Whether What Is Seen in God by Those Who See the Divine Essence, Is Seen
Through Any Similitude?
Objection 1: It seems that what is seen in God by those who see the
Divine essence, is seen by means of some similitude. For every kind of
knowledge comes about by the knower being assimilated to the object
known. For thus the intellect in act becomes the actual intelligible,
and the sense in act becomes the actual sensible, inasmuch as it is
informed by a similitude of the object, as the eye by the similitude
of color. Therefore if the intellect of one who sees the Divine
essence understands any creatures in God, it must be informed by their
similitudes.
Obj. 2: Further, what we have seen, we keep in memory. But Paul,
seeing the essence of God whilst in ecstasy, when he had ceased to see
the Divine essence, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 28,34),
remembered many of the things he had seen in the rapture; hence he
said: "I have heard secret words which it is not granted to man to
utter" (2 Cor. 12:4). Therefore it must be said that certain
similitudes of what he remembered, remained in his mind; and in the
same way, when he actually saw the essence of God, he had certain
similitudes or ideas of what he actually saw in it.
_On the contrary,_ A mirror and what is in it are seen by means of one
likeness. But all things are seen in God as in an intelligible mirror.
Therefore if God Himself is not seen by any similitude but by His own
essence, neither are the things seen in Him seen by any similitudes or
ideas.
_I answer that,_ Those who see the divine essence see what they see in
God not by any likeness, but by the divine essence itself united to
their intellect. For each thing is known in so far as its likeness is
in the one who knows. Now this takes place in two ways. For as things
which are like one and the same thing are like to each other, the
cognitive faculty can be assimilated to any knowable object in two
ways. In one way it is assimilated by the object itself, when it is
directly informed by a similitude, and then the object is known in
itself. In another way when informed by a similitude which resembles
the object; and in this way, the knowledge is not of the thing in
itself, but of the thing in its likeness. For the knowledge of a man
in himself differs from the knowledge of him in his image. Hence to
know things thus by their likeness in the one who knows, is to know
them in themselves or in their own nature; whereas to know them by
their similitudes pre-existing in God, is to see them in God. Now
there is a difference between these two kinds of knowledge. Hence,
according to the knowledge whereby things are known by those who see
the essence of God, they are seen in God Himself not by any other
similitudes but by the Divine essence alone present to the intellect;
by which also God Himself is seen.
Reply Obj. 1: The created intellect of one who sees God is
assimilated to what is seen in God, inasmuch as it is united to the
Divine essence, in which the similitudes of all things pre-exist.
Reply Obj. 2: Some of the cognitive faculties form other images from
those first conceived; thus the imagination from the preconceived
images of a mountain and of gold can form the likeness of a golden
mountain; and the intellect, from the preconceived ideas of genus and
difference, forms the idea of species; in like manner from the
similitude of an image we can form in our minds the similitude of the
original of the image. Thus Paul, or any other person who sees God,
by the very vision of the divine essence, can form in himself the
similitudes of what is seen in the divine essence, which remained in
Paul even when he had ceased to see the essence of God. Still this
kind of vision whereby things are seen by this likeness thus
conceived, is not the same as that whereby things are seen in God.
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