of understanding to be virtually distinguished. Thus knowledge in God attains the formality of things to be done and things to be made, as the formality which; but, because prudence attains the formality of things to be done, and art the formality of things to be made, as the formality under which, prudence and art are therefore virtually distinguished from knowledge.

In this article and in those that follow, the question is no longer about the knowledge of God strictly so called, but about his cognition as such, whether it be scientific or not.

You will ask 1° how far the knowledge of God extends?

I answer 1°. God knows himself through himself, indeed he even comprehends himself¹.

The reason for the first part is that God, just as he is supremely understanding, so he is supremely intelligible, and most present to and united with himself; indeed, as understanding and as intelligible, he is in every way one and the same. Therefore he knows himself through himself, and not through a species distinct from himself.

The reason for the second part is that God knows himself as much as he is knowable; for as he is infinitely knowable, so he is infinitely cognitive, since on both sides he is pure and infinite act. Therefore.

I answer 2°. God knows all things other than himself, whether possible, or present, or past, or future, even the smallest, not only according to the common note of being, but also as to their proper and singular being, down to the last differences².

It is a matter of faith, handed down everywhere in the Scriptures. Hebr., IV, 13: There is no creature invisible in his sight, but all things are naked and open to his eyes. Psal. CXXXVIII, 3-5: Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off,... thou hast foreseen all my ways,... thou hast known all things, the last and those of old. And throughout the whole psalm. Psal. XXXII, 15: He who hath made the hearts of every one of them, who understandeth all their works. Sap., VIII, 8: She knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. Psal. LXVIII, 6: My offences are not hidden from thee. And elsewhere, in many places.

It is proved by reason. God perfectly knows himself and his own power. But power cannot be perfectly known unless all the things to which it extends are known. Now the divine power extends to all things other than God, not only as to the common note of being, but as to their formal and singular being, down to the last differences; for he is the fullness of being and the effective and exemplary cause of all beings and of every difference and perfection of theirs. Therefore.

You will ask 2° what the formal and primary object of the divine knowledge is.

I answer. The formal and primary object of the divine cognition is not created being, nor being as such abstracting from created and uncreated; but only uncreated being, namely God himself³.

It is proved 1°. That is the formal and primary object of the divine cognition which it attains through itself, first, and by reason of itself⁴. But that which the divine cognition attains through itself, first, and by reason of itself, is not created being, nor being as such abstracting from created and uncreated, but God alone. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. 1° because nothing is or can be conceived prior to God; 2° because God knows himself as cause, and in himself, as cause, knows creatures as effects. Therefore. — First, through himself and by reason of himself he knows himself; secondarily, and dependently on himself, creatures; thirdly, the divine essence is first represented through itself to the divine intellect, and creatures secondarily and by reason of it. Therefore the divine essence is attained by the divine cognition through itself, first. — The consequence is clear, because the intellect is borne toward its objects in the order in which they are represented to it. — Proof of the antecedent. The species which the divine intellect uses is the divine essence itself. But the divine essence represents itself first, and then, in itself, creatures; because, if it represented itself and creatures equally, God would not be more, in intelligible being, than a creature, as we have already noted elsewhere. Therefore.

You will ask 3° how many kinds of knowledge there are in God.

Although the divine knowledge, on the part of God, is one, simple, and unlimited, comprehending all things most perfectly in a single act, yet on the part of the object, and according to our mode of conceiving, it is variously divided. Hence

I answer. Setting aside the various divisions of the divine knowledge into speculative and practical⁵, and into necessary and free, the most celebrated of all is the division into the knowledge of simple intelligence and of vision⁶.

Knowledge of simple intelligence is that which is concerned with those things which neither are, nor were, nor will be, that is, with the quiddities of things in a state of mere possibility: it coincides with the speculative and the necessary⁷. It is called of simple intelligence, however, not to exclude the relation of knowledge to the thing known, which inseparably accompanies all knowledge, but to exclude the admixture of that which is outside the genus of knowledge, such as the existence of things, which the knowledge of vision adds, or the order of the will to the things known, which the knowledge of approbation adds. The knowledge of vision, then, is that which is borne toward things which are, or were, or will be; hence it adds, as I was just saying, over and above the knowledge of simple intelligence, an order to the physical existence of the object, as present in eternity, in a manner to be explained below. It is called of vision, a metaphor taken from the bodily eye, which is said to see things when it reaches them as present to itself. But whether this division is adequate, or whether, on the contrary, there is given another, mediating knowledge between those two, which is called middle knowledge, is a question most celebrated in the whole of theology, which we shall endeavor below to weigh in all its particulars, against Molina and the Fathers of the Society [of Jesus], the assertors of this middle knowledge.

There is another division, stated above, of knowledge into necessary and free. The necessary is that which precedes the free determination of God, and is concerned only with necessary objects, such as the quiddities or essences of things, which cannot be otherwise. The free is that which presupposes a decree, and is concerned with objects depending on the free will of God, such as things existing or future.

The knowledge of vision is subdivided into the knowledge of approbation and of disapprobation. The knowledge of approbation is that which is concerned with good things, and presupposes an approving decree of the divine will concerning them. The knowledge of disapprobation is that which is concerned with sins, and presupposes a decree of the divine will concerning them, not an approving one, but only a permissive one. And according to this division, God is sometimes said in Scripture to know and not to know evils or sins: not to know by the knowledge of approbation, to know by the knowledge of disapprobation.

I suppose that knowledge in God is the directive cause of things¹; for it would be impious to think that the most perfect intellectual agent acts in a blind and ignorant manner, and that he is not directed in his operations by knowledge and wisdom. Whence Psalm CIII, 24: In wisdom hast thou made them all, and thus elsewhere many times.

I say 1°: Some knowledge in God is the cause of things, not only directive, but also effective, not indeed formally and precisely as it is knowledge, but as it has the will joined to it².

Proof. God brings about things through an act of command formally immanent and virtually transient. But the act of command, although it is radically and presuppositively from the will, and is therefore sometimes said to be commanded by the will, is nevertheless formally and elicitively from the intellect. Therefore. — The major is evident from the Scriptures already cited. Genesis, I, 3: God said: Be light made, and light was made. Psalm CXLVIII, 5: He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created. It will be still more evident from what is to be said in the following conclusion. — The minor is St. Thomas's³. And it is now proved briefly. To command is to intimate or speak, is to order and to enjoin. But to intimate or speak and to speak spiritually pertains to the intellect, which is as it were the mouth of a spiritual substance; whence that saying of Psalm XXXVI, 30: The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom. Likewise, to order one thing to another belongs to the practical intellect and to prudence. Finally, to enjoin, since it belongs to a superior, pertains to the superior and nobler power, which is the intellect. Therefore. Compare what I shall say on 1a 2ae, at q. 17.

I said: not indeed formally and precisely as it is knowledge, but as it has the will joined to it⁴; because: 1° Knowledge, insofar as it is knowledge, does not imply an active cause, but is the bare awareness of the object; whence the act of knowledge, as such, is not to produce, but to know: and therefore God knows many things of which he is not the cause, as are sins and merely possible things, which will never be. 2° As I have already said and shall still say presently, God does not cause things outside himself except through an act of command. But the act of command presupposes a decree of the will from which it has its efficacy. Therefore.

I say 2°: The knowledge of simple intelligence is a cause actually directing things in the order of intention, and effective in first act. The knowledge of vision is a directing and efficient cause in second act in the order of execution, not precisely as it is of vision, but as it is of approbation, as we explained in the first conclusion; so that it is true to say in a causal sense: Therefore things exist or are future, because God sees them, the⁵ because referring above to vision as it has the will joined to it; and it is not conversely true to say: Therefore God sees things because they exist or are future, except perhaps in some more subtle sense, of which more in the solution of the objections: and the conclusion is to be understood generally of all things which God makes, even of things freely future.

For the understanding of the conclusion it must be observed that, in intellective agents, a twofold order is distinguished: one of intention, which begins from the knowledge and intention of the end, and terminates inclusively at the choice and willing of the means; the other of execution, which begins from the act of command, and terminates at the execution of the work or the attainment of the end. To explain this briefly, for it pertains to the treatise on human acts: first the intellect apprehends the end, and proposes it to the will; the will acquiesces and intends this end; by force of this intention, the intellect inquires about the means, and discerns between the more and the less fitting, the will wills and selects the more fitting, and here the order of intention comes to rest. Then the order of execution follows; for by force of the will's choice, the intellect commands the execution of the willed means; by force of this command, the will applies the executive powers, which application is called active use, which is followed by the passive use of the executive powers, and finally the completion of the work, or the attainment of the end.

So then in the case at hand (and this is the explanation and proof of the conclusion), the divine intellect, according to our manner of conceiving, apprehends the manifestation of his glory as a good and proposes it to the will; the divine will assents and intends this end; by force of this intention the intellect or divine knowledge inquires about the means, and among the innumerable things it can do, discerns the more fitting ones, and proposes them to the will as possible within its art, the will wills and selects them, and here the order of intention comes to rest. And hence it is clear, 1°, that the knowledge which up to this point directs, by proposing the end and the means, is knowledge of simple intelligence, because up to this point, and while it was directing before the choice of the will, all things were still in a state of mere possibility, and although through the choice that followed they were made inchoately and future as to affection, yet not completely and as to effect, nor did knowledge cooperate toward this inchoate futurition otherwise than by directing. It is clear, 2°, that, since it proposes the means as possible to it and as contained within the power of its art, it is effective in first act, or has the power of bringing them about. And thus the first part of the conclusion remains proved.

But now, the efficacious choice of the means having been made, by force of it the intellect commands their execution, and since the command of God is most efficacious, and needs no distinct executive powers, as I shall say at the end of the article, but at the very instant that he commands, the things come to be, and since moreover, as we have proved, it is an act of the intellect, it follows that by effecting he sees and by seeing he effects, and thus that the knowledge which is the effective cause of things in second act is the knowledge of vision, inasmuch as it attains things as existing or as completely future, not precisely as it is of vision, as has been said, but as it has the will joined to it, and is accustomed to be called of approbation⁶.

Whence I argue formally thus: 1° God is the effective cause of things in second act through command. But command is an act of the intellect pertaining to the knowledge of vision and not to that of simple intelligence. Therefore. — The minor, for the first part, is evident from what was said in the first conclusion. It is proved for the second part. This act of command presupposes an efficacious decree and is founded on it, and terminates at things as existing, since indeed they are effected through it. Therefore.

Proof 2°. If God saw things because they are, and did not make them by seeing them, his knowledge would be measured by things, and would depend on them as to truth and certainty, just as our knowledge does, as is evident⁷. But it is repugnant to God that his knowledge should be measured by things and depend on them as to truth and certainty, since rather it is itself the measure of things. Therefore. Nor should you say that God knows sins, which he does not make, and yet that his knowledge does not depend on sins; because sin, since it is a privation, is not known in itself, but in its opposite form.

Proof 3° from the Fathers. St. Augustine, bk. XV de Trinit., ch. 13: « God does not know all creatures, both spiritual and corporeal, because they are; but they are because he knows them. » St. Gregory, bk. XX, Moral., ch. 23: « The things that are, are not seen from his eternity because they are, but they are because they are seen. »

Tournely answers that these authorities are to be understood of that knowledge by which God alone produces certain things, as are those which are brought forth from nothing, and the infusion of supernatural gifts; not of the free acts which God works together with second causes.

But on the contrary. This interpretation is not only gratuitous, but openly against the universality of the terms: « all creatures, » says Augustine; « the things that are, » says Gregory. Moreover Augustine, bk. V de Civit., ch. 9, speaking specially of our wills, says: « Therefore, whatever they can do, they most certainly can do; and what they themselves are to do, they are wholly to do, because he foreknew that they would be able and would do it — he whose presence cannot be deceived. »

For the solution of several objections, two things must be kept before the eyes. First, that the knowledge of simple intelligence is the directive cause of things in the order of intention, and effective in first act. Second, that the knowledge of vision has two offices, to see and to effect, and does not effect insofar as it is of vision; whence, although God sees sins, he does not make them: but insofar as it is of approbation, and as applied through the decree of the divine will. For most of the arguments which the adversaries heap up prove only the one or the other, and nothing more.

[But is there in God an executive power virtually distinct from the intellect and the will? It must be answered: The executive power in God is not distinguished virtually from the intellect and the will, as a different power or as an attribute adequately distinct from them; because in a purely intellectual nature no power ought to be admitted, unless it pertains to the intellective degree, and moreover an executive power distinct from the moving and commanding power imports imperfection, 1° on the part of the commanding power, namely inefficacy, 2° on its own part, for it would not have itself as moving, but as purely moved after the manner of an instrument.

Yet the executive power in God can be understood as distinct from the intellect and the will in two ways: 1° by way of the including and the included, inasmuch as the executive power is neither the intellect precisely, nor the will precisely, but implies both, the intellect directly and the will obliquely, and thus is distinguished in nearly the same way that a composite is distinguished from matter and form. 2° It is distinguished inadequately according to different formalities and connotations within the same power: for the same power, attaining things as intelligible, is called intellect; attaining things by giving them being, is called omnipotence, or executive power; just as the same act of the intellect is at once understanding and speaking under a different aspect. — And thus the various texts of St. Thomas which seem contrary to one another can be reconciled, and the arguments resolved.

Hence you will infer that the power immediately effective of things is the intellect, not the will, because the will effects by means of the command which is an act elicited from the intellect; which is proved by these words, John, I, 3: All things were made by him (the Word) and without him was made nothing; for the Word is the substantial intellect of God.]

The question proceeds concerning creatures as such, abstracting from the state of past, present, or future existence; but concerning future things there are graver difficulties, about which we speak specially below. Moreover, the resolution of the present difficulty is a prelude to the establishing or the overthrow of middle knowledge; for if God does not know things other than himself except in himself as in a cause, middle knowledge collapses; and on the contrary, if God knows things other than himself immediately in themselves, room is given for middle knowledge.

I say: God knows things other than himself, not immediately in themselves, but mediately in himself as in a cause already known.

Proof 1° from the Fathers. St. Dionysius, or whoever is the ancient author of the book On the Divine Names, cap. 7, says: « For the divine mind does not know the things that are, learning them from the things that are, but from itself and in itself, as cause, it has the cognition, knowledge, and essence of all things anticipated and comprehended beforehand: not that it considers particulars through a species, but that in one embrace of the cause it knows and contains all things.... Therefore God, knowing things, knows them not by a knowledge of the things, but by a knowledge of himself. » St. Aug., lib. LXXXIII Quaest., q. 46, says that it is a sacrilege to assert that God goes outside himself to know something. St. Thomas, weighing these words here, says they are to be understood thus: not as though God beholds nothing that is outside himself, but because that which is outside himself he does not behold except in himself¹. And he concludes the same article thus: « Thus, therefore, it must be said that God sees himself through his own essence; but he sees things other than himself, not in themselves, but in himself, inasmuch as his essence contains the likeness of things other than himself. » Understand likeness, not according to agreement in nature, but according to the representation of effects in a cause²; for the likeness of the effect pre-exists in its cause, since every agent produces something like itself.

It is proved 2° by reason. To know a thing immediately in itself is to know it through its own proper species, which represents it immediately³; but to know a thing mediately in another is to know it through the species of the other, that is, through a species that represents the other in which that thing is contained, as, for example, to know the number three in six, or an effect in its cause; for things are known in the mode and order in which they are represented through a species. But God does not know things other than himself through species proper to them, but through a species proper to himself immediately representing himself, and things other than himself mediately, insofar as they are in him as in a cause. Therefore. — The minor is proved. There is no species in God other than his own essence, as is established from what has been said above. But the essence of God, as a species, does not immediately represent creatures, but himself, and in himself the creatures, as effects contained in a cause. Therefore. — The minor is proved 1° The essence of God is, in intelligible being, per se and first, God. This is evident from the terms. But if it immediately represented creatures, God and creature would be equally in intelligible being. Therefore. 2° Immediate representation through a species comes about by reason of a likeness in nature, or an identity with the object represented. But the essence of God is neither like in nature, nor the same, with creatures. Therefore. 3° God, under the aspect of object, equals his essence under the aspect of species; for he is not less infinite under the aspect of object than under the aspect of species. Therefore, as species, it can immediately represent nothing other than God himself; the rest of things only insofar as they are contained in God. — The consequence is evident; because otherwise it would exceed, in representing, its own adequate object, which is a contradiction in terms.

Proof 3° by another reason. If God attained creatures immediately in themselves, independently of the essence seen beforehand, creatures would be, together with the divine essence, the formal and specifying object of the divine intellect; which cannot be admitted, since to be specified by something is to receive from it species and perfection. Therefore. — Proof of the inference. That is the formal specifying object which is attained per se, first, by reason of itself, and not by reason of another. Therefore.