Book I, Chapter 15

Chapter Xv

That things known are not causes of the divine knowledge.

Some mists of ignorance concerning the divine knowledge have already been dispersed by its light. It now remains to show, with that same light as guide, that things known are not causes of God's knowledge. To know is a mark of great perfection in God. If, then, God's knowledge were caused by things known, he would receive perfection from another, and so would not be supremely perfect of himself. Again, he would then not be most sufficient through himself; for he would need the things known, from which he could beg the support of his knowledge. How, then, will he be incomparably glorious, who glories in aids he has begged? The fifth part of the first Corollary of this book also destroys this, as do certain things laid down earlier in the fifth of this. Again, if things known were efficient causes of the divine knowledge, they would precede it, in time or in nature; but how could they, since they are temporal and it is eternal? This little argument is famous among very many Doctors. Moreover, if it were so, God would in some way be acted upon by them, against the seventh part of the first Corollary of this book; and so he would in some way likewise be changed, against the fifth of this. Hence he would also be, in some respect, lower and less noble than the things known.

Again, the divine intellect would then be of itself in potency and indifference to knowing this or its opposite, and would be actuated and determined by another, as ours is; and so it would be neither supreme act nor first. The first Supposition, with the third part of the first Corollary of this book, destroys and refutes all of this.

These seem to be the arguments of the Philosopher in Metaph. 12, 51 1, where he appears to prove that God does not understand anything other than himself. He does not, however, intend to prove this, but proves chiefly three things there. The first is that God does not understand in potency, like one who sleeps, because then he would not be venerable and distinguished. The second is that he is his own intelligence, that is, his own act by which he understands; for otherwise he would be in potency, and not the best substance. For it is by understanding what is honorable (that is, by an act of understanding distinct from himself) that the one who understands has his honor. The third is that God does not understand anything other than himself in such a way that he would be acted upon and perfected by it as by a cause, as our Intellect is, as is manifest at the beginning of the chapter. For after he had first shown the primacy, immateriality, perfection and unity of God, he wishes next to show how God understands, and adds: "But the matters concerning the Intellect involve certain doubts: for it seems indeed the most divine of the things that appear; but how it will be such, if it has this, certainly involves some difficulties." Here Averroes, B1 on "how, etc.": "The question is not whether God must be the most perfect and the noblest of all, but the question is how this will be, that which is at the summit of perfection in itself, given that it is of such a disposition, namely intellectual." Therefore, in line with this first point, he speaks throughout the whole chapter. He shows in consequence that God does not understand anything other than himself, in such a way that the divine Intellect would be acted upon by another and have the perfection of its understanding from it as from a cause, just as our Intellect is perfected by another by being acted upon, as is quite clear from On the Soul 3. Hence Averroes, in the place cited before, B2 says: "If he understands another, then his substance is not his act but a potency, by which this action comes about; hence he is necessarily perfected by this action, as the Intellect in us is perfected by that which it understands. He will not then be the noblest substance of all beings, because nobility is not his except in that he is perfected through another, and that other must needs be nobler than he, since the thing understood is the perfection of the one who understands."

And further on in the same place, expounding that text of his, "And if of another, what is that which is one and not another?", he says thus: "And if he were to understand another, what is that which is always its own being, and one without another? For this is not so, because he would be understanding through the being of another, contrary to what was posited of the first principle, namely that it always is, without this, that it needs another." And shortly after: "It is impossible that his Intellect be perfected by whatever it may be. For whatever other thing it understands, its intellect follows that thing and is below it in order; but the divine Intellect is exceedingly noble and perfect." And Aristotle adds in what follows: C1 "It is clear, then, that he understands what is most divine and most honorable, and is not changed." That is, he is not changed by another from potency to act, as our Intellect is. Aristotle proves this at once in two ways. First thus: "For the change would be to something less worthy. Not every change in anything is to something less worthy, but in him alone it would necessarily be so, since he could not be changed to something equally worthy or more worthy, as there neither is nor could be anything of the kind." The second he proves thus: "And a motion would already be such a thing, that is, a change from potency to act." But it was shown earlier, above in 38 and in many other places, that he is immovable in every way. Here Averroes says: D1 "Whose Intellect is one that goes out from potency into act, as is the case with our Intellect, his Intellect is a motion, and every motion is from a mover. Hence the first is acted upon and moved by another, which he judges manifestly impossible." And further on in the same place he leads to this impossibility, that the first would be perfected through what is viler than himself, and adds: "It is manifest that the noblest principle does not acquire nobility except through its own action, just as the Intellect in those who understand does not acquire nobility except through the action of the intellect. If, therefore, the first understands vile things, in such a way that he is perfected by them, it follows that his nobility is in understanding vile things; that is, that he acquires nobility from them. Hence his action also would be the vilest of actions: for it would be vile for so noble a Prince to beg his nobility from more ignoble subjects. And since anything vile is viler in what is nobler, in ‖D2 him it would be the vilest, since he is the noblest of all and more honorable than all."

Therefore the Commentator too, at the end of the comment, says thus: "This name (knowledge) is said equivocally of his knowledge and ours; for his knowledge is the cause of being, while being is the cause of our knowledge." It is clear, then, from the foregoing that the opinion of Aristotle and Averroes is that God does not understand anything other than himself by which he would be perfected, or which would be the cause of the divine understanding; the expositions of others likewise attest this. Let no one, therefore, suppose that so great a Philosopher, in so solemn a matter, raved so shamefully as to believe, even slightly, that God knows nothing at all, except only himself. E1 For Averroes says at the beginning of that comment: "This question is the noblest of all those that concern God, namely to know what he understands, and it is naturally desired by all." Furthermore, Themistius, as reported by Averroes on On the Soul 3, [comment] 36, says that E2 "beings are nothing other than his knowledge, that is, God's, nor is the cause of beings anything other than his knowledge."

Hence Ammonius too, on On Interpretation 1, last [chapter], says that the gods have knowledge of contingents, as being producers of all the things that are in the world, and existing as causes or co-causes of all things. And further on: "To know contingents," he says, "is according to their own nature 2. Hence these, having an indeterminate nature, can both happen and not happen. But those [the gods], in a manner as it were nobler than is the nature of the contingents, taking their knowledge beforehand, know these determinately. For it is necessary that they know divisible things indivisibly and without distance, and multiplied things in unity, and temporal things eternally, and generable things ingenerably; taking their knowledge of them beforehand, I say, from prior things, namely causes and principles, that is, from themselves, not from any later things whatever."

In agreement with this, both in meaning and in manner of speaking, Dionysius, in Divine Names 7 3, says: A1 "The divine mind contains all things, with a knowledge removed from all of them, in accordance with the cause of all in itself, embracing beforehand the knowledge of all, knowing before the Angels came to be, and drawing the Angels and all other things from within, and A2 from that, so to speak, beginning, knowing and leading them into being." And this, I judge, the utterance conveys 4 when it says, "Knowing all things before their generation." For the divine mind does not know existing things by learning them from existing things. Rather, from itself and in itself, according to cause, it holds in advance the knowledge and cognition and essence of all, and has encompassed it beforehand (where another translation has: "has beforehand, and has received beforehand"). And it continues: "Not contemplating each thing according to species, but knowing and containing all things according to one comprehensive circumstance of cause, just as light, according to cause, in itself embraced beforehand the cognition of darkness" (where another translation has: "received beforehand"). And it continues: "Seeing darkness from nowhere else than from the light."

"Knowing itself, then, the divine wisdom knows all things also: material things immaterially, and parted things not partially, and many things universally" (where another translation has: "and divisible things indivisibly, and many things in unity"). And it continues: "Through that one itself, knowing and bringing forth all things." For if God gives being to all existing things according to one cause, according to the same unified cause he knew all things, as existing from him and established beforehand in him. And he will not receive knowledge of them from existing things, but will himself be the bestower of the knowledge of them upon the individual things themselves. Therefore God does not have a proper knowledge of himself and another, common, comprehending all existing things 5; *C1 for it, knowing itself in every way, how could it be ignorant of the things that are from it and of which it is the cause 6? By this, then, God knows existing things, not by a knowledge of existing things but by his own; where another translation has it thus: "It, the cause of all, knowing itself, falls short somewhere, if it has been ignorant of the things that are from it and of which it is the cause."

Algazel shows the same, in Metaph. 3, seventh sentence, and among many things says thus: "In the Necessary Being nothing is in potency. It remains, then, for us to say that his foreknowing the order of the universe is the cause of the order of the universe flowing from him." C2 Avicenna also, Metaph. 8, 6 and 7, proves the same. Again, John, on Sentences 1, dist. 39, Question 2 7, adhering to the argument of Averroes touched on above, says that true things do not move the divine intellect to apprehend such a truth, because then the divine intellect would become vile, since it would be acted upon by something other than its own essence. Furthermore, God makes all things that are made, as the third of this witnesses, and not without proper knowledge preceding, by the fifth of this. But that knowledge of God, preceding and preceding eternally, can never be produced by posterior and temporal things that have been made.

Again, past and future things are in no way, therefore they cause nothing at all in the knowledge of God. Nor, then, do present things, since on God's part they are not known by him otherwise when they are present than when they were future or will be past, since God is immutable in every way, as the fifth chapter teaches. Again, God would then not know purely non-existent things, since they cause absolutely nothing. Again, God would then be acted upon by things of necessity, because he necessarily knows all things, which seems to subject his supreme freedom to the servitude even of the vilest things. Again, he would then be more acted upon by a stronger and more perfect thing, and would know it more; and since a thing, when it has actual present being, has more perfect being than when it has only potential and future being, it follows that God knows Peter more now than he knew him from the beginning 8. And if anything grows or diminishes in some entity, it would likewise grow or diminish in the divine cognition, which his immutability does not permit.

Again, God would then not be first in the genus of efficient cause, since he effects nothing except through cognition. For to him the Psalmist sings thus (Ps 103 [104]:24), "You have made all things in wisdom." But the efficient source of his cognition would be the thing known; therefore it would be naturally prior to such cognition, therefore also to every operation proceeding from it. Again, to the same end: in every order of movers, the unmoved mover is prior to the moved mover, E1 as is evident expressly from the Philosopher, On the Soul 3, 54, and from Averroes likewise in the Commentary: E2 but the thing known would be a mover of the divine intellect without being moved, whereas the divine intellect is mover and moved. Therefore the thing known is the first efficient cause and the first mover simply, and not God. Again, God would then not be the first cause of all things; for he does not cause external things except with wisdom disposing, and the prior cause of this is the very thing known, which is more evident in the case of future things.

For A's being future is the cause of God's foreknowledge, and God is not the cause why A is future, since then he would cause in sheer ignorance. Therefore A's being future is here, simply, the first cause. Indeed God's foreknowledge is here so far an effect that, being in no way a cause, it is caused by some prior cause which is not God; all of which things are unanimously condemned by all Philosophers and Theologians. Again, things contingent to either side are not of themselves more determined to one part than to the other, since then they would not be contingent to either side. Therefore they cannot of themselves determinately cause in God the cognition of one part or of the other; therefore they are in no way causes of the divine knowledge. Again, if so, God would not be the efficient or moving cause in that motion in which he is moved by the knowable, against the third of this and the fourth. Again, the thing would then have this: that it is thus a mover of God from itself alone, not from God. For God causes nothing except with knowledge preceding, nor would God be the cause of such a truth. This is motive, or moves, things that plainly conflict with what was established earlier in the second, third and fourth, the eleventh and the thirteenth.

Again, if the thing known were the cause of divine cognition, A1 it would cause it according to its own mode of being. For according to the Philosopher, Metaph. 2, "Each thing stands to truth as it stands to being"; hence also so to the cognition caused by it. Therefore the thing known would be the measure of God's knowledge, naturally prior to it: for that is the first measure of another according to which the other is primarily measured. This is also clear from the Philosopher, Metaph. 10, 5, who says that knowledge and sense are measured by knowable and sensible things more than they measure them. For, according to Averroes there, knowledge and sense follow beings, not the reverse. And this is true in general of all knowledge which is caused by things known; for it is not because something is known by such knowledge that it is so on the part of the thing, but the reverse. This is clear in the exposition of that passage according to St Thomas 9, where he also adds: "But if there is any knowledge which is the cause of the thing known, it must be its measure, as the knowledge of the craftsman is the measure of the thing crafted, because each thing crafted is measured according to this, that it is perfect in likeness to the art; and in this way God's knowledge stands with respect to all things."

This can also be proved sufficiently from that course of argument of the Philosopher. Just as in every other genus there is one first measure, naturally, of all things contained in such a genus, so it is in the genus of knowables; but no such measure besides the divine knowledge can be assigned. For with whom would the measure of knowables be better placed than with him who, through his wisdom, of which there is no number nor measure, disposed all things in measure, and number, and weight (Wis 11)? Hence also Isaiah 40: C1 "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? Who has hung the bulk of the earth on three fingers, and balanced the mountains in weight and the hills in a scale?" For it would seem exceedingly unseemly and unworthy that the thing crafted should give the measure to the craftsman, and the creature set bounds to the Creator.

Hence Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy 5, last prose, says that it is unworthy C2 if our future things are said to supply the cause of God's knowledge. "For this power of knowledge, embracing all things in its present notion, itself establishes things in every way." He also proves this at once by another argument: "But it owes nothing," he says, "to later things." It is as if he argued thus: everyone who has a good from some first owes him something, such as thanks or love; but God owes nothing to later things, therefore he has no good from them. Hence the Apostle to the Romans 11: D1 "Who has first given to him, that it may be repaid to him?"

And from this word, "later", another argument can be drawn. If things known were causes of the divine knowledge, then, since a cause is naturally prior to the thing caused, things known would be naturally prior to the knowledge of God. This seems absurd, since he is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Boethius proves the same above in the same work, prose 3, beautifully and at length, and says: "Nor do I approve (that is, accept) the argument by which some believe that they can dissolve this knot of the question. For they say that a thing is not going to happen because providence foresaw that it would be, but rather the contrary: because something is going to be, it cannot be hidden from divine providence." And he lays out the reasoning on this, saying: "How preposterous it is that the outcome of such things should be said to be the cause of eternal foreknowledge, since a cause is naturally prior to the thing caused!" And he immediately gives another argument to the same end, when he says: "For what else is it to suppose that God foresees future things because they are going to happen, than to think that things which once happened are the cause of that supreme providence?" And Peter Lombard says, 217E·1 Sentences 1, dist. 45, 4, that the will of God is the cause of all things, and is preceded by no cause, since it is eternal, and therefore its cause is not to be sought. Again, predestination is eternal, therefore there is no cause of its origination, therefore future things are not its cause. Again, to the same end: if things known were causes of the divine knowledge, they would greatly help him in knowing, and give him counsel, and show him what is to be done. And so a foolish man, or an ass, would be a necessary helper, counsellor and teacher of our most wise God, which all Catholic ears refuse even to hear.

Isaiah too, chapter forty, determines this plainly, saying thus: E2 "Who has helped the Spirit of the Lord, or who was his counsellor, and showed him, with whom he took counsel, and instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and schooled him in knowledge, 218E·1 and showed him the way of prudence?" Following him, the Apostle to the Romans, chapter eleven, asks thus: "Who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, that it will be repaid to him?" Anselm also proves this, in On Concord, the sixth [chapter], by an argument taken from the priority of causation, made earlier; Hugh agrees with him, On the Sacraments, book one, part four, chapter one. Again, Augustine, City of God 15, thirteenth 10: "For that perfection suffices him for all the things that are to be known which he knows. But all his creatures, spiritual and corporeal, he does not know because they are; rather they are because he knows. For he was not ignorant of what he was going to create." And above, ch. 6, last, he says thus: "Though times pass away and succeed one another, nothing passes from or succeeds to the knowledge of God. For these things that have been created are not known by God because they have been made; rather they were made, even as mutable things, because they are known by him immutably." A1 Again, Confessions 13, last, directing his speech to God, he says: "We see the things that you have made because they are; but you see them, and so they are." And above, 7, 4: "What is unforeseen to you, who know all things? And no nature exists, except because you know it."