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061 - Lxi That God Is The Most Pure Truth · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixty one 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
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  Speaker 1: domain Chapter sixty one. That God is the most pure truth,
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  Speaker 1: the foregoing being established, it is evident that in God
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  Speaker 1: there is pure truth, in which there can be no
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  Speaker 1: alloy of falsehood or deception, For falsehood is incompatible with truth,
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  Speaker 1: even as black with white. Now, God is not merely true,
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  Speaker 1: but is truth itself. Therefore there can be no falsehood
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  Speaker 1: in him. Moreover, the intellect is not deceived in knowing
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  Speaker 1: what a thing is, as neither is the sense about
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  Speaker 1: its proper sensible. Now, all knowledge of the divine intellect
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  Speaker 1: is as the knowledge of one who knows what a
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  Speaker 1: thing is, as was proved above. Therefore, it is impossible
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  Speaker 1: that there be error, deception, or falsehood in the divine knowledge. Further,
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  Speaker 1: the intellect does not err about first principles, whereas it
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  Speaker 1: does sometimes about conclusions to which it proceeds by arguing
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  Speaker 1: from first principles. Now, the divine intellect is not argumentative
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  Speaker 1: or discursive, as we proved above. Therefore, there can be
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  Speaker 1: no falsehood or deception. Therein. Again, the higher a cognitive
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  Speaker 1: power is, the more universal and the more comprehensive is
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  Speaker 1: its proper object. Wherefore, that which the site knows accidentally,
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  Speaker 1: the common sense or the imagination apprehends as included in
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  Speaker 1: its proper object. Now, the power of the divine intellect
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  Speaker 1: is absolutely supreme in knowledge. Therefore all things knowable are
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  Speaker 1: compared there to as knowable properly and per se and
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  Speaker 1: not accidentally. But the cognitive power errs not about such things. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: it is impossible for the divine intellect to err about
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  Speaker 1: any knowable object. Moreover, an intellectual virtue is a perfection
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  Speaker 1: of the intellect in knowing things. Now, the intellect cannot,
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  Speaker 1: according to an intellectual virtue, speak false, but always speaks true,
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  Speaker 1: because to speak true is the good act of the intellect,
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  Speaker 1: and it belongs to virtue to perform a good act. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the divine intellect is more perfect by its nature than
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  Speaker 1: the human intellect is by a habit of virtue, for
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  Speaker 1: it is in the summit of perfection. It remains, therefore,
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  Speaker 1: that falsehood can not be in the divine intellect. Further,
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge of the human intellect is somewhat caused by things,
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  Speaker 1: the result being that man's knowledge is measured by its objects,
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  Speaker 1: since the judgment of the intellect is true through being
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  Speaker 1: in accordance with things, and not vice versa. Now, the
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  Speaker 1: divine intellect is the cause of things by its knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: Wherefore his knowledge must needs be the measure of things,
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  Speaker 1: even as art is the measure of the products of art,
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  Speaker 1: each of which is so far perfect as it accords
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  Speaker 1: with art. Hence, the divine intellect is compared to things
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  Speaker 1: as things to the human intellect. Now, falsehood resulting from
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  Speaker 1: inequality between man's mind and things is not in things,
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  Speaker 1: but in the mind. Wherefore, if there were not perfect
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  Speaker 1: equality between the divine mind and things, falsehood would be
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  Speaker 1: in things, but not in the divine mind. And yet
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  Speaker 1: there is no falsehood in things, because as much as
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  Speaker 1: a thing has of being, so much has it of truth. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: there is no inequality between the divine intellect and things,
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  Speaker 1: Nor is any falsehood possible in the divine mind. Again,
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  Speaker 1: as the true is the good of the intellect, so
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  Speaker 1: is falsehood. It's evil, for we naturally desire to know
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  Speaker 1: the true, and shun to be deceived by the false. Now,
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  Speaker 1: evil cannot be in God, as was proved above. Therefore
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  Speaker 1: falsehood cannot be in Him. Hence it is said in
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  Speaker 1: Romans three four, but God is true. And in Numbers
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  Speaker 1: thirty three nineteen God is not as a man that
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  Speaker 1: he should lie. And in the first Letter of John,
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  Speaker 1: God is light, and in him there is no darkness.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter sixty one, read by Michael Shane, Craig, Lambert,
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  Speaker 1: Elsie