ARTICLE I

This Question Treats of Knowledge, and in the First Article We Ask: IS THERE KNOWLEDGE IN GOD?

Difficulties:

It seems not, for

1. That which is had by an addition to another cannot be found in a most simple being, and God is most simple. Therefore, since knowledge is had by an addition to the essence--for life adds something to the act of existence and knowledge adds something to life--it seems that knowledge is not in God.

2. The answer was given that knowledge does not add anything to God's essence, since knowledge merely indicates a perfection God has that is not indicated by essence.--On the contrary, perfection is the name of a thing. But in God, essence and knowledge are absolutely one thing. The same perfection, therefore, is indicated by both words, essence and knowledge.

3. No noun can be used of God which does not signify the entire divine perfection; for if it does not signify His entire perfection, it signifies nothing about Him, since parts are not found in God and cannot be attributed to Him. Now, knowledge does not represent His entire perfection, for God "is above all names which name Him," as is stated in The Causes. Therefore, knowledge cannot be attributed to Him.

4. Moreover, science is the habit of conclusions, and understanding, the habit of principles--as is clear from what the Philosopher says. But God does not know anything as a conclusion: for this would mean that His intellect would proceed from premises to conclusions, though, as Dionysius has shown, this is not true even for the angels. Hence, science is not in God.

5. Whatever is known scientifically is known through something more known. For God, however, there is not anything more known or less known. Therefore, scientific knowledge cannot be in God.

6. Algazel says that knowledge is an impression of the known in the intellect of the knower. But an impression is entirely alien to God, for it implies receptivity and composition. Therefore, knowledge cannot be attributed to God.

7. Nothing implying imperfection can be attributed to God. But knowledge implies imperfection, for it is regarded as a habit or first act--the operation of considering being regarded as second act, as is stated in The Soul. But a first act is imperfect with respect to the second since it is in potency to the second. Therefore, knowledge cannot be in God.

8. The answer was that there is only actual knowledge in God.--On the contrary, God's knowledge is the cause of things. Therefore, if knowledge is attributed to God, it existed eternally in Him; and if only actual knowledge is in God, He produced things from all eternity. This is false.

9. Whenever there is anything which corresponds to the concept we have of the word knowledge, of it we know not only that it is but also what it is, for knowledge is a distinct reality. But, as Damascene says, we cannot know what God is, but only that He is. Therefore, in God there is nothing corresponding to our concept expressed by knowledge. Knowledge, therefore, does not exist in God.

10. Augustine states that God is not accessible to the intellect since He eludes every form. But knowledge is a form which the intellect conceives. Hence, God also eludes this form, and so there cannot be knowledge in God.

11. To understand is more simple and of greater dignity than to know. But as stated in The Causes, when we say that God understands or is an intelligence, we are not naming Him with a proper noun but "with the name of His first effect." Much less, then, can we use knowledge of God.

12. Quality implies a greater composition than quantity does, for quality inheres in a substance by means of quantity. We do not attribute anything of the genus of quantity to God because of His simplicity, for everything quantified has parts. Hence, since knowledge is in the genus of quality, it cannot be attributed to God.

To the Contrary:

1'. The Epistle to the Romans (11:33) says: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!"

2'. According to Anselm, we must attribute to God everything which in each thing it is better absolutely to have than not to have. Since knowledge is a perfection of this kind, it must be attributed to God.

3'. Only three things are required for knowledge: an active power in the knower by which he judges about things, a thing known, and the union of both. But in God there is the most active power possible and an essence that is most knowable; consequently, there is a union of both. God, therefore, knows in the highest degree. Our proof of the minor premise is drawn from the fact mentioned in The Intelligences, namely: "The first substance is light." But light has active power most of all, as is shown from its diffusion and multiplication. It is, besides, highly knowable and, because of this, also makes other things known. Therefore, the first substance, God, has an active power to know and is Himself also knowable.

REPLY:

All attribute knowledge to God, but in different ways. Some, not being able by their own intellectual power to go beyond the manner of created knowledge, have believed that knowledge is in God like some sort of disposition added to His essence, as is the case with us. This is quite absurd and erroneous. For, if it were true, God would not be absolutely simple. There would be in Him a composition of substance and accident, and, further, God would not be His own act of existence; for, as Boethius says: "What exists can share in something else, but existence itself in no way shares in anything else." If God shared in knowledge as if it were a state added to His essence, He would not be His own act of existence, and, thus, He would have His origin from another who would be the cause of His existence. In short, He would not be God.

For this reason others have asserted that, when we attribute knowledge or something of the same sort to God, we postulate nothing positive in Him but merely designate Him as the cause of knowledge in created things. In other words, God is said to be a knower merely because He communicates knowledge to creatures. Although a partial reason for the truth of the proposition "God is a knower" may be that He causes truth (and Origen and Augustine seem to say this), it is not the whole truth for two reasons. First, by the same reasoning we should have to predicate of God whatever He causes in creatures, and so we should have to say that He moves since He causes motion in things. This, of course, cannot be said. Second, those attributes which are predicated of both causes and effects are not said to be in the causes because of the effects. Rather, they are said to be in the effects because they are found in the causes. For example, because fire is hot, it induces heat into the air. The converse is not true. Similarly, because the nature of God is to have knowledge, He communicates knowledge to us, and not the other way about.

Still others have said that knowledge and the like are attributed to God in a certain proportionate likeness, as anger, mercy, and similar passions are attributed to Him. For God is said to be angry in so far as He does something similar to what an angry man does, for He punishes. In us, this is the effect of anger. Properly speaking, of course, the passion of anger cannot be in God. In the same way, they say, God is said to be a knower because His effects resemble those of a knowing agent. For example, the works of one who has scientific knowledge proceed from determined principles to determined ends, and so do the divinely originated works of nature--as is clear from the Physics. But, according to this view, knowledge is attributed merely metaphorically to God, as are anger and other like things--an opinion contrary to the words of Dionysius and other saints.

Consequently, one must give another answer and say that, when knowledge is attributed to God, it signifies something which is in Him. The same is true of life, essence, and the like. These attributes do not differ as regards the reality which is signified, but only in our manner of understanding them. For God's essence, life, knowledge, and whatever else of this sort that may be predicated of Him are all the same; but in understanding essence, life, and so forth in His regard, our intellect has different concepts for each. This does not mean that these concepts are false; for our intellectual conceptions are true inasmuch as they actually represent the thing known by a certain process of assimilation. Otherwise they would be false, that is, if they corresponded to nothing.

Our intellect, however, cannot represent God in the same way that it represents creatures; for, when it knows a creature, it conceives a certain form which is the likeness of the thing according to its entire perfection; and in this manner defines the things understood. But since God infinitely exceeds the power of our intellect, any form we conceive cannot completely represent the divine essence, but merely has, in some small measure, an imitation of it. Similarly, extramental realities imitate it somewhat, but imperfectly. Hence, all different things imitate God in different ways; and, according to different forms, they represent the one simple form of God, since in His form are found perfectly united all the perfections that are found, distinct and multiple, among creatures. This is like the properties of numbers, which all, in a certain sense, pre-exist in unity, and like all the individual authorities of royal officials, which are all united in the authority of the king. If there were anything that could perfectly represent God, that thing would be unique, for it would represent Him in one way and according to one form. For this reason, there is in God only one Son, who is the perfect image of the Father.

Accordingly, our intellect represents the divine perfection by means of different conceptions, for each one of them is imperfect. If one were perfect, it would be the only one, just as there is only one Word in the divine intellect. There are, therefore, many conceptions in our intellect that represent the divine essence, and the divine intellect corresponds to each one of these as a thing corresponds to an imperfect image of itself. Thus, even though we have several intellectual conceptions about one thing, they are all true. Moreover, since names do not signify things without the mediation of the intellect, as is pointed out in Interpretation, the intellect applies several names to one thing according to the different ways in which it understands it, or (what comes to the same thing) according to different formal aspects. To all of these, however, there corresponds something in reality.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Knowledge is not had by an addition to being, except in so far as our intellect grasps someone's knowledge and essence as distinct; for addition presupposes distinction. In God, knowledge and essence are not really distinct, as is clear from our discussion. They are merely conceived in this way. Therefore, knowledge is not in God by an addition to His essence, except according to our way of understanding.

2. One cannot correctly say that knowledge in God signifies a perfection other than His essence. It is merely signified as though it were another perfection, since our intellect applies to Him the names referred to from the different concepts we have of Him.

3. Since names represent concepts, a name signifies the totality of a thing in direct proportion to the intellect's understanding of it. Our intellect can understand the whole of God, but not wholly. With God, one must know the whole or nothing at all, since in Him there is no question of part and whole. I say "not wholly," however, since the intellect does not know Him perfectly in so far as He is knowable by His very nature. Thus, our knowledge is like that of a man who knows with probability the conclusion, "The diameter is asymmetric to the side," merely because all men assert it. He does not know this conclusion wholly, since he does not arrive at the perfect manner of knowing with which it is capable of being grasped. Yet he knows the entire conclusion and is ignorant of no part of it. So, too, the names which are applied to God signify the whole God, but not wholly.

4. What is in God without imperfection is found with some defect in creatures. Hence, if we attribute to God something found in creatures, we must entirely remove everything that smacks of imperfection so that only what is perfect will remain; for it is only according to its perfection that a creature imitates God. I point out, therefore, that our scientific knowledge contains both some perfection and some imperfection. Its certitude pertains to its perfection, for what is known scientifically is known with certainty. To its imperfection belongs its progression from principles to the conclusions contained in that science; for this progression happens only because the intellect, in knowing the premises, knows the conclusions only potentially. If it actually knew the conclusions, there would be no need of it to go further, since motion is simply the passage from potency to act. Knowledge is said to be in God, therefore, because of its certitude about things known, but not because of the progression mentioned above, for, as Dionysius says, this is not found even in angels.

5. If we take into consideration the manner proper to God as a knower, there is nothing more known or less known in God, because He sees all with the same intuition. If we consider the condition of the things known, however, He knows some to be more knowable in themselves and some less knowable; for example, of all the things He knows, the most knowable is His own essence, through which He knows everything--not by a progression, however, since by seeing His essence He simultaneously sees all things. If this order of things known in the divine cognition is considered, the notion of science can also be verified in God, for He knows all things principally in their Cause.

6. That statement of Algazel is to be understood of our knowledge, which is acquired by the impression upon our souls of the likenesses of things. The opposite is true of God's cognition, for it is from His intellect that forms flow into creatures. Our knowledge is the impressing of things in our souls; but the forms of things are the impressing of the divine knowledge in things.

7. The knowledge posited of God is not like a habit but rather like an act, since He always actually knows all things.

8. Effects proceed from acting causes according to the condition of the causes. Hence, every effect which proceeds by reason of knowledge follows the determination of that knowledge, which limits its conditions. Therefore, the things which have God's knowledge as their cause proceed only when it has been determined by God that they shall proceed. Consequently, it is not necessary that things actually exist from eternity, even though God's knowledge is actual from all eternity.

9. The intellect is said to know what a thing is when it defines that thing, that is, when it conceives some form of the thing which corresponds to it in all respects. From our previous discussion,* it is clear that whatever our intellect conceives of God falls short of being a representation of Him. Consequently, the quiddity of God Himself remains forever hidden from us. The most we can know of God during our present life is that He transcends everything that we can conceive of Him--as is clear from Dionysius.

10. God is said to elude every form of our intellect, not because there is no form of our intellect that can represent Him at all, but because there is no form that can represent Him perfectly.

11. As is said in the Metaphysics: "An intelligible character signified by a noun is a definition." Hence, the name of a thing is proper if its meaning is its definition. Now, since no intelligible character signified by a name defines God Himself, no name we apply to God is proper to Him. It is proper rather to the creature defined by the character signified by the name. These names, though the names of creatures, are attributed to God, however, in so far as a likeness of Him is found in some way in creatures.

12. The knowledge attributed to God is not a quality. Furthermore, a quality that follows upon quantity is a bodily quality--not a spiritual quality, as knowledge is.