Whether God Knows Things Other Than Himself?
Objection 1: It seems that God does not know things besides Himself.
For all other things but God are outside of God. But Augustine says
(Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi) that "God does not behold anything out
of Himself." Therefore He does not know things other than Himself.
Obj. 2: Further, the object understood is the perfection of the one
who understands. If therefore God understands other things besides
Himself, something else will be the perfection of God, and will be
nobler than He; which is impossible.
Obj. 3: Further, the act of understanding is specified by the
intelligible object, as is every other act from its own object. Hence
the intellectual act is so much the nobler, the nobler the object
understood. But God is His own intellectual act. If therefore God
understands anything other than Himself, then God Himself is specified
by something else than Himself; which cannot be. Therefore He does not
understand things other than Himself.
_On the contrary,_ It is written: "All things are naked and open to His
eyes" (Heb. 4:13).
_I answer that,_ God necessarily knows things other than Himself. For
it is manifest that He perfectly understands Himself; otherwise His
existence would not be perfect, since His existence is His act of
understanding. Now if anything is perfectly known, it follows of
necessity that its power is perfectly known. But the power of
anything can be perfectly known only by knowing to what its power
extends. Since therefore the divine power extends to other things by
the very fact that it is the first effective cause of all things, as
is clear from the aforesaid (Q. 2, A. 3), God must necessarily know
things other than Himself. And this appears still more plainly if we
add that the very existence of the first effective cause--viz.
God--is His own act of understanding. Hence whatever effects
pre-exist in God, as in the first cause, must be in His act of
understanding, and all things must be in Him according to an
intelligible mode: for everything which is in another, is in it
according to the mode of that in which it is.
Now in order to know how God knows things other than Himself, we must
consider that a thing is known in two ways: in itself, and in another.
A thing is known in itself when it is known by the proper species
adequate to the knowable object; as when the eye sees a man through
the image of a man. A thing is seen in another through the image of
that which contains it; as when a part is seen in the whole by the
image of the whole; or when a man is seen in a mirror by the image in
the mirror, or by any other mode by which one thing is seen in
another.
So we say that God sees Himself in Himself, because He sees Himself
through His essence; and He sees other things not in themselves, but
in Himself; inasmuch as His essence contains the similitude of things
other than Himself.
Reply Obj. 1: The passage of Augustine in which it is said that God
"sees nothing outside Himself" is not to be taken in such a way, as
if God saw nothing outside Himself, but in the sense that what is
outside Himself He does not see except in Himself, as above explained.
Reply Obj. 2: The object understood is a perfection of the one
understanding not by its substance, but by its image, according to
which it is in the intellect, as its form and perfection, as is said
in _De Anima_ iii. For "a stone is not in the soul, but its image."
Now those things which are other than God are understood by God,
inasmuch as the essence of God contains their images as above
explained; hence it does not follow that there is any perfection in
the divine intellect other than the divine essence.
Reply Obj. 3: The intellectual act is not specified by what is
understood in another, but by the principal object understood in which
other things are understood. For the intellectual act is specified by
its object, inasmuch as the intelligible form is the principle of the
intellectual operation: since every operation is specified by the form
which is its principle of operation; as heating by heat. Hence the
intellectual operation is specified by that intelligible form which
makes the intellect in act. And this is the image of the principal
thing understood, which in God is nothing but His own essence in which
all images of things are comprehended. Hence it does not follow that
the divine intellectual act, or rather God Himself, is specified by
anything else than the divine essence itself.
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