ARTICLE IV

In the Fourth Article We Ask: DOES GOD HAVE PROPER AND DETERMINATE KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS?

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 thing is." 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.