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059 - Lix That God Is Not Ignorant Of The Truth Of Enunciations · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifty nine 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 nine that God is not ignorant of the
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  Speaker 1: truth of enunciations. It follows from the foregoing that although
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge of the divine intellect is not like that
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  Speaker 1: of a composing and dividing intellect, it is not ignorant
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  Speaker 1: of the truth, which, according to the philosopher, is solely
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  Speaker 1: about composition and division of the intellect. For since the
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  Speaker 1: truth of the intellect is the equation of thought and thing,
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  Speaker 1: in so far as the intellect asserts that to be
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  Speaker 1: which is, and that not to be which is not,
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  Speaker 1: truth in the intellect belongs to that which the intellect asserts,
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  Speaker 1: not to the operation. Whereby it asserts because the truth
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  Speaker 1: of the intellect does not require that the act itself
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  Speaker 1: of understanding be equated to the thing, since sometimes the
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  Speaker 1: thing is material, whereas the act of understanding is immaterial.
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  Speaker 1: But that which the intellect in understanding asserts and knows
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  Speaker 1: needs to be equated to the thing, namely, to be
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  Speaker 1: in reality as the intellect asserts it to be now
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  Speaker 1: God by his simple act of intelligence, wherein is neither
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  Speaker 1: composition nor division, knows not only the essence of things,
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  Speaker 1: but also that which is enunciated about them, as proved above.
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  Speaker 1: Wherefore that which the divine intellect asserts in understanding is
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  Speaker 1: composition or division. Therefore truth is not excluded from the
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  Speaker 1: divine intellect by reason of the latter's simplicity. Moreover, when
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  Speaker 1: something noncomplex is said or understood, the non complex in
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  Speaker 1: itself is neither equal nor unequal to the reality, since
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  Speaker 1: equality and inequality imply a comparison, and the non complex
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  Speaker 1: in itself contains no comparison or application to our reality. Wherefore,
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  Speaker 1: in itself it cannot be said to be either true
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  Speaker 1: or false, but only the complex, which contains a comparison
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  Speaker 1: between the non complex and the reality expressed by composition
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  Speaker 1: or division. But the non complex intellect, by understanding what
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  Speaker 1: a thing is, apprehends the quidity of a thing in
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  Speaker 1: a kind of comparison with the thing, since it apprehends
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  Speaker 1: it as liquidity of this particular thing. Hence, although the
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  Speaker 1: non complex itself or even a definition, is not in
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  Speaker 1: itself true or false. Nevertheless, the intellect that apprehends what
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  Speaker 1: a thing is is said to be always true in itself,
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  Speaker 1: as stated in the third Book of De Animal, although
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  Speaker 1: it may be accidentally false in so far as the
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  Speaker 1: definition includes complexion, either of the parts of the definition
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  Speaker 1: with one another, or of the whole definition with the
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  Speaker 1: thing defined. Wherefore, a definition according as it is taken
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  Speaker 1: to be the definition of this or that thing as
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  Speaker 1: understood by the intellect, will be said to be false,
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  Speaker 1: either simply if the parts of the definition do not
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  Speaker 1: hold together, as if we were to say an insensible animal,
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  Speaker 1: or false in its application to this particular thing, as
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  Speaker 1: if one were to apply the definition of a circle
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  Speaker 1: to a triangle. Hence, though it be granted by an
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  Speaker 1: impossibility that the divine intellect knows only non complex things,
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  Speaker 1: it would still be true in knowing its quidity as
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  Speaker 1: its own. Again, the divine simplicity does not exclude perfection,
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  Speaker 1: because in its simple as snace, it has all the
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  Speaker 1: perfections to be found in other things by the aggregation
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  Speaker 1: of perfections or forms. As was proved above. Now, our intellect,
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  Speaker 1: by apprehending the incomplex, does not as yet reach to
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  Speaker 1: its ultimate perfection, since it is still in potentiality as
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  Speaker 1: Regd's composition and division. Even as in natural things, simple
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  Speaker 1: things are in potentiality in respect of mixed things and
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  Speaker 1: parts in respect of the whole. Accordingly, God, in respect
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  Speaker 1: of his simple active intelligence, has that perfection of knowledge
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  Speaker 1: which our intellect has by both kinds of knowledge, whether
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  Speaker 1: of the complex or of the non complex. Now truth
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  Speaker 1: is acquired by our intellect in its perfect knowledge thereof
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  Speaker 1: when it arrives at composition. Therefore there is truth in
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  Speaker 1: God's mere act of simple intelligence. Again, since God is
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  Speaker 1: the good of every good, through having in himself all
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  Speaker 1: manner of goodness, as we have shown above, the goodness
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  Speaker 1: of the intellect cannot be lacking to him. Now truth
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  Speaker 1: is the good of the intellect, as the philosopher declares
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  Speaker 1: in the sixth Book of Ethics. Therefore truth is in God.
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  Speaker 1: And this is what is stated in the Psalm. But
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  Speaker 1: God is true. End of Chapter fifty nine, read by
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  Speaker 1: Michael Shane, Craig Lambert, l C.