Sect. 79The Divine Knowledge in GeneralThe Divine Knowledge in General
I. That God possesses most perfect intellectual knowledge is contained in the very idea of the Divinity. The First Principle of the order of the universe, the Source and Ideal of all knowledge, must necessarily be possessed of wisdom. “O Lord, Who hast the knowledge of all things” (Esth. 14:14); “The Lord knoweth all knowledge” (Ecclus. 42:19; 1 Kings 2:3; Rom. 11:33; Col. 2:3; Ecclus. 1:1, 5, etc.).
II. God is His knowledge: in Him there is no real distinction between the faculty and the act of knowing, nor between these two and their object. Even when His knowledge extends to things outside Him, the adequate reason for such extension of the Divine knowledge is in God Himself; nothing external affects, moves, determines or influences it in any way. This is of faith, because it is evidently contained in the simplicity and independence of God, and because it is formally expressed in the propositions: God is Wisdom, God is Light. As God is the Light of all other spirits (“the light which enlighteneth every man,” John 1), so also is He Himself the sun, in the light of which He sees all things (Ecclus. 42:16).
III. The mode of action of the Divine knowledge is essentially different from that of the knowledge of creatures. The created mind knows itself as it knows other things; the knowledge of its own being is only the starting-point, and a condition of the rest of its knowledge, not its source and root. God, on the contrary, possesses in His Essence an object which itself determines and produces His knowledge from within, and is sufficient to fill the Divine Intellect and to extend the Divine knowledge to all things knowable. The Divine Essence can act this part in the process of the Divine knowledge, because it is intimately and essentially present to the Divine Intellect—nay, is identical with it; because, again, it presents to the infinite faculty of knowing an adequate object, an object of infinite perfection; and, lastly, because, inasmuch as it is the essential principle of all that exists outside God, the perfect knowledge of it implies the perfect knowledge of all that is or can be. The knowledge which God has of things outside Him, does not presuppose in these things an existence independent of the Divine knowledge; on the contrary, God knows them as caused and produced by His knowledge. In fact, things exist because God, seeing their possibility in His own Essence, decrees that they shall exist either by an immediate act of His Omnipotence or through the agency of created causes. In the language of the Schoolmen this doctrine is briefly expressed by saying that the Divine Essence is the “formal object” of the Divine knowledge, and that all other things knowable are its “material object.” This point of doctrine (viz. that the Divine Essence is the formal and primary object of God’s knowledge, and that other things knowable are its material and secondary object) is a development of defined dogmas, and is commonly taught by theologians. St. Thomas (I., q. 14, a. 8), puts it as follows: “The things of nature stand midway between God’s knowledge and ours. We receive our knowledge from natural things, of which God, through His knowledge, is the cause: wherefore, as natural things precede our knowledge of them and are its measure, so God’s knowledge precedes them, and is their measure; just as a house stands midway between the knowledge of the architect who designed it and the knowledge of him who knows it only after seeing it built.”
IV. By reason of its identity with the Divine Essence, the Divine knowledge possesses the highest possible perfection. It is in a unique manner an intellectual knowledge, because it attains its object from within, from its Essence and Nature, unlike human knowledge which penetrates to the essence and nature of things only by observing their external phenomena. It is in a unique manner an intuitive knowledge, because it adequately comprehends its object in a single act, free from abstractions, conjectures, or ratiocinations; it comprehends all possible beings in the very foundation of their possibility; things are present to the Divine intention before they are present to themselves. Moreover, the Divine knowledge is comprehensive and adequate, inasmuch as it grasps the inmost essence of things in the most exhaustive manner. Lastly, it is an eminently certain and unerring knowledge: uncertainty and error being incompatible with intuition and comprehensiveness of knowledge. All these attributes are of faith, because implied in the infinite perfection of the Divine intellect, and are clearly set forth in many texts of Holy Scripture. “The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men, into the most hidden parts” (Ecclus. 23:28; cf. Job 28:24; Heb. 4:13, etc.).
V. The negative attributes of the Divine perfection shine with an especial splendour in the Divine knowledge. Thus God’s knowledge is intrinsically necessary—that is, it necessarily embraces whatever is knowable. Although, as regards contingent objects, this necessity is only hypothetical, still it cannot be said that God’s knowledge of things contingent is itself contingent, because such an expression might imply an indetermination on the part of the Divine knowledge. It is absolutely simple: God knows Himself and all things outside Him in one indivisible act. It is infinite in intensity as well as in extension—that is, it is the deepest and the richest knowledge; nothing is hidden from it; it embraces an infinite object in the Divine Essence, and an infinite number of things in the domain of possibility. It is immutable: nothing can be added to or withdrawn from it. It is eternal, having neither beginning nor end nor succession, not only as regards truths of an eternal character, but also as to things temporary which are eternally visible to the eternal eye of God. The Divine Immensity and Omnipresence add another perfection to the science of God, inasmuch as they bring all things knowable into immediate contact with the Divine Intellect. Lastly, the Divine knowledge is in a special manner incomprehensible and inscrutable to the created mind, notably to the mind in its natural state. We are unable to comprehend not only its depth and breadth, but also the manner in which the Divine Intellect lays hold of things external and renders them present to itself without being in the least dependent on them or waiting for them to come into existence; and, further, we are unable to understand how He sees, in one and the same act, cause and effect, and how the intuition of a free agent involves the intuition of its free acts. A cognition of this kind is utterly beyond and above the methods of finite cognition, and indeed is partly in direct opposition to the laws which regulate created knowledge. This ought to be kept well in view in order to meet the difficulties connected with this question. Cf. Ecclus. 42:16 sqq.; St. Aug., De Trin., l. xv., c. 7; St. Peter Damian, Ep., iv., c. 7, 8.
VI. The absolute perfection of the Divine knowledge is expressed by the term Omniscience: God knows all that is knowable, and as far as it is knowable. The domain of the Divine Science comprises, therefore, (1) God Himself; (2) the metaphysically possible; (3) the things created by God; (4) the motions and modes of being of creatures as caused either by God or by creatures themselves; (5) especially the free activity of creatures, the knowledge of which constitutes the exalted and incomprehensible privilege of the Divine Omniscience.
As to (4) we should bear in mind that the activity of creatures, with all its actual and possible modifications, is as much dependent on God as their substance is. God knows this activity from within, from its very cause; whereas the created mind only knows it from its external manifestations or effects. We shall treat of (5) in the following section.
I. That God possesses most perfect intellectual knowledge is contained in the very idea of the Divinity. The First Principle of the order of the universe, the Source and Ideal of all knowledge, must necessarily be possessed of wisdom. “O Lord, Who hast the knowledge of all things” (Esth. 14:14); “The Lord knoweth all knowledge” (Ecclus. 42:19; 1 Kings 2:3; Rom. 11:33; Col. 2:3; Ecclus. 1:1, 5, etc.).
II. God is His knowledge: in Him there is no real distinction between the faculty and the act of knowing, nor between these two and their object. Even when His knowledge extends to things outside Him, the adequate reason for such extension of the Divine knowledge is in God Himself; nothing external affects, moves, determines or influences it in any way. This is of faith, because it is evidently contained in the simplicity and independence of God, and because it is formally expressed in the propositions: God is Wisdom, God is Light. As God is the Light of all other spirits (“the light which enlighteneth every man,” John 1), so also is He Himself the sun, in the light of which He sees all things (Ecclus. 42:16).
III. The mode of action of the Divine knowledge is essentially different from that of the knowledge of creatures. The created mind knows itself as it knows other things; the knowledge of its own being is only the starting-point, and a condition of the rest of its knowledge, not its source and root. God, on the contrary, possesses in His Essence an object which itself determines and produces His knowledge from within, and is sufficient to fill the Divine Intellect and to extend the Divine knowledge to all things knowable. The Divine Essence can act this part in the process of the Divine knowledge, because it is intimately and essentially present to the Divine Intellect—nay, is identical with it; because, again, it presents to the infinite faculty of knowing an adequate object, an object of infinite perfection; and, lastly, because, inasmuch as it is the essential principle of all that exists outside God, the perfect knowledge of it implies the perfect knowledge of all that is or can be. The knowledge which God has of things outside Him, does not presuppose in these things an existence independent of the Divine knowledge; on the contrary, God knows them as caused and produced by His knowledge. In fact, things exist because God, seeing their possibility in His own Essence, decrees that they shall exist either by an immediate act of His Omnipotence or through the agency of created causes. In the language of the Schoolmen this doctrine is briefly expressed by saying that the Divine Essence is the “formal object” of the Divine knowledge, and that all other things knowable are its “material object.” This point of doctrine (viz. that the Divine Essence is the formal and primary object of God’s knowledge, and that other things knowable are its material and secondary object) is a development of defined dogmas, and is commonly taught by theologians. St. Thomas (I., q. 14, a. 8), puts it as follows: “The things of nature stand midway between God’s knowledge and ours. We receive our knowledge from natural things, of which God, through His knowledge, is the cause: wherefore, as natural things precede our knowledge of them and are its measure, so God’s knowledge precedes them, and is their measure; just as a house stands midway between the knowledge of the architect who designed it and the knowledge of him who knows it only after seeing it built.”
IV. By reason of its identity with the Divine Essence, the Divine knowledge possesses the highest possible perfection. It is in a unique manner an intellectual knowledge, because it attains its object from within, from its Essence and Nature, unlike human knowledge which penetrates to the essence and nature of things only by observing their external phenomena. It is in a unique manner an intuitive knowledge, because it adequately comprehends its object in a single act, free from abstractions, conjectures, or ratiocinations; it comprehends all possible beings in the very foundation of their possibility; things are present to the Divine intention before they are present to themselves. Moreover, the Divine knowledge is comprehensive and adequate, inasmuch as it grasps the inmost essence of things in the most exhaustive manner. Lastly, it is an eminently certain and unerring knowledge: uncertainty and error being incompatible with intuition and comprehensiveness of knowledge. All these attributes are of faith, because implied in the infinite perfection of the Divine intellect, and are clearly set forth in many texts of Holy Scripture. “The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men, into the most hidden parts” (Ecclus. 23:28; cf. Job 28:24; Heb. 4:13, etc.).
V. The negative attributes of the Divine perfection shine with an especial splendour in the Divine knowledge. Thus God’s knowledge is intrinsically necessary—that is, it necessarily embraces whatever is knowable. Although, as regards contingent objects, this necessity is only hypothetical, still it cannot be said that God’s knowledge of things contingent is itself contingent, because such an expression might imply an indetermination on the part of the Divine knowledge. It is absolutely simple: God knows Himself and all things outside Him in one indivisible act. It is infinite in intensity as well as in extension—that is, it is the deepest and the richest knowledge; nothing is hidden from it; it embraces an infinite object in the Divine Essence, and an infinite number of things in the domain of possibility. It is immutable: nothing can be added to or withdrawn from it. It is eternal, having neither beginning nor end nor succession, not only as regards truths of an eternal character, but also as to things temporary which are eternally visible to the eternal eye of God. The Divine Immensity and Omnipresence add another perfection to the science of God, inasmuch as they bring all things knowable into immediate contact with the Divine Intellect. Lastly, the Divine knowledge is in a special manner incomprehensible and inscrutable to the created mind, notably to the mind in its natural state. We are unable to comprehend not only its depth and breadth, but also the manner in which the Divine Intellect lays hold of things external and renders them present to itself without being in the least dependent on them or waiting for them to come into existence; and, further, we are unable to understand how He sees, in one and the same act, cause and effect, and how the intuition of a free agent involves the intuition of its free acts. A cognition of this kind is utterly beyond and above the methods of finite cognition, and indeed is partly in direct opposition to the laws which regulate created knowledge. This ought to be kept well in view in order to meet the difficulties connected with this question. Cf. Ecclus. 42:16 sqq.; St. Aug., De Trin., l. xv., c. 7; St. Peter Damian, Ep., iv., c. 7, 8.
VI. The absolute perfection of the Divine knowledge is expressed by the term Omniscience: God knows all that is knowable, and as far as it is knowable. The domain of the Divine Science comprises, therefore, (1) God Himself; (2) the metaphysically possible; (3) the things created by God; (4) the motions and modes of being of creatures as caused either by God or by creatures themselves; (5) especially the free activity of creatures, the knowledge of which constitutes the exalted and incomprehensible privilege of the Divine Omniscience.
As to (4) we should bear in mind that the activity of creatures, with all its actual and possible modifications, is as much dependent on God as their substance is. God knows this activity from within, from its very cause; whereas the created mind only knows it from its external manifestations or effects. We shall treat of (5) in the following section.
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