ARTICLE II

In the second article we ask:

Does God know or understand himself?

[Parallel readings: S.T., I, 14, 2; C.G., 1, 47; X11 Metaph., lect. 8, n. z544; lect. 11, n. 2600 seq.; De causis, lect. 13 (P. 21:736b seq.); Comp. Theol., I, c. 30; III Sent., 27, 1, 4, sol.]

Difficulties

It seems that He does not, for

1. A knower is related to the thing known because of his knowledge. Now, as Boethius says: “The essence accounts for the divine unity, and the relations account for the multiplicity of the Trinity of Persons.”’ In God, therefore, the thing known must be personally distinct from the knower. Furthermore, the distinction of Persons in God will not permit a reciprocal predication—the Father is not said to have generated Himself because He generated the Son. Consequently, we cannot grant that God knows Himself.

2. In The Causes we read: “Everyone knowing his own essence returns to it by a complete return. But God does not return to His essence, since He never leaves it; and there cannot be a return if there has been no departure. God, therefore, does not know His own essence and does not know Himself.

3. Knowledge is an assimilation of a knower to a thing known. But nothing is similar to itself, for, as Hilary says: “likeness is not referred to oneself. Hence, God does not know Himself.

4. Scientific knowledge is only about universals. But God is not a universal, for every universal is bad by abstraction. There can be no abstraction from God, however, since He is perfectly simple. Hence, God does not know Himself.

5. If God knew Himself scientifically, He would understand Himself, since understanding is more simple than scientific knowledge and, for this reason, is the more to be attributed to God. But God does not understand Himself; hence, He does not know Himself scientifically. Proof of the minor premise: Augustine says: “Whatever understands itself comprehends itself. However, only finite being can be comprehended, as Augustine clearly shows in the same passage. Therefore, God does not understand Himself.

6. Augustine argues as follows: “Our intellect does not wish to be infinite (although it is able so to wish), since it desires to know itself.” Hence, what wishes to know itself does not wish to be infinite. But God wishes to be infinite, since He is infinite; for, if He were something He did not wish to be, He would not be supremely happy. Consequently, He does not wish to be known to Himself and, hence, does not know Himself.

7. The answer was given that, although God is simply infinite and wills to be such, He is not, however, infinite but finite to Himself, and so does not will that He be infinite.—On the contrary, as is pointed out in the Physics, something is said to be infinite if it is untraversable, finite if it is traversable. But, as is proved in the Physics, the infinite cannot be traversed by means of either a finite or another infinite being. Therefore, although God is infinite, He cannot be finite to Himself.

8. What is a good to God is simply good. Therefore, what is finite to God is simply finite. But God is not simply finite. Hence, He is not finite to Himself.

9. God knows Himself only in so far as He enters into a relation with Himself. Therefore, if He were finite to Himself, He would know Himself in a finite manner; but, since He is infinite, He would be knowing Himself other than He is and, consequently, have false knowledge of Himself.

10. Of those who know God, one knows Him more than another, according as hils manner of cognition surpasses that of the other. But God knows Himself infinitely more than any one else knows Him. Hence, His manner of knowing is infinite, He knows Himself infinitely, and is not finite to Himself.

11. St. Augustine proves that one Person cannot understand a thing more than another can. He argues as follows: “Whoever knows a thing otherwise than as it is, is deceived, and anyone who is deceived about a thing does not understand it. Hence, whoever understands anything otherwise than as it is does not understand it; for nothing can be understood in any other way than as it is.” Since a thing exists in one manner, it is known in one manner by all. Hence, no one understands a thing more than another does. Therefore, if God were to understand Himself, He would not understand Himself more than others understand Him. Thus, in some respect a creature would be equal to his Creator; this, however, would be absurd.

To the Contrary

Dionysius declares: “By knowing itself, the divine wisdom knows all else.” Hence, God knows Himself especially.

REPLY

When it is said that a being knows itself, it is implicitly said to be both the knower and the known. Hence, in order to consider what kind of knowledge God has of Himself, we have to see what kind of a nature it is that can be both knower and known.

Note, therefore, that a thing is perfect in two ways. First, it is perfect with respect to the perfection of its act of existence, which belongs to it according to its own species. But, since the specific act of existence of one thing is distinct from the specific act of existence of another, in every created thing of this kind, the perfection falls short of absolute perfection to the extent that that perfection is found in other species. Consequently, the perfection of each individual thing considered in itself is imperfect, being a part of the perfection of the entire universe, which arises from the sum total of the perfections of all individual things.

In order that there might be some remedy for this imperfection, another kind of perfection is to be found in created things. It consists in this, that the perfection belonging to one thing is found in another. This is the perfection of a knower in so far as he knows; for something is known by a knower by reason of the fact that the thing known is, in some fashion, in the possession of the knower. Hence, it is said in The Soul that the soul is, “in some manner, all things,” since its nature is such that it can know all things. In this way it is possible for the perfection of the entire universe to exist in one thing. The ultimate perfection which the soul can attain, therefore, is, according to the philosophers, to have delineated in it the entire order and causes of the universe. This they held to be the ultimate end of man. We, however, hold that it consists in the vision of God; for, as Gregory says: “What is there that they do not see who see Him who sees all things?” Moreover, the perfection of one thing cannot be in another according to the determined act of existence which it has in the thing itself. Hence, if we wish to consider it in so far as it can be in another, we must consider it apart from those things which determine it by their very nature. Now, since forms and perfections of things are made determinate by matter, a thing is knowable in so far as it is separated from matter For this reason, the subject in which these perfections are received must be immaterial; for, if it were material, the perfection would be received in it according to a determinate act of existence. It would, accordingly, not be in the intellect in a state in which it is knowable, that is, in the way in which the perfection of one thing can be in another.

Hence, those ancient philosophers erred who asserted that like is known by like, meaning by this that the soul, which knows all things, is materially constituted of all things: its earth knows the earth, its water knows water, and so forth. They thought that the perfection of the thing known had the same determined act of existence in the knower as it had in its own nature. But the form of the thing known is not received in this way in the knower. As the Commentator remarks, forms are not received in the possible intellect in the same way in which they are received in first matter, for a thing must be received by a knowing intellect in an immaterial way.

For this reason, we observe, a nature capable of knowing is found in things in proportion to their degree of immateriality. Plants and things inferior to plants can receive nothing in an immaterial way. Accordingly, they are entirely lacking in the power of knowing, as is clear from The Soul. A sense, however, can receive species without matter although still under the conditions of matter; but the intellect receives its species entirely purified of such conditions.

There is likewise a hierarchy among knowable things; for, as the Commentator says, material things are intelligible only because we make them intelligible; they are merely potentially intelligible and are made actually intelligible by the light of the agent intellect, just as colors are made actually visible by the light of the sun. But immaterial things are intelligible in themselves. Hence, although less known to us, they are better known in the order of nature.

Since God, being entirely free of all potentiality, is at the extreme of separation from matter, it follows that He is most knowing and most knowable. It follows, too, that the knowability of His nature is directly proportioned to the act of existence which it exercises. Finally, because God is by reason of the fact that He possesses His own nature, it follows that God knows to the extent that He possesses His nature as one most knowing. For this reason Avicenna says: “He Himself knows and apprehends Himself because His own quiddity, being completely stripped (that is, of matter), is that of a thing perfectly identified with Himself.”

Answers to Difficulties

1. In God, the Trinity of Persons gets its plurality from the real relations in Him, namely, the relations of origin. When one says “God knows Himself,” the relation connoted is not a real relation but a rational relation, for, whenever a thing is referred to itself, the relation is not real but merely rational. A real relation demands two terms.

2. The dictum stating that one who knows himself returns to his essence is metaphorical. For, as shown in the Physics, there is no motion in intellection, and hence, properly speaking, no departure or return. Intellection is said to be a progression or movement to the extent that in it one passes from one thing known to another. In us, this takes place by a sort of discourse; and so, when the soul knows itself, there is a departure from the soul and a return to it. For the act, going out from the soul, first terminates in the object. Then one reflects upon the act, and finally upon the power and the essence, in so far as acts are known from their object, and powers by their acts. In divine cognition, however, there is, as was pointed out above, no progression from the known to the unknown. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the thing known, one can find a certain cycle in God’s knowledge; for in knowing His own essence He beholds all other things, and in these things He sees a likeness of His own essence. Hence, in some way He may be said to return to His own essence—not, however, in the sense that He knows His essence only from other things, as is the case with our soul.

Note, however, that in The Causes the return to one’s own essence is called the very subsistence of a thing in itself; for non-subsistent forms are, as it were, poured out upon something other than themselves, and are not in possession of themselves. But subsistent forms reach out to other things, perfecting them and influencing them—in such a way, however, that they still retain their immanence and self-possession. In this way, God returns to His essence in the highest degree, for He provides for all, and, because of this providence, in a sense He goes forth and out into all things, although in Himself He remains unmoved and uncontaminated by anything else.

3. A likeness which is a real relation demands a distinction of things. If it is merely a conceptual relation, a distinction of reason between the things which are similar is sufficient.

4. A universal is intelligible in direct proportion to its separation from matter. Hence, those things which have not been separated from matter by an act of our intellect but are, in themselves, free from all matter, are most knowable. Consequently, God is most knowable, even though He is not a universal.

5. God knows, understands, and comprehends Himself, although, absolutely speaking, He is infinite. He is not infinite privatively—as a quantity is infinite, having part after part ad infinitum. If such an infinite had to be known according to the formal character of its infinity, one could never comprehend it; one could never come to its end, for it does not have an end. But God is said to be negatively infinite since His essence is not limited by anything. Now, every form received in a subject is limited according to the capacity of the subject; but since the divine act of existence is not received in a subject, for He is His own act of existence, His act of existence is infinite and, for that very reason, His essence is said to be infinite.

The knowing power of every created intellect is finite, since it is received in some subject. Consequently, our intellect cannot come to know God as clearly as He is capable of being known. Accordingly, our intellect cannot comprehend Him, for it cannot attain that fullness of knowledge which is the meaning of comprehend, as was mentioned above. But the divine essence and its knowing power possess the same infinity, and God’s knowledge is just as powerful as His essence is great. Consequently, He attains a perfect knowledge of Himself and is thus said to have comprehensive knowledge—not because such comprehension imposes some limits on the thing known, but rather because the knowledge is perfect and there is nothing lacking to it.

6. Since our intellect is finite in its nature, it cannot comprehend or perfectly understand anything infinite. Augustine’s reasoning proceeded on the assumption of this limited nature. The nature of the divine intellect, however, is different; so the argument does not follow.

7. If the word God, properly speaking, is given its full meaning, He is finite neither to Himself nor to others. He is said to be finite to Himself merely because He knows Himself as a finite intellect knows a finite thing; for, just as a finite intellect can attain a complete knowledge of a finite thing, so the divine intellect can have a complete knowledge of God Himself. But that characteristic of the infinite by which its end can never be reached is proper to a privative infinite. But this is entirely beside the point.

8. In regard to those perfections which involve quantity, if anything in reference to God has a certain attribute, the consequence is that it has that attribute absolutely. Thus, whatever is great in reference to God is, as a consequence, simply great. But in regard to those terms which involve imperfection, the same thing does not follow. If, for instance, something is small in comparison with God, it is not necessarily, as a consequence, small absolutely. All things are, indeed, nothing in comparison with God, yet they are not absolutely nothing. What is good in the sight of God, therefore, is good absolutely; but it does not follow that what is finite for God is finite absolutely, because finite involves imperfection, but good expresses a perfection. In either case, however, anything which is found in the divine judgment to have a certain Attribute has that attribute absolutely.

9. The statement, “God knows Himself limitedly,” can be understood in two ways. In the first way, limitedly is applied to the thing known, so that God would know Himself to be limited. In this sense the statement is incorrect, for then God’s knowledge would be false. In the second way, limitedly is applied to the knower. Then, two interpretations are possible. Either limitedly means perfectly, so that the knower is said to know limitedly whose knowledge attains its end and, in this sense, God actually does know Himself “limitedly”; or limitedly pertains to the efficacy of cognition—and in this sense God knows Himself, not limitedly, but infinitely, for the extent of the power of His cognition is the infinite itself. However, from the fact that He is finite to himself in the manner described, one cannot conclude that His knowledge of Himself is limited, except in the sense in which this was said to be true.

10. That argument is based on the word infinite being taken as referring to the efficacy of knowledge. Consequently, it is clear that God does not know Himself finitely.

11. The statement that one person can understand more than another may be taken in two ways. In the first, the word more refers primarily to the thing known. In this sense, no one of those who understand understands more than another of the thing understood, provided that it is understood; for whoever attributes more or less to the thing known than is in the nature of the thing is in error and does not, properly speaking, understand. But the word more can also be taken as referring to the manner in which one knows. In this sense, one understands more than another because he understands more clearly—as an angel understands more clearly than a man, and God more than an angel, because of a greater power of understanding. We must similarly distinguish another phrase assumed in this proof, that is, “to know a thing other than as it is.” For, if the word other refers primarily to the thing known, then no one who understands knows a thing other than it is; for this would be to understand it to be in some other way than it is. If the word otber, however, refers to the manner by which one knows, then everyone who understands a material thing knows it other than it is, because a thing having a material act of existence is understood only in an immaterial way.

ARTICLE III

In the third article we ask:

does God know things other than himself?

[Parallel readings: S.T., I, 14, 5; I Sent., 35, 2; C.G., I, 48-49; X11 Metaph., lect. 11, nn. 2614-16; De causis, lects. 10, 13 (P. 21:736b seq.; 741a); Comp. Theol., I, cc. 132-35.]

Difficulties

It seems that He does not, for

1. The known is a perfection of the knower. But nothing distinct from God Himself can be His perfection; otherwise, something would be more noble than He is. Therefore, He can know nothing distinct from Himself.

2. But it was said that in so far as a thing or creature is known by God, it is one with Him.—On the contrary, a creature is one with God only inasmuch as it is in Him. Hence, if God knows a creature only as it is one with Him, He will know it only as it is in Him, and not as it is in its own nature.

3. If the divine intellect knows a creature, it knows it either through its essence or through something extrinsic. If it knows it through some extrinsic medium, then, since every medium of knowing is a perfection of the knower, because it is his form as knower (as is evident of the species of a stone in the pupil of the eye), it would follow that something extrinsic to God would be one of His perfections. But this is absurd. On the other hand, if He knows a creature through His own essence, since His essence is something distinct from the creature, it will follow that from knowing one thing He will know another. Now, every intellect that knows one thing from another is one which discourses and reasons. Consequently, there is discursive thought in the divine intellect, and, therefore, imperfection. But this is absurd.

4. The medium through which a thing is known ought to be proportionate to that which is known through it. But the divine essence is not proportionate to a creature since it infinitely surpasses it, and there is no proportion between the infinite and the finite. Therefore, by knowing His own essence, God cannot know a creature.

5. The Philosopher’ proves that God knows only Himself. Now, only means “not with something else.” Therefore, He does not know things other than Himself.

6. If God knows things other than Himself, since He knows Him. self, He knows either Himself and other things also under the same formal aspect or Himself under one formal aspect and other things under another. If He knows both under the same formal aspect, then, since He knows Himself through His own essence, it follows that He knows other things through their essence. But this is impossible. However, if He knows one under one formal aspect and the other under another, then, since the knowledge of the knower is specified by the formal aspect under which the thing is known, there would be multiplicity and diversity in the divine cognition; but this is repugnant to the divine simplicity. Therefore, God does not know a creature in any way whatsoever.

7. A creature is farther removed from God than the person of the Father is from the nature of the Godhead. But God does not know that He is God in the same act that He knows that He is the Father, for, when it is said that He knows He is the Father, the notion of Father is included, which is not included in the statement, “He knows that He is God.” Much more is it true, then, that, if God knows a creature, He will know Himself under a different formality than that under which He will know the creature. This, however, would be absurd, as is proved above in the sixth difficulty.

8. The principles of being and of knowing are the same. But, as Augustine says, the Father is not the Father by the same principle that He is God. Therefore, the Father does not know that He is the Father by the same principle that He knows He is God, and much more so the Father does not know Himself and a creature by the same principle—if He does know any creatures.

9. Knowledge is an assimilation of the knower to the thing known. But the least possible likeness exists between God and a creature. Therefore, God has the least possible knowledge, or none at all, of creatures.

10. Whatever God knows He beholds. But, as Augustine says: “God does not behold anything outside Himself.” Therefore, He does not know anything outside Himself.

11. A creature is compared to God as a point to a line. Hence, Trismegistus says— “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is every, where, and whose circumference is nowhere”. and by its center, as Alanus explains, he means a creature. Now, a line loses none of its quantity if a point is taken from it. Hence, the divine perfection loses none of its perfection if knowledge of a creature is taken from it. But whatever is in God pertains to His perfection, since nothing is in Him as an accident. Consequently, He does not have any knowledge of creatures.

12. Whatever God knows He knows from eternity, since His knowledge does not vary. Now, whatever He knows is a being, for knowledge is only of being. Hence, whatever He knows existed from eternity. But no creature existed from eternity. Consequently, He knows no creature.

13. Whatever is perfected by something else has a passive potency in regard to that thing, because perfection is, as it were, a form of that which is perfected. But God does not have any passive potency in Himself, for this is a principle of change, which is far removed from God. Therefore, God is not perfected by anything other than Himself. Now, the perfection of a knower depends on the object of his knowledge, for his perfection consists in his actual knowing; and this is only something that can be known. Therefore, God does not know anything other than Himself.

14. As is said in the Metaphysics, “The mover is prior by nature to what is moved. But, as is said in the same place, just as the object of sense moves the sense, so the object of the intellect moves the intellect. Therefore, if God were to know something other than Himself, it would follow that something were prior to Him. But this is absurd.

15. Whatever is known causes some delight in the knower. Hence, it is said in the Metaphysics: “All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is the delight of the senses...”—as some books have this passage. If, therefore, God knew something other than Himself, that something would be a cause of delight in Him. But this is absurd.

16. Nothing is known except through the nature of being. But a creature possesses more non-existence than existence, as is evident from Ambrose and from the sayings of many saints. Hence, a creature is more known than known to God.

17. Nothing is apprehended unless it has the character of truth, just as nothing is desired unless it has the character of goodness. But in Scripture visible creatures are compared to lies, as is evident in Sirach (34:2): “The man that giveth heed to lying visions is like to him that catcheth at a shadow and followeth after the wind.” Therefore, creatures are more unknown than known.

18. However, it was noted that a creature is said to be a non-being only in comparison with God.—On the contrary, a creature is known by God only in so far as it is compared with Him. Therefore, if a creature, as compared with God, is a lie and a non-being, then it is unknowable and cannot be known by God in any way whatsoever.

19. Nothing is in the intellect that was not previously in sense. But in God there is no sensitive cognition, because this is material. Therefore, He does not know created things, since they were not previously in His sense.

2o. Things are known most thoroughly by a knowledge of their causes, especially of those that are the cause of the thing’s act of existence. But of the four causes, the efficient and final are the causes of a thing’s becoming. Form and matter, however, are causes of a thing’s existence because they enter into the thing’s constitution. God, however, is only the efficient and final cause of things; hence, what He knows about creatures is very little.

To the Contrary

1. The Epistle to the Hebrews (4:13) says: “All things are naked and open to his eyes...”

2. When one of two related things is known, the other is known. Ilut a principle and that which arises from the principle are said to be related. Therefore, since God is the principle of things through His essence, by knowing His essence He knows creatures.

3. God is omnipotent. For the same reasons, He should be said to be omniscient. Hence, He knows not only delightful but also useful things.

4. Anaxagoras affirmed the existence of an intellect that was unmixed so that it could know all things; and for this he is praised by the Philosopher. But the divine intellect is unmixed and pure in the highest possible degree. Therefore, God knows all things in the highest possible degree, not only Himself but things other than Himself.

5. The more simple a substance is, the more it can comprehend a number of forms. Now, God is the most simple substance there is. Hence, He can comprehend the forms of all things, and consequently He knows all things, not merely Himself.

6. A cause always contains the perfection of its effect in a higher degree. But God is the cause of knowing for all who know; for He is the “light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9). Therefore, He knows creatures in the highest possible degree.

71. Augustine proves that nothing is loved unless it is known. But God “loveth all things that are “ (Wisdom 11:25). Hence, He knows all things.

8. The Psalmist asks rhetorically: “He that formed the eye, doth he not consider?” (Psalms 93:9), implying the answer “Yes.” Consequently, God Himself, who has made all things, considers and knows all things.

9. The following is also found in the Psalms (32:15): “He who hath made the hearts of every one of them: who understandeth all their works.” Now, the person referred to is God, the maker of hearts. Therefore, He knows the works of men, and thus things other than Himself.

10. The same conclusion must be drawn from what is said elsewhere in the Psalms (135:5): “Who made the heavens in understanding”; for, as the Psalmist says, He knew the heavens which He created.

11. When a cause, especially a formal cause, is known, the effect is known. Now, God is the formal exemplary cause of creatures. Therefore, since He knows Himself, He also knows creatures.

REPLY

Undoubtedly, it must be granted that God knows not only Himself but also all other things. This can be proved in the following manner. Whatever naturally tends toward another must have this tendency from someone directing it toward its end; otherwise, it would tend toward it merely by chance. Now, in the things of nature we find a natural appetite by which each and every thing tends toward its end. Hence, we must affirm the existence of some intellect above natural things, which has ordained natural things to their end and implanted in them a natural appetite or inclination. But a thing cannot be ordained to any end unless the thing itself is known, together with the end to which it is ordained. Hence, there must be a knowledge of natural things in the divine intellect from which the origin and the order of nature come. The Psalmist suggests this proof when he says: “He that formed the eye, doth he not consider?” (Psalms 93:9); for, as Rabbi Moses points out, it is as if the Psalmist had said: “Does He not consider the nature of the eye—who has made it to be proportioned to its end, which is its act of seeing?”“ But now we must further consider the manner by which He knows creatures.

It should be understood, therefore, that, since every agent acts to the extent that it is in act, that which is effected by the agent must in some way exist in the agent. This is the reason why every agent causes something similar to itself. Now, whatever is in another is in it according to the manner of the recipient. Hence, if the active principle is material, the effect is in it somehow materially, because it is, as it were, in a material power. If the active principle is immaterial, however, its effect will also be in it immaterially.

Now, as we have said earlier, a thing is known by another in so far as it is received immaterially by that other. Consequently, active material principles do not know their effects, because these latter do not exist in them in a manner in which they could be known; but in immaterial active principles the effects are present in a manner in which they are knowable, since they are there immaterially. Therefore, every immaterial active principle knows its own effect. This is why it is said in The Causes: “An intelligence knows what is below it in so far as it is its cause.” Therefore, since God is the immaterial active principle of things, it follows that in Him there is knowledge of things.

Answers to Difficulties

1. The known is a perfection of the knower, not by its substance (for the thing is outside the knower), but rather by the likeness by which it is known; for a perfection exists in the perfected—and the likeness of the stone, not the stone, exists in the soul. Now, the likeness of the thing known exists in the intellect in two ways: sometimes as something other than the knower himself, at other times as the very essence of the knower. For example, our intellect, by knowing itself, knows other intellects in so far as it is itself a likeness of other intellects; but the likeness of a stone in the intellect is not the very essence of intellect; in fact, this likeness is received somewhat as a form is received in matter. Now, this form, which is other than the intellect, is sometimes the cause of the thing whose likeness it is. We have an evident example of this in the practical intellect, whose form is the cause of the thing done. But sometimes this form is the effect of the thing, as is clearly the case with our speculative intellect when it receives its knowledge from things.

Therefore, whenever an intellect knows a thing through a likeness which is not the essence of the knower, then the intellect is perfected by something other than itself; but if that likeness should happen to he the cause of the tiling, in that case the intellect will be perfected only by the likeness, and not at all by the thing whose likeness it is. For example, a house is not the perfection of the artistic conception, but rather the contrary. On the other hand, if the likeness is caused by the thing, then the perfection of the intellect will be, as it were, the thing in an active sense, but its likeness in a formal sense. However, when the likeness of the thing known is the very essence of the knower, the intellect is not perfected by something other than itselfexcept, perhaps, actively, as would be the case if its essence were produced by another. But because the knowledge of the divine intellect is not caused by things and neither the likeness by which it knows the thing nor its own essence is caused by another, it by no means follows from the fact that God knows things other than Himself that His intellect is perfected by something else.

2. God does not know other things only inasmuch as they exist in Him, if inasmuch as refers to His knowledge from the point of view of the thing known, because, in regard to things, He knows not only the act of being which they have inasmuch as they are one with Him, but also the act of being which they have outside of Him, and by which they are distinguished from Him. However, if inasmuch as specifies His knowledge from the point of view of the knower, then it is true that God knows things only inasmuch as they are in Him; for He knows them from their likeness, which is identical in reality with Himself.

3. The manner in which God knows creatures is by their existence within Himself. An effect existing in any efficient cause whatsoever is not other than that cause if there is question of a thing which is a cause in itself. For example, a house existing in the conception of the artist is not other than that conception itself; for an effect is in an active principle simply inasmuch as the active principle produces an effect similar to itself, and this active principle is the very thing by which the artist acts. Consequently, if some active principle acts only through its form, its effect is in it in so far as it has that form, and its effect will not exist in the principle as something distinct from its form. Similarly, since God acts through His essence, His effect is not in Him as something distinct from His essence; but it is entirely one with it. Therefore, His knowledge of an effect is not distinct from His own essence.

Nevertheless, from the fact that He knows His effect by knowing His own essence, it does not follow that there is any discursive reasoning in His intellect; for an intellect is said to reason from one thing to another only if it apprehends each by distinct apprehensions. Thus, the human intellect apprehends a cause and an effect by distinct acts; and since it knows an effect through its cause, it is said to reason from the cause to the effect. When, however, the knowing power is directed by the same act to the medium by which it knows and to the thing known, then there is no discursive process in knowing. For example, when sight knows a stone by means of the species of stone in this sense, or when it knows by means of a mirror a thing reflected in the mirror, it is not said to reason discursively; for to be directed to the likeness of a thing is the same as to be directed to the thing which is known through this likeness. It is in this manner that God knows His effects through His essence—just as a thing is known through its likeness. Therefore, with one cognition He knows Himself and other things. Dionysius agrees when he speaks as follows: “God does not have a proper knowledge of Himself and another general knowledge that comprehends all existing things.” Consequently, there is no discourse in God’s intellect.

4. A thing is said to be proportionate to another in two ways. In one way, a proportion is noted between the two things. For example, we say that four is proportioned to two since its proportion to two is double. In the second way, they are proportioned as by a proportionality. For example, we say that six and eight are proportionate because, just as six is the double of three, so eight is the double of four; for proportionality is a similarity of proportions. Now, since in every proportion a relation is noted between those things that are said to be proportioned because of some definite excess of one over the other, it is impossible for any infinite to be proportionate to a finite by way of proportion. When, however, things are said to be proportionate by way of proportionality, their relation to each other is not considered. All that is considered is the similarity of the relation of two things to two other things. Thus, nothing prevents an infinite from being proportionate to an infinite; for, just as a particular finite is equal to a certain finite, so an infinite is equal to another infinite. In this way, there should be a medium that is proportionate to that which is known by the medium. Consequently, just as the medium is related to the act of demonstrating, so that which is known through the medium is related to the act of being demonstrated. Thus, nothing prevents the divine essence from being the medium by which a creature is known.

5. A thing is understood intellectually in two ways. First, it is understood in itself, as happens when the regard of the beholder is shaped directly by the thing itself, which is understood or known. Second, a thing is seen in something else; and, when this latter is known, it itself is known. God, therefore, knows only Himself in Himself; but He does not know other things in themselves except by knowing His own essence. This is what the Philosopher meant when he said that God knows only Himself; and the following statement of Dionysius is quite in agreement: “God knows things that come to be, not by a knowledge of such things, but by His knowledge of Himself.”

6. If the formal aspect under which knowledge occurs is considered here from the point of view of the knower, then God knows Himself and other things under the same formal aspect; for the knower, the act of knowing, and the medium of knowing are all the same. But, if we consider the formal aspect from the point of view of the thing known, then He does not know Himself and other things under the same formal aspect; for the relation of Himself and of other things to the medium by which He knows is not the same; for He is the same as that medium by His essence, while other things are “the same” as the medium merely because of their resemblance to it. Therefore, He knows Himself through His essence, but other things through a likeness. However, that which is His essence and that which is the likeness of other things is the same reality.

7. If we consider the knower, it is entirely true that God knows that He is God and that He is the Father by the same act of knowing. But He does not know both by the same act of knowing if we consider that which is known; for He knows that He is God by the Godhead, and that He is the Father by His paternity. This latter, according to our manner of understanding, is not the same as the Godhead, although they are one in reality.

8. If we consider only the thing known, that which is the principle of its existence is also the principle of its being known, because a thing is knowable by means of its principles. But if we consider the knower, then that by which a thing is known is a likeness of the thing or of its principles. This likeness is not a principle of the existence of the thing, except in practical knowledge.

9. There are two ways of considering the mutual likeness between two things. First, we can consider them inasmuch as they agree in a common nature. Such a likeness between the knower and the known is not required; indeed, we sometimes see that the smaller the likeness, the sharper the cognition. For example, there is less resemblance between the intellectual likeness of a stone and the stone than there is between the sense likeness and the stone, for the intellectual likeness is farther removed from matter; yet the intellect knows more profoundly than sense.

Secondly, the likeness between two things can be considered from the point of view of representation. Such a likeness of the knower to the thing known is necessary. Therefore, although there is the least possible likeness between a creature and God in regard to agreement in nature, there is, on the other hand, the greatest possible likeness between them inasmuch as the divine essence most clearly represents the creature. Consequently, the divine intellect knows a thing most perfectly.

10. The statement that God beholds nothing outside Himself should be taken as referring to that in which God beholds, not to that which He beholds; for that in which He beholds all things is Himself.

11. Although a line loses none of its quantity if an actual point is taken from it, if we take from a line its essential property of terminating in a point, the very substance of the line perishes. The same principle is also true of God; for, while nothing will be detracted from God if a creature of His is supposed as not existing, His perfection will be destroyed if His power of producing a creature is taken from Him. For He knows things, not only inasmuch as they actually exist, but also inasmuch as they are within His power.

12. Although knowledge has only being for its object, it is not necessary that what is known should be a real being at the time in which it is known; for, just as we know things that are distant in place, we also know things distant in time, as is evident from our knowledge of things past. Hence, it is not inconsistent to affirm a knowledge of God that is about things that are not eternal.

13. The word perfection, if taken strictly, cannot be used of God, for nothing is perfected unless it is made. Perfection, however, is used more negatively of God than positively. Hence, He is said to be perfect because nothing at all is lacking to Him, not because there is something in Him which was in potency to perfection and is perfected by something else which is its act. Consequently, there is no passive potency in God.

14. What is understood or sensed moves the sense or intellect only if the sense knowledge or intellectual knowledge is received from things. Divine cognition is not of this kind; hence, the argument does not follow.

15. According to the Philosopher, the delight of the intellect arises from its agreeable operation. Hence, he says: “God delights in one simple operation.” Therefore, the object of the intellect is the cause of intellectual delight in so far as it is the cause of an intellectual operation; and it is this in so far as it produces its likeness in the intellect, so that by it the activity of the intellect may be informed. Hence, it is clear that the thing which is understood causes delight in the intellect only when the intellect’s knowledge is received from things. This is not true of the divine intellect.

16. The term to be, taken simply and absolutely, is understood only of the divine existence. This is also true of the good; and for this reason it is said in Luke (18:19): “None is good but God alone.” Hence, the more closely a creature approaches God, the more it possesses of the act of existence; the further it is from Him, the more it possesses of non-existence. But, since a creature approaches God only in so far as it participates in a finite act of existence, yet its distance from God is always infinite, it is said to have more non-existence than existence. However, since the act of existing which it has is from God, it is known by God.

17, In line with the preceding answer, a visible creature possesses truth only in so far as it approaches the first truth. As Avicenna says, it possesses falsity in so far as it falls short of it.

18. A thing is compared to God in two ways: first, according to a common measurement, and then a creature, when compared with God, is found to be almost nothing at all; second, according to its dependence upon God, from whom it receives its act of existing. In this latter way, it is compared with God only with respect to its act of existing, and in this way, also, it cad be known by God.

19. That axiom is to be understood as applying only to our intellect, which receives its knowledge from things. For a thing is led by gradual steps from its own material conditions to the immateriality of the intellect through the mediation of the immateriality of sense. Consequently, whatever is in our intellect must have previously been in the senses. This, however, does not take place in the divine intellect.

20. It is true, as Avicenna says, that a natural agent is a cause only of becoming. This is evident from the fact that, when such a cause ceases to exist, a thing does not cease to be, but merely ceases to become. But since the divine agent imparts the act of existence to things, He is the cause of their existence, although He does not enter into their constitution. Yet He has a certain resemblance to the essential principles which enter into the constitution of a thing, and for this reason He knows not only the becoming of a thing, but also its act of existing and its essential principles.

ARTICLE IV

In the fourth article we ask:

Does God have proper and determinate knowledge of things?

[Parallel readings: S.T., I, 14, 6; I Sent., 3 5, 3; C.G., I, 50; De pot., 6, 1, c.; De causis, lectio 10 (P. 21:737a); Comp. Theol., I, cc. 132-35.]

Difficulties

It seems that He does not, for

1. As Boethius says, the object of cognition is “universal as long as it is understood, singular as long as it is sensed.”’ Now, since there is no sensitive knowledge in God, but only intellectual knowledge, God has only universal knowledge of things.

2. If God knows creatures, He knows them either by many or by one species. If He knows them by many, His knowledge as it is in the knower will be multiplied, because that by which one knows is in the knower. If He knows creatures by one species, and it is impossible to have proper and distinct knowledge of many things by means of one species, it would seem that God does not have proper knowledge of things.

3. God is the cause of things in so far as He imparts the act of existing to them—just as fire is the cause of warm things from the fact that it pours heat into them. Now, if fire could know itself, by knowing its own heat, it would know other things only in so far as they are warm. Consequently, by knowing His own essence, God knows other things only inasmuch as they are beings. That, however, is not proper knowledge of things, but a most universal knowledge of things. Therefore, God does not have proper knowledge of things.

4. Proper knowledge of a thing can be had only through a species which comprises nothing more or nothing less than is in the thing itself. For, just as the color green would be imperfectly known by means of a species that fell short of it,—for example, the species of black—so also would green be imperfectly known by a species that went beyond it—for example, the species of white. For in white, the nature of color is found to exist most perfectly; therefore, whiteness, as is said in the Metaphysics, is the measure of all colors. Now, in the measure in which God surpasses a creature, in that measure the creature falls short of God. Therefore, since the divine essence can in no way be known properly and completely by means of a creature, neither can a creature be known properly by means of the divine essence. God, however, knows creatures only through His essence. Therefore, He does not have proper knowledge of them.

5. Any medium that causes proper knowledge of a thing can be used as the middle term of a demonstration whose conclusion will be that thing. The divine essence, however, does not stand in such a relation to a creature; otherwise, creatures would exist whenever the divine essence existed. Consequently, by knowing creatures through His essence, God does not have proper knowledge of things.

6. If God knows a creature, He knows it either in its own nature or in an idea. If He knows it in its own nature, then the proper nature of a creature is the means by which God knows a creature. But the medium of knowing is a perfection of the knower; hence, the-nature of a creature would be a perfection of the divine intellect. This, of course, is absurd. On the other hand, if God knows a creature in an idea, since the idea is more removed from a thing than are the essentials or accidentals of the thing, God’s knowledge of a thing will be less than that knowledge which is had through its essentials or accidentals. But all proper knowledge of a thing is had through its essential constituents or accidents, because, as is said in The Soul: “Even accidents contribute in a great part to our knowledge of what a things. Consequently, God does not have proper knowledge of things.

7. Proper knowledge of any particular thing cannot be had through a universal medium. For example, we cannot have proper knowledge of man by means of “animal.” But the divine essence is the most universal medium possible, since it is the universal medium for knowing all things. Therefore, God cannot have proper knowledge of creatures by means of His essence.

8. The type of knowledge is determined by its medium of knowing. Therefore, proper knowledge can be had only through a proper medium. The divine essence, however, cannot be the proper medium of knowing a particular creature, because, if it were proper to that one, it would not be the medium of knowing anything else; for what belongs to this creature and to that is common to both and not proper to either. Therefore, God does not have proper knowledge of creatures by knowing through His own essence.

9. Dionysius says that God knows “material things immaterially and many things as united,” or, in other words, distinct things indistinctly. Now, since this is the kind of knowledge by which God knows things, He has merely indistinct knowledge of things, and therefore He does not properly know this or that.

To the Contrary

1. No one can distinguish between things if he does not have proper knowledge of them. But God has that kind of knowledge of creatures which distinguishes between them; for He knows that this creature is not that creature. Otherwise, He could not give each creature according to its own capacity or reward each person according to his merits by passing a just judgment upon men’s actions. Therefore, God has proper knowledge of things.

2. Nothing imperfect should be attributed to God. But that kind of knowledge by which something is known in merely a general way and not in particular is imperfect knowledge, for it lacks something. Therefore, divine knowledge of things is not merely general but also particular.

3. God, who is most happy, would be most stupid if it were true that He does not know what we know about things. The Philosopher regards such a position as inconsistent.

REPLY

From the fact that God ordains a thing to its end one can prove that God has proper knowledge of things; for a thing can be ordained to its proper end only through knowledge of its proper nature, according to which it has a determinate relation to that end. How this is possible we must consider as follows.

By knowing a cause, we know the effect only inasmuch as the effect follows from the cause. Therefore, if there is some universal cause whose action is not determined to any effect except through the intermediate action of some particular cause, from the knowledge of such a common cause we will not have proper knowledge of the effect but merely a general knowledge of it. For example, the action of the sun is determined to the production of this plant through the intermediate action of a germinating force which is either in the ground or in the seed. Consequently, if the sun could know itself, it would not have a proper knowledge of this plant but only a general knowledge, unless it also knew the proper causes of the plant. Therefore, in order to have proper and perfect knowledge of any effect, the knower must have assembled in himself complete knowledge of the proper and common causes. This is also what the Philosopher says: “We are said to know a thing when we know its first causes and its first principles down to its elements,” that is, down to its proximate causes, as the Commentator explains.

Now, we say that something is known to God inasmuch as He is its cause through His essence. In this way a thing is in Him and can be known by Him. Therefore, since He is the cause of all proper and common causes, through His essence He knows all proper and common causes; for there is in a thing, determining its common nature, nothing of which God is not the cause. Consequently, the reason for His knowledge of the common nature of things is the very same as the reason for His knowledge of the proper nature and proper causes of each individual thing. Dionysius gives the same explanation when he writes: “If according to one cause God gives being to all existing things, then He knows all things according to that same cause”“—and further on: “For the cause of all, knowing itself, would be idle somewhere if it did not know those things that are from it and whose cause it is.” Idle here means to fall short of causing something that is found in a thing; and it would follow that God would be idle in this sense were He ignorant of any of the realities that exist in a thing.

Thus, it is clear from what has been said that all the examples induced to show that God knows all things in Himself are faulty—like that of the point, which, if it could know itself, would (according to the example) know lines, and that of light, which, by knowing itself, would know colors. For not everything in a line can be reduced to a point as to its cause, nor can everything in color be reduced to light. Consequently, if a point knew itself, it would know the line only in a general way; and light would know color similarly. This is not the case with divine knowledge, as is clear from what has been said in the preceding article.

Answers to Difficulties

1. That statement of Boethius should be understood as referring to our intellect, not to the divine intellect, which can know singulars, as will be explained later.” However, even though our intellect does not know singulars, it has proper knowledge of things by knowing them according to their distinctive specific characters. Consequently, even if the divine intellect did not know singulars, it could nevertheless have proper knowledge of things.

2. God knows all things by one principle, for that principle has the intelligible character of many. This principle is His essence, which is the likeness of all things; and since His essence is the proper intelligible character of each and every thing, He has proper knowledge of all things. How one thing can be both the proper and the common intelligible character of many things may be explained as follows.

The divine essence is the intelligible character of a thing inasmuch as that thing imitates the divine essence. No created thing, however, fully imitates the divine essence. For, if so, there would be only one such imitation, and the divine essence considered in that way would be the proper intelligible character of only one being, just as there is only one image of the Father which perfectly imitates Him, and that is the Son. However, since a created thing imperfectly imitates the divine essence, it happens that different things imitate it in different ways; yet every one of them has been produced according to a likeness of the divine essence. Thus, whatever is proper to each finds in the divine essence that which it imitates. In this respect, the divine essence is the likeness of a thing, even in regard to what is proper to it. Similarly, it is the proper intelligible character of that thing, and, for the same reason, the proper character of another thing, and also of all other things. Therefore, it is the common character of all things in so far as it is the one thing which all things imitate; but it is the proper character of this or that thing inasmuch as things imitate it in different ways. In this way the divine essence causes proper knowledge of each and every thing, for it is the proper intelligible character of all.

3. Fire is not the cause of warm things with respect to everything found in them, as is the case with the divine essence, as we have pointed out.* Hence, there is no parallel.

4. Whiteness surpasses green with respect to one of the two things that belong to the nature of color, namely, light, which is, as it were, the formal element in the composition of color. In this respect, whiteness is the measure of all colors. But there is something else in colors which is, as it were, their material element, namely, the determination of the transparent medium. In this respect, whiteness is not the measure of colors; and thus it is clear that everything contained in the other colors does not exist in the species of whiteness. Consequently, proper knowledge of any of the other colors cannot be had through the species of whiteness. This is not the case with the divine essence. Moreover, in the divine essence, other things exist as in their cause; but other colors do not exist in whiteness as in their cause. Hence, there is no parallel.

5. Demonstration is a type of argumentation accomplished by a discursive process of the intellect. The divine intellect, which is not discursive, does not know its effects through its essence as if by demonstration, even though it has more certain knowledge of things by means of its essence than one who demonstrates has by means of his demonstration. Besides, if anyone could comprehend God’s essence, through it he would know the nature of each individual thing with greater certainty than a conclusion is known by means of demonstration. Nevertheless, it does not follow from the fact that God’s essence is eternal that His effects are eternal; for His effects are not in His essence in such a way that they should always exist in themselves but merely that they should exist at some time, whenever the divine wisdom has determined.

6. God knows things in their proper nature if that restriction refers to His knowledge from the point of view of the thing known. However, if we are speaking of His knowledge on the part of the knower, then God knows things in an idea, that is, through an idea which is the likeness of all things existing in reality, both accidental and essential, although the idea itself is neither an accident nor the-essence of the thing. In the same manner, our intellectual likeness of a thing is neither essential nor accidental to the thing itself, but it nevertheless is a likeness of the thing’s essence or accident.

7. The divine essence is a universal medium as though it were a universal cause. The relation of a universal cause to the production of knowledge is quite different from that of a universal form. For in a universal form the effect is, as it were, in material potency, somewhat as differences are in a genus after the analogy of forms in matter, as Porphyry says. However, effects are in a cause in an active potency, just as a house exists in the mind of the architect in active potency. Now, since everything is known in so far as it is in act, and not in so far as it is in potency, the fact that the differences specifying a genus are in it potentially does not suffice for proper knowledge of a species through the generic form. But since what is proper to a thing exists in some active cause, it is sufficient to know that thing through that cause. Consequently, a house is not known by means of its wood and stones as it is known by means of the form of it which is in the architect. Since the proper conditions of each and every thing, are in God as in its active cause, even though His essence is a universal medium, it can give proper knowledge of all things.

8. The divine essence is both a common and a proper medium, but not in the same respect, as has been said.

9. When it is said that “God knows distinct things indistinctly,” the statement is true if indistinctly qualifies the knowing from the point of view of the knower; for with one cognition God knows all things. This is how Dionysius understands the statement. On the other hand, if it qualifies the knowing in regard to what is known, the statement is false; for God knows the distinction of one thing from another, and also that by which one thing is distinguished from another. Therefore, He has proper knowledge of each and every thing.

ARTICLE V

In the fifth article we ask:

Does God know singular things?

[Parallel readings: De ver., 19, 2; S.T., I, 14, 11; 89,4; I Sent., 36, 1, 1; II Sent., 3, 3, 3; C.G., I, cc. 50, 63,65; Q.D. de anima, aa. 5, 20; Comp. Theol., I, cc. 132-35; Perih., lect. 14, n. 16 seq.; De subst. sep., cc. 11-12 (Perr. 1:nn. 68-76).]

Difficulties

It seems that He does not, for

1. Our intellect does not know singulars because it is separated from matter. But the divine intellect is much more separated from matter than ours. Hence, it does not know singulars.

2. It was noted, however, that our intellect does not know singulars, not only because it is separated from matter, but also because it abstracts its knowledge from things.—On the contrary, our intellect cannot receive anything from things without the mediation of sense or imagination. Consequently, sense and imagination receive from singular things before our intellect does, yet singulars are known through sense and imagination. Hence, the fact that the intellect receives from things is no reason why it should not know singulars.

3. It was said, however, that from things the intellect receives a form that is entirely purified; but this is not the case with sense and imagination.—On the contrary, it is not by reason of the purifying of the form considered as a starting point that our intellect does not know singulars. Indeed, from this point of view the intellect ought to know singulars all the more, for the assimilative character of intellection comes from the fact that it has received something from reality. It remains, therefore, that what prevents knowledge of singulars is the purifying of the form considered as an end-result, which is the purity that the form has in the intellect. Now, that purity of the form is had only because of the freedom of the intellect from matter; and that is the only reason why our intellect does not know singulars, namely, be cause it is separated from matter. Thus, our point that God does not know singulars is proved.

4. If God knows some singulars, He should know all; for the argument for one is the same as the argument for all. But He does not know all singulars. Therefore, He knows none. The proof of the minor premise is as follows: “Many things,” as Augustine says, meaning despicable things, “it is better not to know than to know.”’ But many singulars are worthless. Since everything which is better should always be attributed to God, it seems that He does not know all singulars.

5. All knowledge takes place through an assimilation of the knower with what is known. But there is no assimilation between singulars and God, for singulars are changeable and material, and have many other qualities of this sort, whose complete contraries are in God. Therefore, God does not know singulars.

6. Whatever God knows, He knows perfectly. But perfect knowledge is not had of a thing unless it is known in the same way as it exists. Now, since God does not know a singular in the same way as it exists, for a singular is material, and God knows immaterially, it seems that God cannot know the singular perfectly, and consequently does not know it at all.

7. But it was said that while perfect knowledge demands that the knower know the thing just as it is, this refers only to what is known, not to the operation of the knower.—On the contrary, knowledge arises from the application of the thing known to the knower. Therefore, the mode of what is known and the mode of the knower should be the same. Thus, the distinction given seems to be invalid.

8. According to the Philosopher, if one wishes to find something, he must previously have some knowledge of it. What he has through some common form is not sufficient, unless that form is contracted by something. For example, one could not well look for a slave he has lost unless he had previously had some knowledge of the slave, otherwise he would not recognize him even when he found him; nor would it be enough to know that the slave was a man, because this would not mark him off from others. He must, instead, have some knowledge particularized by the points that are proper to the slave. Consequently, if God is to know any singular, the common form by which He knows, His essence, must be contracted by something. But since there is nothing in Him by which it can be contracted, it seems that He does not know singulars.

9. It was said, however, that that species through which God knows is common in such a way that it nevertheless is proper to each and every thing.—On the contrary, proper and common are opposed to each other. Therefore, it is impossible that the same reality be both a proper and a common form.

10. The operation of sight is not determined to any one colored thing because of light, which is the medium of sight; it is determined rather by the object, the colored thing itself. But in God’s knowledge, His essence is the medium by which He knows things; for His essence is, as it were, a medium of knowledge, and, as Dionysius says, like a light by which all things are known. Consequently, His knowledge is in no way determined to any singular; thus, He does not know singulars.

11. Since knowledge is a quality, it is a form whose variations change the subject. But knowledge is changed as its objects are changed; for example, if I know that you are sitting, I lose that knowledge when you get up. Hence, the knower is changed when what he knows changes. But God cannot be changed in any way whatsoever. Therefore, He cannot know singulars, which are subject to change.

12. No one can know a singular unless he knows that by which a singular is constituted. But that which makes a singular to be such is matter. God, however, does not know matter. Hence, He does not know singulars. The proof of the minor is as follows: There are, as Boethius and the Commentator say, certain things which are difficult for us to know because of a defect in us—for example, the very things which are most knowable in themselves, immaterial substances. On the other hand, there are other things which are not known because of some defect in them—for example, those that have very little existence, such as motion, time, vacuums, and the like. Now, first matter has a very limited act of existence. Hence, God does not know matter since it is of itself unknowable.

13. But it was said that although matter cannot be known by our intellect, it can be known by the divine intellect.—On the contrary, our intellect knows a thing by means of a likeness received from the thing, but the divine intellect knows it by means of a likeness that is the cause of the thing. Now, a greater conformity is needed between a thing and a likeness which causes that thing than is needed between [that thing and] some other likeness. Therefore, since the deficiency of matter is the reason why our intellects cannot get a likeness sufficient for the knowledge of matter, much more will it be the reason why the divine intellect cannot get a likeness sufficient for the knowledge of matter.

14. According to Algazel, God knows Himself because the three things required for knowledge are found in Him: an intelligent substance separated from matter, an intelligible thing separated from matter, and the union of both. From this it follows that nothing is known unless it is separated from matter. Now, a singular as such cannot be separated from matter. Hence, it cannot be understood.

15. Knowledge is an intermediary between the knower and the object; and the more knowledge moves away from the knower, the more imperfect it is. Now, whenever knowledge is directed to something outside the knower, it rushes out, as it were, to something external. But, since divine knowledge is most perfect, it does not seem that it should be about singulars, which are outside of God.

16. The act of knowledge essentially depends upon the knowing power, but just as essentially upon the thing known. But it is out of place to say that an act of divine knowledge, which is God’s essence, essentially depends on something outside of itself. Hence, it is inadmissible to say that He knows singulars, which are outside of Him.

17. Whatever is known is known according to the manner in which it is in the knower, as Boethius says. But things exist in God immaterially and, hence, without the concretion of matter and material conditions. Therefore, He does not know those things which depend upon matter, such as singulars.

To the Contrary

1. We read in the first Epistle to the Corinthians (13:12): “But then I shall know even as I am known.” Now, the Apostle who was speaking was a singular. Therefore, singulars are known by God.

21. As is clear from what was said earlier,” things are known by God in so far as He is their cause. But since He is the cause of singulars, He must know them.

3. It is impossible to know the nature of an instrument without knowing the purpose for which the instrument is ordained. Now, senses are certain powers ordained as instruments to knowledge of singular things. If God did not know singulars, He would also be ignorant of the nature of the senses, and, as a consequence, of the nature of the human intellect, whose object is the forms in the imagination. This, however, is absurd.

4. God’s wisdom is equal to His power. Therefore, whatever falls under His power falls under His knowledge. Now, His power extends itself to the production of singulars. Consequently, His knowledge extends itself to a knowledge of the same.

5. As was said above, God’s knowledge of things is proper and distinct. But this could not be true if He did not know the factors which distinguish one thing from another. He knows, therefore, the singular conditions of each and every thing, by which one thing is distinguished from another; consequently, He knows singulars in their singularity.

REPLY

There have been many errors in connection with this problem. Some, as the Commentator mentions, have simply denied that God knows singulars, except, perhaps, in general. These persons wish to confine the nature of the divine intellect within the limits of our own. But this error can be destroyed by the reasoning used by the Philosopher against Empedocles; for if—as would follow from what Empedocles had said—God were ignorant of that which others knew, God would be most stupid, although He Himself is most happy and, for this reason, most wise. The same thing would be true if it were asserted that God did not know the singulars which all of us know.

Therefore, others, such as Avicenna and his followers, have said that God knows every singular, but universally, as it were, in knowing all the universal causes from which a singular is produced. An astronomer, for example, knowing all the motions of the heavens and the distances between the celestial bodies, would know every eclipse that will occur even for the next hundred years, yet he would not know any one eclipse as a distinct singular so as to have evidential knowledge that it actually exists or not—which a country bumpkin has when he sees an eclipse. It is in this manner, they say, that God knows singulars: He does not, as it were, see them in their singular nature but through knowledge of universal causes. But neither can this opinion stand; for from universal causes there follow only universal forms, unless something intervenes through which these forms are individuated. But from a number of universal forms gathered together—no matter how great this number may be—no singular can be constituted, because the collection of these forms can still be understood to be in many. Therefore, if one were to know an eclipse by means of universal causes in the manner described above, he would know, not a singular, but only a universal. For a universal cause has as proportionate to it a universal effect, and a particular cause, a particular effect. Hence, there would still remain the inadmissible consequence mentioned earlier, that God should be ignorant of singulars.

Therefore, we must simply admit that God knows all singulars, not only in their universal causes, but also each in its proper and singular nature. As proof of this, note that the divine knowledge which God has of things can be compared to the knowledge of an artist, since He is the cause of all things as art is the cause of all works of art. Now, an artist knows a product of his art by means of the form which he has in himself and upon which he models his product. However, he produces his work only with respect to its form—nature has prepared the matter for the works of art. Accordingly, by means of his art, an artist knows his works only under the aspect of the form. Now, every form is of itself universal; and, consequently, by means of his art, a builder knows, indeed, house in general, but not this house or that house, unless he acquires other knowledge of it through his senses. But if the artistic form produced matter as it produces form, then by its means the artist would know his work both under the aspect of its form and under that of its matter. Consequently, since matter is the principle of individuation, he would know it not only in its universal nature but also inasmuch as it is a definite singular. Therefore, since divine art produces not only the form but also the matter, it contains not only the likeness of form but also that of matter. Consequently, God knows things in regard to both their matter and their form; and, therefore, He knows not only universals but also singulars.

But a difficulty still remains. Since everything that is in something is in it according to the manner of that in which it is, and thus the likeness of a thing can be in God only immaterially, how is it that our intellect, because it receives the forms of things in an immaterial way, does not know singulars, yet God knows them?

The reason for this will be clear if we consider the difference between the relation to the thing had by its likeness in our intellect and that had by its likeness in the divine intellect. For the likeness in our intellect is received from a thing in so far as the thing acts upon our intellect by previously acting upon our senses. Now, matter, because of the feebleness of its existence (for it is being only potentially), cannot be a principle of action; hence, a thing which acts upon our soul acts only through its form; consequently, the likeness of a thing which is impressed upon our sense and purified by several stages until it reaches the intellect is a likeness only of the form.

On the other hand, the likeness of things in the divine intellect is one which causes things; for, whether a thing has a vigorous or a feeble share in the act of being, it has this from God alone; and because each thing participates in an act of existence given by God, the likeness of each is found in Him. Consequently, the immaterial likeness in God is a likeness, not only of the form, but also of the matter. Now, in order that a thing be known, its likeness must be in the knower, though it need not be in him in the same manner as it is in reality. Hence, our intellect does not know singulars, because the knowledge of these depends upon matter, and the likeness of matter is not in our intellect. It is not because a likeness of the singular is in our intellect in an immaterial way. The divine intellect, however, can know singulars, since it possesses a likeness of matter, although in an immaterial way.

Answers to Difficulties

1. Besides being separated from matter, our intellect receives its knowledge from things. Consequently, because it does not receive forms materially and, because matter can have no likeness, our intellect does not know singulars. The case is otherwise with the divine intellect, as has been said.

2. Sense and imagination are powers attached to bodily organs. Conscquently, likenesses of things are received in them in a material manner, that is, with material conditions, although without matter. For this reason, they know singulars. The case is otherwise with the intellect. Hence, the argument does not follow.

3. Because of the terminus of the purifying process, it happens that the form is received immaterially; but this alone does not explain why the singular is not known. It is rather because of the very beginning of this process that the likeness of matter is not received into the intellect, but only that of the form. Hence, the argument does not follow.

4. All knowledge, taken in itself, belongs to the class of good things; but it may happen accidentally that the knowledge of certain despicable things is bad, either because it is the occasion of some base action (and for this reason certain knowledge is forbidden) or because some individual might be kept from better things because of certain knowledge; consequently, what is good in itself may harm certain people. This, however, cannot happen to God.

5. For knowledge a likeness of conformity in nature is not required, but only a representative likeness. For example, we are reminded of a certain man merely by a golden statue of him. This argument, however, proceeds on the assumption that knowledge requires a likeness consisting in conformity in nature.

6. The perfection of knowledge consists in knowing the thing to be as it is, not in having the same mode of existence as the thing known in the knower—as we have said repeatedly above.

7. That application of the known to the knower, which causes knowledge, should not be understood by way of identity but rather by way of representation. Therefore, it is not necessary that the mode of the knower and of what is known be the same.

8. That argument would hold if the likeness by which God knows were common in such a way that it could not be proper to each individual thing. That the contrary is true we have shown earlier.

9. The same thing in the same aspect cannot be both common and proper. But how the divine essence, through which God knows all things, is a common likeness of all, yet a proper likeness of each, has been explained above.

10. There are two mediums for physical sight. First, there is the medium under which it knows. This is light, which does not determine sight to any particular object. Second, there is the medium by which it knows, namely, the likeness of the thing known. By this medium, sight is determined to a special object. In divine knowledge, however, the divine essence takes the place of both. Hence, it can cause proper knowledge of individual things.

11. Divine knowledge is in no way changed by a change in the objects of its knowledge. Our knowledge varies when the objects change because it knows with separate conceptions things present, past, and future. Consequently, when Socrates is not sitting, the cognition had of him when he was sitting becomes false. God, however, sees things as present, past, or future in a single intuition. Therefore, no matter how a thing may change, the truth in His intellect remains the same.

12. Those things which possess a defective act of existence fall short of knowability for our intellect for the very reason that they fall short, of the ability to act. But this does not affect the divine intellect, which, as we have said, does not receive its knowledge from things.

13. In the divine intellect, which is the cause of matter, there can exist a likeness of matter which, as it were, leaves its impression upon, the matter. In our intellect, however, a likeness cannot exist that is capable of making us know matter. This is clear from what has been said.

14. Although a singular as such cannot be separated from matter, it can be known by means of a likeness separated from matter, namely, the likeness of matter itself. Consequently, even if it be separated from matter physically, it is not separated from matter representatively.

15. An act of divine knowledge is not something other than God’s essence, for in God intellect and intellectual operation are one and the same, because His action is His essence. His knowledge, therefore, cannot be said to pass outside of Him simply because He knows something other than Himself. Moreover, no action of a cognitive power can be said to pass outside in the way in which acts of physical powers do, which go from the agent into the patient. For knowledge does not mean something flowing from the knower to a thing known, as happens in physical actions. It means, rather, the existence of the thing known in the knower.

16. An act of divine knowledge has no dependence upon the thing known; for the relation implied in divine knowledge does not involve dependence of the knowledge upon the things known, but, rather, the dependence of the thing known upon the knowledge. The opposite is true of us, for the relation implied by the word knowledge when used of us is one that indicates a dependence of our knowledge upon its object. Moreover, the relation of an act of knowledge to its object is not the same as its relation to the power of knowing; for it is supported in its act of existence by the knowing power, not by its object, because the act is in the power but not in the object.

17. A thing is known because it is represented in the knower, not because it exists in him; for the likeness existing in a knowing power is a principle by which a thing is known, not under the aspect of the act of being it has in the knowing power, but under the aspect of the relation it has to the thing known. Consequently, a thing is not known according to the mode of existence which the likeness of the thing has in the knower, but rather according to the manner in which the likeness existing in the intellect represents the thing. Therefore, although the likeness in the divine intellect has an immaterial act of existence, nevertheless, since it is a likeness of matter, it is also a principle of knowing material things and, therefore, singulars.

ARTICLE VI

In the sixth article we ask:

Does the human intellect know singulars?

[Parallel readings: S.T., I, 86, 1; II Sent., 3, 3, 3, ad 1; IV Sent., 50,1, 3; C.G., I, 65; III De anima, lect. 8, n. 710 seq.; Q.D. De anima, aa. 5, 20; Quodl., VII, 1, 3; Quodl., XII, 8, 11; De prin. individ. (Perr. 1:nn. 1-4).]

Difficulties

It seems that it does, for

1. The human intellect knows by abstracting the form from matter. Now, the abstraction of a form from matter does not destroy its particularity, for mathematics, which abstracts from matter, considers particular lines. Consequently, the fact that our intellect is immaterial does not prevent it from knowing singulars.

2. Singulars are not distinct according to their participation in a common nature, for the fact that many men participate in the species of man makes them one man. Therefore, if our intellect knows only universals, it does not know one singular as distinct from another. Consequently, our intellect would not direct us to those objects of operations in regard to which we are guided by choice; for choice presupposes the distinction of one thing from another.

3. But it was said that our intellect knows singulars inasmuch as it applies the universal form to some particulars.—On the contrary, our intellect cannot apply one thing to another unless it already knows each. Consequently, knowledge of the singular precedes the application of the universal to the singular. Therefore, the above-mentioned application cannot be the reason why our intellect knows the singular.

4. According to Boethius, whatever a lower power can do a higher power can do. Now, as he says in the same place, the intellect is superior to imagination and the imagination is superior to sense. Therefore, since sense knows the singular, our intellect should also know it.

To the Contrary

Boethius says: “What is sensed is singular, what is understood is universal.”

REPLY

All action is determined by the condition of the form of the agent, the principle of action, just as the process of heating is measured by the amount of heat. Now, the likeness of the thing known, by which the knowing power is informed, is the principle of actual knowledge, just as heat is of heating. Hence, all cognition is necessarily determined by the limitations of the form in the knower. Consequently, since the likeness of a thing existing in our intellect is received as separated from matter and all the conditions of matter, which are the principles of individuation, it follows that our intellect, of itself, does not know singulars but only universals. For every form as such is universal, unless it happens to be a subsistent form, which, from the very fact of its being subsistent, is incommunicable.

It happens, however, that our intellect knows the singular indirectly. For, as the Philosopher says, phantasms are related to our intellect as sensible objects are related to sense and as colors outside the soul are related to sight. Therefore, just as the species in the sense is abstracted from things themselves and by its means the cognition of the sense is extended to the sensible things themselves, so also our intellect abstracts the species from the phantasms, and, by means of this species, its cognition is extended, in a certain sense, to the phantasms.

There is, however, this difference: The likeness in sense is abstracted from the thing as from an object of knowledge, and, consequently, the thing itself is directly known by means of this likeness. The likeness in the intellect, however, is not abstracted from the phantasm as from an object of knowledge but as from a medium of knowledge after the manner in which our sense receives the likeness of a thing which is in a mirror; it is directed to it not as to a thing but rather as to a likeness of a thing. Consequently, from the species which it receives, our intellect is not applied directly to knowing the phantasm but rather the thing whose phantasm is presented. Nevertheless, by a certain reflection our intellect also returns to a knowledge of the phantasm itself when it considers the nature of its act, the nature of the species by which it knows, and, finally, the nature of that from which it has abstracted the species, namely, the phantasm. It is like the case of sight, which is brought through a likeness received from a mirror directly to a knowledge of the thing reflected, but by a sort of reflection to the image itself in the mirror. Therefore, inasmuch as our intellect, through the likeness which it receives from the phantasm, turns back upon the phantasm from which it abstracts the species, the phantasm being a particular likeness, our intellect gets some kind of knowledge of the singular because of its dynamic union with the imagination.

Answers to Difficulties

1. There are two kinds of matter from which abstraction is made: intelligible matter and sensible matter—as is clear from the Metaphysics. I call that matter intelligible which is considered in the nature of a continuum, and sensible, that which is physical matter. Each, however, can be taken in two ways: as designated and as not designated. I call matter designated if it is considered together with the determination of its dimensions, that is, with these or those dimensions. I call it not designated, however, if it is considered without the determination of its dimensions. In this connection, it must be noted that designated matter is the principle of individuation, from which every intellect abstracts inasmuch as it is said to abstract from the here and now. The intellect of the natural Philosopher, however, does not abstract from non-designated sensible matter; for it considers man, flesh, and bone, in whose definitions non-designated sensible matter is included. The intellect of the mathematician, however, abstracts entirely from sensible matter, though not from non-designated intelligible matter. Hence, it is clear that abstraction, which is common to all intellects, makes a form universal.

2. According to the Philosopher, in us the intellect is not the only motive principle. The imagination is also such, and, by its means, the universal knowledge of the intellect is applied to some particular thing to be done. For this reason, the intellect is, as it were, a remote mover, but particular reason and the imagination are proximate movers.

3. Man has prior knowledge of singulars through imagination and sense. Consequently, he can apply his universal intellectual knowledge to a particular; for, properly speaking, it is neither the intellect nor the sense that knows, but man that knows through both—as is clear from The Soul.

4. What a lower power can do a higher power can do; not in the same, but in a more noble, way. Consequently, the intellect knows the same thing that sense knows, but in a more noble, because a more immaterial, way. Hence, it does not follow that the intellect knows the singular if the senses know it.

ARTICLE VII

In the seventh article we ask:

Does God know the singulars now existing or not existing?

This inquiry is occasioned by the position of Avicenna mentioned above. We wish to inquire whether God knows propositions, especially about singulars.

[Parallel readings: S.T., I, 14, 14; I Sent., 38, 3; 41, 5; C.G., I, cc. 58-59.]

Difficulties:

It seems that He does not, for

1. The divine intellect always remains in the same state; but a singular, inasmuch as now it exists and now it does not exist, has different states. Consequently, the divine intellect does not know whether or not a singular now exists.

2. Those powers of the soul which are indifferent to a thing’s presence or absence—as, for example, the imagination—do not know whether or not a thing exists; this is known only by those powers, such as sense, which do not know absent things as though they were present. Now, the divine intellect is disposed in the same way to things present or absent. Consequently, it does not know whether things exist now or not; it knows merely their natures.

3. According to the Philosopher, the composition signified when a thing is said to be or not to be is not in things but only in the intellect. Now, there can be no composition in the divine intellect. Therefore, God does not know whether or not a thing exists.

4. In the Gospel according to St. John (1:3-4) we read: “What was made, in Him was life. Now, in his explanation of this passage, Augustine says that created things are in God in the way in which a trunk is in the mind of the one who makes it. By means of the mental likeness of the trunk, however, a carpenter does not know whether the trunk exists or not. Consequently, neither does God know whether or not a singular now exists.

5. The more noble knowledge is, the more it resembles God’s knowledge. But the knowledge of an intellect comprehending the definitions of things is more noble than sense knowledge; for, when the intellect defines, it penetrates to the interior of a thing, but sense deals with externals. When the intellect defines, however, it does not know whether a thing exists or not, but simply the nature of the thing. Sense, however, does have such knowledge. It seems, therefore, that that type of knowledge by which only the nature of a thing is known, but not whether a thing exists or not, should be attributed to God.

6. God knows each and every thing by means of the idea He has of it. Now, that idea is indifferent to the existence or the non—existence of the thing. Otherwise, God could not know the future by means of it. God, therefore, does not know whether or not a thing exists.

To the Contrary

1. The more perfect knowledge is, the more co