ARTICLE I

This Question Treats the Knowledge of Angels. In the First Article We Ask: DO THE ANGELS SEE GOD THROUGH HIS ESSENCE?

Difficulties:

It seems not, for

1. We read in the Gospel according to St. John (1:18): "No man hath seen God at any time." Commenting on this, Chrysostom writes: "Not even the heavenly essences themselves, I mean the cherubim and seraphim, were able to see God as He is." But whoever sees God through His essence sees Him as He is. Angels, therefore, do not see God through His essence.

2. Commenting on that verse in Exodus (33:11), "And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face," the Gloss reads: "No man, no angel has ever seen the essence of God as it is." Consequently, our conclusion is the same as before.

3. According to Augustine, one desires a thing only if one does not have it. But in the first Epistle of St. Peter (1:12), we read that "the angels desire to look upon God." Therefore, they do not see God through His essence.

4. Commenting on the first chapter of John, Chrysostom says: "Neither prophets, angels, nor archangels were able to see that which is God." Since that which is God is God's essence, our conclusion is the same as before.

5. Whatever is seen by the intellect is seen through a form. Consequently, if the intellect of an angel were to see the divine essence, it would have to see it through some form. Now, it could not see it through the divine essence itself, because the form by which the intellect understands makes the intellect to be in act and, consequently, is the act of the intellect. Hence, the divine essence and the intellect would be made one. But this cannot be said of the divine essence, which cannot become the constitutive part of anything. Therefore, when an angel knows God, he sees Him through the medium of some other form, and, consequently, does not see Him through His essence.

6. The intellect must be proportionate to the intelligible since the intelligible is a perfection of the one who understands. But there can be no proportion between the divine essence and an angelic intellect, for they are separated by an infinite distance, and there is no proportion between such widely separated things. Consequently, an angel cannot see God through His essence.

7. One thing can be made like another only in so far as it has received likeness of that other into itself. But by knowing God, an angelic intellect is made like God, for all knowledge takes place through assimilation. Consequently, an angel must know God through a likeness, and not through His essence.

8. Whoever knows a thing through its essence knows what that thing is. Now, as is clear from the writings of Dionysius and Damascene, one cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. No created intellect, therefore, can see God through His essence.

9. As Dionysius says, darkness is said to be in God because of the superabundance of His brightness and because He is hidden from all lights and concealed from all knowledge. Now, God's brightness exceeds not only our intellect but also the angelic intellect. Consequently, the brightness of the divine essence is hidden from the knowledge of angels.

10. Dionysius argues as follows: All cognition is about existing things. God, however, does not exist but is above existence. Therefore, He cannot be known except by transcendent knowledge, which is divine knowledge.

11. Dionysius says: "If a person seeing God understood what he saw, he did not see God but only one of the things belonging to Him." Therefore, no created intellect can see God through His essence.

12. The stronger sight is, the more it can see something at a distance. Consequently, what is infinitely distant cannot be seen except by a sight that has infinite power. Now, the divine essence stands at an infinite distance from any created intellect. Therefore, since no created intellect has unlimited power, no created intellect can see God through His essence.

13. For any kind of knowledge, a judgment is necessary. A judgment, however, is made only by a superior about something inferior. Therefore, since no intellect is superior to the divine essence, no created intellect will be able to see God through His essence.

14. Boethius says: "A judgment is the act of one who judges." Consequently, what is judged is related to the judgment as something passive. But the divine essence cannot be in the relation of passivity with respect to any created intellect. Therefore, a created intellect cannot see God through His essence.

15. Whatever is seen through its essence is reached by the intellect. But no intellect can reach that which stands at an infinite distance from it. Consequently, an angelic intellect cannot see God's essence, which stands at an infinite distance from it.

To the Contrary:

1'. In the Gospel according to St. Matthew (18:10) we read: "Their angels always see the face of my Father." Now, to see the face of the Father is to see His essence. Angels, therefore, see God through His essence.

2'. Beatified angels see God in the way in which we have been promised to see Him when we are beatified. But we will see God through His essence, as is clear from the first Epistle of St. John (3:2): "When he shall appear, we shall be like to him; because we shall see him as he is." Therefore, angels see God through His essence.

3'. Angels know the one who has made them. But the divine essence itself is the cause of angels. Therefore, angels see the divine essence.

4'. Whatever is seen is seen either through its essence or through a likeness. But God's likeness is not something other than His essence, because whatever is in God is God. Consequently, angels see God through His essence.

5'. The intellect is stronger when it knows than the will when it loves. Consequently, Augustine says: "The intellect goes first; the will act follows later or not at all." Now, angels love the divine essence. Therefore, they see it in a much higher degree.

REPLY:

Treating this question, some philosophers have erred by saying that no created intellect can see God through His essence; for they concentrated only on the distance lying between a created intellect and the divine essence. Since this position is heretical, it cannot be held.

It is clear that the beatitude of any intellectual creature consists in its most perfect operation. Now, the supreme element of any rational creature is his intellect. Consequently, the beatitude of any rational creature consists in the most noble act of his intellectual vision. The nobility of intellectual vision, however, comes from the nobility of what is understood, just as the Philosopher says that the most perfect operation of sight takes place when it is in good condition and is directed to the most beautiful of all those things that fall under its view. If in its most perfect vision a rational creature would not see the divine essence, then its beatitude would not be God Himself but something inferior to Him. This, however, is not possible, for the ultimate perfection of all things consists in their reaching their principle; and our faith tells us that God Himself immediately created all rational creatures. Hence, according to faith, all rational creatures who attain beatitude should see God through His essence.

Now, however, we must consider or understand how we can see God through His essence. In all vision there must be posited something by which the one who sees beholds what is seen. This medium is either the very essence of the thing seen, as is true in the case of God's knowledge of Himself, or some likeness of the thing seen, as is true in the case of a man seeing a stone. This is necessary, because the person who knows and the known should in some manner become one in the act of knowing. God's essence, however, cannot be seen by a created intellect by means of a likeness. For, in all cognition taking place through a likeness, the perfection of cognition is determined by the conformity which the likeness has with that thing whose likeness it is; and I mean a conformity in representation, such as a species in the soul has with the thing outside the soul even though it does not have a conformity with it in real existence. Consequently, if a likeness represents a genus, but not a species, the thing is known according to the intelligible character of the genus but not according to that of the species. If the likeness were to fail to represent even the genus, however, it would represent the thing only according to a likeness which is merely analogous. In such a case, the thing would not be known even according to the intelligible character of the genus. This would happen, for example, if I were to know a substance through the likeness of an accident.

Now, any likeness of the divine essence that is received into a created intellect can have no proportion with the divine essence other than that of analogy. Consequently, knowledge which is had through such a likeness is not knowledge of God Himself through His essence. In fact, it is more imperfect than that which would be had if a substance were known through the likeness of an accident. Consequently, those persons who said that God is not seen through His essence taught that only a certain brightness of the divine essence will be seen, meaning by brightness a likeness of the uncreated light through which, they affirmed, God could be seen but which was unable to represent the divine essence--just as the light received by our eyes fails to represent the brightness of the sun, with the result that we cannot fix our vision upon the sun's brightness but can see only some of its brilliant rays. It remains, therefore, that that by which a created intellect sees God through His essence is the divine essence itself.

It is not necessary, however, for the divine essence to become the form of the intellect but only to become related to the intellect after the manner of a form. Consequently, just as one actual being results from matter and a form which is a part of the thing; so, with the necessary differences, the created intellect and the divine essence become one in the act of understanding when the intellect understands and the divine essence is understood through itself.

How it is possible for a separated essence to be joined to the intellect as a form has been shown by the Commentator. Whenever two things are received in something that can receive, and one of them is more perfect than the other, the proportion of what is more perfect to that which is less perfect is like the proportion of a form to what it perfects--just as light is the perfection of color when both are received in a transparent medium. Consequently, since a created intellect, because present in a created substance, is less perfect than the divine essence, the divine essence bears to it in some way the relation of a form as long as it exists in it. We can find some sort of example of this among natural things. A self-subsistent thing cannot be the form of any matter if it contains matter itself. For example, a stone cannot be the form of any matter. A self-subsistent thing lacking matter, however, can be the form of matter, as is clear in the case of the soul. Similarly and in some way or other, and even though it is pure act and has an act of being entirely distinct from the intellect, the divine essence becomes related to the intellect as its form in the act of understanding. For this reason, Peter Lombard says that the union of the body with a rational soul is, in a way, an example of the beatifying union of a rational spirit with God.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. The statement, "This is seen as it is," can be understood in two ways. First, it can mean that the very mode of the thing's existence comes within one's vision, that is to say, the very mode of the thing's existence is seen along with the thing. It is in this way that God, as He is, is seen by angels and will be seen by the blessed; for they will see that His essence has that manner of being which it has. That verse in the first Epistle of John, "We shall see him as he is" (3:2), is to be understood in this sense. Second, however, it can mean that the manner mentioned determines the vision of the one who sees. In other words, the manner of the vision itself is the same as the manner of the essence of the thing seen. In this sense, no created intellect can see God as He is; for it is impossible for the mode of a created intellect's vision to be as sublime as the mode of God's existence. The statement of Chrysostom should be understood in this sense.

2-3-4. A similar reply should be given to the second, third, and fourth difficulties.

5. The form by which an intellect sees God when it sees Him through His essence is the divine essence itself. From this, however, it follows, not that the essence is that form which is a part of a thing in its existence, but only that in the act of knowing it has a relation similar to that of a form which is a part of a thing in its existence.

6. Properly speaking, a proportion is nothing else but a relation of a quantity to a quantity, such as arises when one quantity is equal to or three times another. The term proportion was then transferred to signify the relation of one reality to another. For example, even though no relation of quantity is involved, matter is said to be proportioned to form inasmuch as it is related to form as its matter. Similarly, a created intellect is proportionate to the sight of the divine essence inasmuch as, in some way, it is related to the latter as to an intelligible form, even though the perfections of the two are incommensurable because an infinite distance lies between them.

7. Assimilation is required for knowledge for this reason only, that the knower be in some way united to what is known. However, when the thing itself is united through its own essence to the intellect, the union is more perfect than if it had taken place through a likeness. Consequently, since the divine essence is united to the angelic intellect as its form, there is no need that the angelic intellect be informed by some likeness which would serve as a medium for knowing the divine essence.

8. The statements of Dionysius and of Damascene should be understood as referring to the vision had in this life, in which a person sees God through some form or other. Since this form falls short of representing the divine essence, the latter cannot be seen through it. All that is known is that God transcends this intellectual representation of Him. Consequently, that which God is remains hidden; and this is the most exalted mode of knowledge that we can attain while we are in this life. Hence, we do not know what God is, but only what He is not. Nevertheless, the divine essence represents itself sufficiently. But when it becomes, as it were, the form of the intellect, the intellect knows not only what God is not but also what He is.

9. God's splendor proves too much for the intellects of persons in this life for two reasons. First, it lies beyond the grasp of their intellectual power. From this it follows that the perfection of our vision is not equal to the perfection of His essence, because what an action can accomplish is determined by the agent's perfection. Second, it transcends the form by which our intellects now understand. Consequently, God is not seen now through His essence, as is clear from what has been said.* In the beatific vision, however, while God still transcends the power of a created intellect, and the perfection of our vision still does not equal the perfection of His being, He does not lie beyond the form by which He is seen. Consequently, that which is God will be seen.

10. Dionysius's argument proceeds from the knowledge had while in this life. This is had from forms in existing creatures, and, consequently, it cannot attain to what is transcendent. Such is not the case, however, of the vision had in heaven. His argument, therefore, is not pertinent to the problem at hand.

11. That statement of Dionysius should be understood as referring to the vision had in this life, wherein God is known through some created form. Our reason for saying this has been explained above.

12. A sense of sight must be very strong if it sees what is at some distance from it; for sight is a passive power, and the more perfect a passive potency is, the less is required to move it. Conversely, the more perfect an active power is, the more it can move. Again, a thing is more susceptible to being heated, the less heat it requires to become hot. But the more distant a thing seen is, the smaller is the visual angle; consequently, less of the thing seen comes to the sense of sight. However, if an equal form were to come from what is near and from what is far, the near object would not be seen less than the distant object would be. Now, even though an infinite distance lies between God and an angelic intellect, He is nevertheless joined to that intellect by His entire essence. Consequently, the cases are not similar.

13. There are two kinds of judgments. In the first, we judge how a thing should be; and this kind of judgment can be made only by one who is superior about what is inferior. In the second, we judge how things are; and this kind of judgment can be both about what is superior and about what is equal, for I am equally able to judge if one is standing or sitting, whether he be a king or a peasant. This second kind of judgment is found in cognition.

14. A judgment is not an action which passes out from the agent into an exterior thing which is then changed by it. Instead, it is an operation that remains as a perfection in the one who judges. Consequently, that about which the intellect or the sense judges need not be passive, even though it may be signified as passive. As a matter of fact, what is sensed and what is understood (the object of a judgment) are related to intellect and sense more like agents, inasmuch as the operations of sensation and understanding are in a certain sense passive.

15. A created intellect never attains the divine essence so as to be of the same nature. It does attain it, however, as an intelligible form.