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068 - Lxviii That God Knows The Movements Of The Will · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixty eight of Summa Contra Gentilees, 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 sixty eight that God knows the movements of the will.
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  Speaker 1: In the next place, we must show that God knows
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  Speaker 1: our mind's thoughts and our secret wills. For everything in
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  Speaker 1: whatever way it exists, is known by God inasmuch as
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  Speaker 1: he knows his essence, as we have shown above. Now,
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  Speaker 1: some things are in the soul and some in things
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  Speaker 1: outside the soul. Wherefore God knows all these differences of
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  Speaker 1: things and whatever is contained under them. Now, the things
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  Speaker 1: in the soul are those that are in our will
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  Speaker 1: or our thought. It remains therefore that God knows what
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  Speaker 1: we have in our thoughts and wills. Moreover, God so
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  Speaker 1: knows other things in knowing his essence, as effects are
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  Speaker 1: known through their cause being known. Accordingly, by knowing his essence,
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  Speaker 1: God knows all the things to which his causality extends.
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  Speaker 1: Now this extends to the works of the intellect and will.
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  Speaker 1: For since everything acts by its form, which gives the
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  Speaker 1: thing some kind of being, it follows that the highest
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  Speaker 1: source of all being, from which also every form is derived,
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  Speaker 1: must be the source of all operation, because the effects
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  Speaker 1: of second causes are to be referred in a still
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  Speaker 1: higher degree to first causes. Therefore, God knows both the
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  Speaker 1: thoughts and the affections of the mind. Again, even as
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  Speaker 1: his being is firm and consequently the cause of all being,
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  Speaker 1: so his act of intelligence is first and consequently the
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  Speaker 1: cause of all intellectual operation. Wherefore, just as God, by
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  Speaker 1: knowing his being, knows the being of everything, so by
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  Speaker 1: knowing his act of intelligence and will, he knows every
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  Speaker 1: thought and will. Further, God knows things not only as
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  Speaker 1: existing in themselves, but also as existing in their causes,
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  Speaker 1: as proved above, for he knows the relation between cause
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  Speaker 1: and effect. Now, the products of art are in the
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  Speaker 1: craftsmen through the intellect and will of the craftsmen, even
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  Speaker 1: as natural things are in their causes through the powers
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  Speaker 1: of the causes. For just as natural things liken their
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  Speaker 1: effects to themselves by their active powers, so the craftsmen,
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  Speaker 1: by his intellect, gives his handiwork the form whereby it
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  Speaker 1: is likened to his art. It is the same with
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  Speaker 1: all things done of set purpose, Therefore God knows both
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  Speaker 1: our thoughts and our wills. Again, intelligible substances are no
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  Speaker 1: less known to God than sensible substances are known to
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  Speaker 1: Him or to us, since intelligible substances are more knowable,
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  Speaker 1: forasmuch as they are more actual. Now the informations and
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  Speaker 1: inclinations of sensible substances are known both to God and
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  Speaker 1: to us. Consequently, since the soul's thought results from its
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  Speaker 1: being informed, and since its affection is its inclination towards something,
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  Speaker 1: for even the inclination of a natural thing is called
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  Speaker 1: its natural appetite, it follows that God knows our secret
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  Speaker 1: thoughts and affections. This is confirmed by the testimony of
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  Speaker 1: holy writ. For it is said in the Psalm the
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  Speaker 1: searcher of hearts and reigns is God, and in Proverbs
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  Speaker 1: fifteen eleven, hell and destruction are before the Lord. How
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  Speaker 1: much more the hearts of the children of men. And
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  Speaker 1: in John two twenty five he knew what was in man.
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  Speaker 1: The dominion which the will exercises over its own acts,
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  Speaker 1: and by which it is in its power to will
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  Speaker 1: and not to will, removes the determination of the power
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  Speaker 1: to one thing and the violence of a cause acting
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  Speaker 1: from without, but it does not exclude the influence of
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  Speaker 1: a higher cause from which it has being and action.
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  Speaker 1: Thus causality remains in the first cause, which is God,
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  Speaker 1: in respect of the movements of the will, so that
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  Speaker 1: God is able to know them by knowing himself. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter sixty eight, read by Michael Shane, Craig, Lambert
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  Speaker 1: Elsie