Whether the First Man Saw God Through His Essence?
Objection 1: It would seem that the first man saw God through His
Essence. For man's happiness consists in the vision of the Divine
Essence. But the first man, "while established in paradise, led a
life of happiness in the enjoyment of all things," as Damascene says
(De Fide Orth. ii, 11). And Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 10): "If
man was gifted with the same tastes as now, how happy must he have
been in paradise, that place of ineffable happiness!" Therefore the
first man in paradise saw God through His Essence.
Obj. 2: Further, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, loc. cit.) that
"the first man lacked nothing which his good-will might obtain." But
our good-will can obtain nothing better than the vision of the Divine
Essence. Therefore man saw God through His Essence.
Obj. 3: Further, the vision of God in His Essence is whereby God is
seen without a medium or enigma. But man in the state of innocence
"saw God immediately," as the Master of the Sentences asserts (Sent.
iv, D, i). He also saw without an enigma, for an enigma implies
obscurity, as Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 9). Now, obscurity
resulted from sin. Therefore man in the primitive state saw God
through His Essence.
_On the contrary,_ The Apostle says (1 Cor. 15:46): "That was not
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." But to see God
through His Essence is most spiritual. Therefore the first man in the
primitive state of his natural life did not see God through His
Essence.
_I answer that,_ The first man did not see God through His Essence if
we consider the ordinary state of that life; unless, perhaps, it be
said that he saw God in a vision, when "God cast a deep sleep upon
Adam" (Gen. 2:21). The reason is because, since in the Divine Essence
is beatitude itself, the intellect of a man who sees the Divine
Essence has the same relation to God as a man has to beatitude. Now
it is clear that man cannot willingly be turned away from beatitude,
since naturally and necessarily he desires it, and shuns unhappiness.
Wherefore no one who sees the Essence of God can willingly turn away
from God, which means to sin. Hence all who see God through His
Essence are so firmly established in the love of God, that for
eternity they can never sin. Therefore, as Adam did sin, it is clear
that he did not see God through His Essence.
Nevertheless he knew God with a more perfect knowledge than we do now.
Thus in a sense his knowledge was midway between our knowledge in the
present state, and the knowledge we shall have in heaven, when we see
God through His Essence. To make this clear, we must consider that the
vision of God through His Essence is contradistinguished from the
vision of God through His creatures. Now the higher the creature is,
and the more like it is to God, the more clearly is God seen in it;
for instance, a man is seen more clearly through a mirror in which his
image is the more clearly expressed. Thus God is seen in a much more
perfect manner through His intelligible effects than through those
which are only sensible or corporeal. But in his present state man is
impeded as regards the full and clear consideration of intelligible
creatures, because he is distracted by and occupied with sensible
things. Now, it is written (Eccles. 7:30): "God made man right." And
man was made right by God in this sense, that in him the lower powers
were subjected to the higher, and the higher nature was made so as not
to be impeded by the lower. Wherefore the first man was not impeded by
exterior things from a clear and steady contemplation of the
intelligible effects which he perceived by the radiation of the first
truth, whether by a natural or by a gratuitous knowledge. Hence
Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xi, 33) that, "perhaps God used to speak
to the first man as He speaks to the angels; by shedding on his mind a
ray of the unchangeable truth, yet without bestowing on him the
experience of which the angels are capable in the participation of the
Divine Essence." Therefore, through these intelligible effects of God,
man knew God then more clearly than we know Him now.
Reply Obj. 1: Man was happy in paradise, but not with that perfect
happiness to which he was destined, which consists in the vision of
the Divine Essence. He was, however, endowed with "a life of
happiness in a certain measure," as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xi,
18), so far as he was gifted with natural integrity and perfection.
Reply Obj. 2: A good will is a well-ordered will; but the will of the
first man would have been ill-ordered had he wished to have, while in
the state of merit, what had been promised to him as a reward.
Reply Obj. 3: A medium (of knowledge) is twofold; one through which,
and, at the same time, in which, something is seen, as, for example,
a man is seen through a mirror, and is seen with the mirror: another
kind of medium is that whereby we attain to the knowledge of
something unknown; such as the medium in a demonstration. God was
seen without this second kind of medium, but not without the first
kind. For there was no need for the first man to attain to the
knowledge of God by demonstration drawn from an effect, such as we
need; since he knew God simultaneously in His effects, especially in
the intelligible effects, according to His capacity. Again, we must
remark that the obscurity which is implied in the word enigma may be
of two kinds: first, so far as every creature is something obscure
when compared with the immensity of the Divine light; and thus Adam
saw God in an enigma, because he saw Him in a created effect:
secondly, we may take obscurity as an effect of sin, so far as man is
impeded in the consideration of intelligible things by being
preoccupied with sensible things; in which sense Adam did not see God
in an enigma.
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