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057 - Lvii That God's Knowledge Is Not Discursive · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifty seven of Suma 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
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  Speaker 1: domain Chapter fifty seven that God's knowledge is not discursive. Furthermore,
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  Speaker 1: we gather from the foregoing that God's thoughts are not
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  Speaker 1: argumentative or discursive. Our thoughts are argumentative when we pass
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  Speaker 1: from one thought to another, as when we reason from
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  Speaker 1: principles to conclusions. For a person does not argue or
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  Speaker 1: discourse from the fact that he sees how a conclusion
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  Speaker 1: follows from its premises and considers both together, since this
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  Speaker 1: happens not by arguing, but by judging of an argument.
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  Speaker 1: Even so, neither does material knowledge consist in judging of
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  Speaker 1: material things. Now it was shown that God does not
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  Speaker 1: consider one thing after another successively, as it were, but
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  Speaker 1: all things simultaneously. Therefore, his knowledge is not argumentative or discursive,
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  Speaker 1: although he is cognizant of all discourse and argument. Again,
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  Speaker 1: whosoever argues views the premisses by one consideration and the
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  Speaker 1: conclusion by another, For there would be no need after
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  Speaker 1: considering the premisses to proceed to the conclusion, if by
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  Speaker 1: the very fact of considering the premisses one were to
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  Speaker 1: consider the conclusion. Also, now, God knows all things by
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  Speaker 1: one operation, which is his essence, as we have proved above.
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  Speaker 1: Therefore his knowledge is not argumentative. Further, all argumentative knowledge
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  Speaker 1: has something of potentiality and something of actuality, since conclusions
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  Speaker 1: are potentially in their premises. But potentiality has no place
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  Speaker 1: in the divine intellect, as we have shown above. Therefore
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  Speaker 1: his intellect is not discursive. Moreover, in all discursive knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: something must needs be caused, since the premisses are, so
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  Speaker 1: to speak, the cause of the conclusion. Wherefore a demonstration
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  Speaker 1: is described as a syllogism that produces knowledge. But nothing
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  Speaker 1: can be caused in the divine knowledge, since it is
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  Speaker 1: God himself, is shown above. Therefore God's knowledge cannot be discursive. Again,
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  Speaker 1: those things which we know naturally are known to us
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  Speaker 1: without our discoursing about them, as in the case of
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  Speaker 1: first principles. Now, knowledge in God and cannot be otherwise
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  Speaker 1: than natural, nor in fact otherwise than essential, since his
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  Speaker 1: knowledge is his essence, as we proved above. Therefore God's
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  Speaker 1: knowledge is not argumentative. Further, whatever is moved must be
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  Speaker 1: reduced to a first mover, that is mover only and
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  Speaker 1: not moved. Wherefore that, whence comes, the first source of
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  Speaker 1: movement must be absolutely a mover unmoved. Now, this is
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  Speaker 1: the divine intellect, as we have shown above. Therefore, the
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  Speaker 1: divine intellect must be an absolutely unmoved mover. But argument
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  Speaker 1: is a movement of the intellect in passing from one
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  Speaker 1: thing to another. Therefore, the divine intellect is not argumentative. Again,
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  Speaker 1: that which is highest in us is inferior to that
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  Speaker 1: which is in God, for the inferior does not touch
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  Speaker 1: the superior except in its summit. Now, the summit in
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  Speaker 1: our knowledge is not reason, but understanding, which is the
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  Speaker 1: source of reason. Therefore God's knowledge is not argumentative, but
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  Speaker 1: purely intellectual. Moreover, all, defect is far removed from God,
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  Speaker 1: because he is simply perfect, as proved above. But argumentative
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  Speaker 1: knowledge results from an imperfection of the intellectual nature. Since
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  Speaker 1: what is known through another thing is less known than
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  Speaker 1: what is known in itself. Nor does the nature of
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  Speaker 1: the knower suffice to reach what is known through something
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  Speaker 1: else without this thing through which the other is made known. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in argumentative knowledge, one thing is made known through another,
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  Speaker 1: whereas what is known intellectually is known in itself, and
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  Speaker 1: the nature of the knower suffices for the knowledge thereof
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  Speaker 1: without any means from without. Hence it is clear that
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  Speaker 1: reason is a defective intellect, and consequently the divine knowledge
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  Speaker 1: is not argumentative. Again, without any discourse of reason, those
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  Speaker 1: things are understood whose species are in the knower, For
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  Speaker 1: the sight does not discourse in order to know a stone,
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  Speaker 1: the image of which is in the sight. Now the
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  Speaker 1: divine essence is the likeness of all things, as we
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  Speaker 1: have proved above. Therefore it does not proceed to know
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  Speaker 1: a thing by a discourse of reason. It is also
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  Speaker 1: clear how to solve the arguments that would seem to
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  Speaker 1: prove the presence of discourse and the divine knowledge. First,
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  Speaker 1: because he knows other things through his essence, for it
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  Speaker 1: has been proved that this does not involve discoursing, since
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  Speaker 1: his essence is related to other things, not as the
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  Speaker 1: premisses to a conclusion, but as species to things known. Secondly,
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  Speaker 1: because some might think it unfitting that God should be
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  Speaker 1: unable to argue, for he has the knowledge of arguing
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  Speaker 1: as judging and not as discursing, by arguing, Holy writ
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  Speaker 1: bears witness to this truth which we have proved by reason,
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  Speaker 1: for it is said in Hebrews four, verse thirteen, all
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  Speaker 1: things are naked and open to his eyes. Because the
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  Speaker 1: things that we know by reasoning are not in themselves
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  Speaker 1: naked and open to us, but are opened out and
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  Speaker 1: laid bare by reason. End of Chapter fifty seven, read
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  Speaker 1: by Michael Shane, Craig Lambert l SI