ARTICLE XIV

In the Fourteenth Article We Ask: IS GOD'S KNOWLEDGE THE CAUSE OF THINGS?

Difficulties:

It seems not, for

1. Origen says: "A thing will be, not because God knows that it will be, but, because it will be, it is known by God before it exists." Consequently, it seems that things are the cause of His knowledge rather than conversely.

2. Given the cause, the effect follows. But God's knowledge has been from eternity. Therefore, if His knowledge is the cause of things, it seems that things have existed from eternity. But this is heretical.

3. A necessary effect follows a necessary cause. Hence, even demonstrations, which are made through a necessary cause, have necessary conclusions. But God's knowledge is necessary since it is eternal. Therefore, all things which are known by God would be necessary. But this is absurd.

4. If God's knowledge is the cause of things, then it will be related to things in the way in which things are related to our knowledge. But things determine the type of knowledge we have; for instance, of necessary things we have necessary knowledge. Therefore, if God's knowledge were the cause of things, it would impose the mode of necessity on all things. But this is false.

5. A first cause has a more powerful influence upon an effect than a second. But, if God's knowledge is the cause of things, it will be a first cause; and, since necessity follows in the effects of necessary secondary causes, much more will necessity in things follow from God's knowledge. Thus, the original difficulty stands.

6. Knowledge has a more essential relation to things to which it stands as their cause than to things to which it stands as their effect; for a cause leaves its impression upon an effect, but an effect does not leave its impression upon the cause. Now, our knowledge, which is related to things as their effect, requires necessity in the things known if it is to be necessary itself. Therefore, if God's knowledge were the cause of things, much more would it demand necessity in the things it knows. Consequently, God would not know contingent beings, and this is contrary to what was said previously.

To the Contrary:

1'. Augustine says: "Not because they are does God know all creatures, spiritual and corporeal, but they are because He knows them." Therefore, God's knowledge is the cause of created things.

2'. God's knowledge is, in a sense, the art of the things that are to be created; hence Augustine says: "The Word is an artistic conception filled with the intelligible characters of living things." But art is the cause of artistic products. Therefore, God's knowledge is the cause of created things.

3'. The opinion of Anaxagoras, approved by the Philosopher, seems to support this view; for he asserted that the first principle of things was an intellect, which moved and distinguished all things.

REPLY:

An effect cannot be more simple than its cause. Consequently, whatever things in which one nature is found must be reduced to some one thing which is the first subject of that nature, as all hot things are reduced to one and the first hot thing, namely, fire, which, as is said in the Metaphysics, is the cause of heat in others. Now, since every resemblance involves an agreement of forms, whatever things are alike are so related that either one is the cause of the other or both are caused by one cause. Moreover, in all knowledge there is an assimilation of the knower to the known. Hence, either the knowledge is the cause of the thing known, or the thing known is the cause of the knowledge, or both are caused by one cause. It cannot be said, however, that what is known by God is the cause of His knowledge; for things are temporal and His knowledge is eternal, and what is temporal cannot be the cause of anything eternal. Similarly, it cannot be said that both are caused by one cause, because there can be nothing caused in God, seeing that He is whatever He has. Hence, there is left only one possibility: His knowledge is the cause of things. Conversely, our knowledge is caused by things inasmuch as we receive it from things. Angels' knowledge, however, is not caused by things and is not the cause of things, but both the things which the angels know and their knowledge are from one cause; for in the same way that God communicates universal forms to things, making them subsist, He communicates likenesses of things to the minds of angels so that the angels can know them.

It should be observed, however, that knowledge as knowledge does not denote an active cause, no more than does a form as a form. Action consists, as it were, in the procession of something from the agent; but a form as a form has its act of existence by perfecting that in which it is, and by resting in that thing. Consequently, a form is not a principle of acting, except through the mediation of a power. In some cases, it is true, the form itself is the power, but not by reason of being a form. In other cases, the power is other than the substantial form of the thing. For example, the actions of bodies do not take place without the mediation of certain of their qualities. Similarly, knowledge denotes that there is something in the knower, not that something has been caused by the knower. Hence, an effect never arises from knowledge except through the mediation of the will, which, of its very nature, implies a certain influence upon what is willed. For action never proceeds from a substance without the mediation of a power, although in the case of some substances, such as God, will is identical with knowledge. In other substances, namely, all creatures, this is not the case. Similarly, effects proceed from God, the first cause of all things, through the mediation of secondary causes.

Hence, between His knowledge (the cause of the thing) and the thing caused there is found a twofold medium: one on the part of God, namely, the divine will; another on the part of things themselves in regard to certain effects, namely, the medium of secondary causes through whose mediation things proceed from God's knowledge. Moreover, every effect follows not only the condition of the first cause but also that of the intermediate cause. Hence, the things known by God proceed from His knowledge as conditioned by His will and as conditioned by secondary causes. Consequently, it is not necessary that these things follow the manner of His knowledge in all respects.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Origen's meaning is that God's knowledge is not a cause so necessitating the thing known that from the very fact that something is known by God it must necessarily take place. Moreover, his phrase "Because it is to be, it is known by God . . ." gives the reason for concluding that God knows it, not the cause of the divine knowledge.

2. Since things proceed from knowledge through the mediation of the will, it is not necessary for them to come into being whenever there is knowledge of them, but only when the will determines that they should.

3. An effect follows the necessity of its proximate cause, which can also be a means of demonstrating the effect. An effect need not follow the necessity of the first cause, since an effect can be impeded, if it is contingent, by reason of a secondary cause. This is seen in the effects produced by the motion of the celestial bodies through the mediation of inferior forces on objects subject to generation and corruption. Even though the motion of the heavens remains always the same, these effects are contingent because the natural forces are defective.

4. A thing is the proximate cause of our knowledge. Hence, it imposes its own mode upon our knowledge. But, since God is a first cause, there is no parallel. Or we may say that our knowledge of necessary things is necessary, not by reason of the fact that things known cause our knowledge, but because of the conformity of the power to the things known, which is required for knowledge.

5. Although the first cause influences an effect more powerfully than a secondary cause does, the effect does not take place without the operation of the secondary cause. Hence, if it is possible for the secondary cause to fail in its operation, it is possible for the effect not to take place, even though the first cause itself cannot fail. The possibility of the effect's not taking place would be much greater if the first cause itself could fail. Therefore, since both causes are required for the existence of an effect, a failure of either cause will result in a failure of the effect. Hence, if contingency is affirmed of either cause, the effect will be contingent. But, if only one of the causes is necessary, the effect will not be necessary, since both causes are required for the existence of the effect. But, because a secondary cause cannot be necessary if the first cause is contingent, one can say that the necessity of an effect follows the necessity of the second cause.

6. Our reply here is the same as our reply to the fourth difficulty.