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056 - Lvi That God's Knowledge Is Not A Habit · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifty six of Summa Contragentilees, First Book on God,
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  Speaker 1: by Saint Thomas aquinas translated by the Fathers of the
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  Speaker 1: English Dominican Province. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifty six that God's knowledge is not a habit.
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  Speaker 1: From the foregoing, it follows that God's knowledge is not
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  Speaker 1: a habit. For wheresoever knowledge is habitual, All things are
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  Speaker 1: not known simultaneously, but some actually and others habitually. Now
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  Speaker 1: God knows all things actually in the same instant as
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  Speaker 1: we have proved. Therefore, in him knowledge is not a habit. Further,
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  Speaker 1: he who has a habit while not using it is
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  Speaker 1: somewhat in potentiality, but not in the same way as
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  Speaker 1: before learning. Now it has been shown that the divine
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  Speaker 1: intellect is no wise in potentiality. Therefore no wise is
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  Speaker 1: their habitual knowledge in him. Again, the essence of any
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  Speaker 1: intellect that knows something habitually is distinct from its intellectual operation,
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  Speaker 1: which is actual consideration, because the intellect that knows something
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  Speaker 1: by a habit lacks its operation, whereas it cannot lack
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  Speaker 1: its essence. Now, in God, his essence is his operation,
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  Speaker 1: As we have proved. Therefore there is no habitual knowledge
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  Speaker 1: in his intellect. Again, the intellect that knows something only
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  Speaker 1: habitually is not in its ultimate perfection. Wherefore, happiness, which
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  Speaker 1: is the best thing of all, is held to be
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  Speaker 1: not a habit but an act. Therefore, if God has
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  Speaker 1: habitual knowledge through his substance, he will not be universally
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  Speaker 1: perfect considered in regard to his substance, And the contrary
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  Speaker 1: of this was proved above. Moreover, we have shown that
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  Speaker 1: He is intelligent by his essence, and not by any
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  Speaker 1: intelligible species added to his essence. Now, every intellect with
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  Speaker 1: a habit understands by species. For habit is either ability
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  Speaker 1: of the intellect to receive intelligible species, whereby it becomes
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  Speaker 1: actually understanding, or else it is the orderly collection of
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  Speaker 1: the species themselves, residing in the intellect, without complete actuality,
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  Speaker 1: and after a manner that lies between potentiality and act Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: in him there is no habitual knowledge. Further, habit is
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  Speaker 1: a quality. Now, neither quality nor any accident can be
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  Speaker 1: ascribed to God, as was proved above. Therefore, our habitual
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  Speaker 1: knowledge is not becoming to God. Since, however, the disposition
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  Speaker 1: by which one is only habitually considering or willing or
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  Speaker 1: acting is like the disposition of one who sleeps. Hence David,
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  Speaker 1: in order to remove habitual knowledge from God says, behold,
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  Speaker 1: ye shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel. For
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  Speaker 1: the same reason it is said in Ecclesiasticus, Chapter twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: Verse twenty eight, the eyes of the Lord are far
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  Speaker 1: brighter than the sun, for the sunshines always Actually end
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  Speaker 1: of chapter fifty six, read by Michael Shane, Craig, Lambert
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  Speaker 1: Elsie