Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

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.]