gross error which the school of Günther at one time propagated among the theologians of Germany,— that consciousness formally constitutes personality. If this were so, then we should have to distinguish in Jesus Christ, who had both a divine and a human consciousness, two separate persons, and in the Godhead three distinct Natures, because of the trinity of the (relative) self-consciousness, and but one Person on account of the oneness of God's (absolute) consciousness. This would spell, on the one hand, Nestorianism; on the other, Tritheism or Sabellianism. In matter of fact, as there is in God but one Nature, so He has only one consciousness, which belongs to all three Divine Persons per modum identitatis, and by virtue of which each separate Hypostasis, and all three Hypostases together, are aware of their existence and their infinite perfection. If, therefore, consciousness is multiplied according to natures, not according to persons, it follows inevitably that consciousness and self-comprehension in God coincide in the same manner as being and cognition. Hence in the Godhead: being thought comprehensio sui = consciousness. 8 = Thesis II: By virtue of His infinite comprehension of His own Essence, God in and through Himself also knows all extra-divine truths, in such manner that truth is dependent on Him, not He on truth. Proof. This thesis consists of two distinct parts. In the first, God's self-comprehension is made to comprise within its radius the entire domain of truth external to His Essence; while in the second, the relation of the former to the latter is defined more clearly by excluding all real dependency of God on the objects of His knowledge. The question here at issue, therefore, is not: How many and what classes of truths form the object of Divine Knowledge, but: How does God know the several truths, the possible and the real, the present and the future, etc.? Our thesis answers this question in a twofold way. (1) Positively: God knows all truths in and through Himself, that is to say, by virtue of His own Essence and His self-comprehension; (2) negatively the truths which He knows do not really affect His knowledge. Inasmuch as the Church has never defined the mode of divine cognition, and her magisterium ordinarium teaches nothing definite on this subject as of faith, we cannot assert our thesis to be de fide, though we can surely claim for it the value of a theological conclusion. All theological schools unanimously uphold God's absolute independence of the objects of His knowledge, as a corollary from the divine attributes of self-existence and infinite perfection. I. It is not difficult to demonstrate that God must know all truths without exception by reason of His self-comprehension. According to the axiom: "Ens et verum convertuntur," truth is co-extensive with being. Now, whatever is, is either God, or something external to God. The things external to God can be di vided into two classes: the possible and the actually existing. We know from the preceding thesis that God has an adequate knowledge of all divine being by reason of His comprehension of His own Essence. As for the two classes of extra-divine beings, the possibles depend on the Divine Essence as their exemplary cause, while the actually existing things depend on the same not only as their exemplary but also as their efficient and final cause. As, therefore, God comprehends His own Essence, which is the exemplary, the efficient, and the final cause of all things outside of Himself, so by virtue of His comprehensio sui He must envisage these things one and all in His own Essence. To prove this thesis from Revelation, we must fall back on the attribute of divine omnipotence. If God can do whatever does not imply an intrinsic contradiction, then His omnipotence is co-extensive with being, that is, with the sphere of possible being. Even the things that now actually exist, prior to the moment of their creation or realization were merely possible. Now, God envisages His omnipotence in His own Essence, of which it is an attribute; consequently he must also perceive in His Essence whatever comes within the scope of His omnipotence, viz.: all real and all possible things. Cfr. Ecclus. XXIII, 29: "Domino Deo, antequam crearentur, omnia sunt agnita, sic et post perfectum respicit omnia (πρὶν ἢ κτισθῆναι τὰ πάντα ἔγνωσται ἀυτῷ, οὕτως καὶ μετὰ τὸ συντελησθῆναι) — For all things were known to the Lord God, before they were created, so also after ... they were perfected he beholdeth all things.' The following quotation from St. Augustine's treatise De Genesi ad Lit., is often cited in this connection: Sicut vidit, ita fecit. Non praeter seipsum videns, sed in seipso, ita enumeravit omnia, quae fecit. . . . Nota ergo fecit, non facta cognovit. Proinde antequam fierent, et erant et non erant: erant in Dei scientia, non erant in sua natura.” 10 The Schoolmen, under the leadership of St. Thomas, defended the thesis: "Deus intellectu suo intelligit se principaliter, et in se intelligit omnia alia-God with His understanding knows Himself in the first place, and in Himself perceives all other things." 11 2. If God, as we have just shown, by virtue of His self-comprehension, knows all extradivine things (or truths) in His Essence, it follows as a matter of course that He is nowise dependent on the objects of His knowledge. A created intellect cannot perceive an object without being influenced by it. The object, as the Scholastic phrase runs, determines the intellect. Not so the Divine Intellect, which, in perceiving Itself as well as the things outside Itself, is determined only by Itself. Therefore no extra-divine truth in its relation to God can ever be a causa determinans, though it may be a conditio sine qua non. In other words: The things outside of God are merely the terminus, but in no sense the cause of Divine Knowledge. Or, as the Scholastics put it: "Objecta alia a Deo terminant sqq.; Cfr. Wisdom VII, 21 Prov. VIII, 22 sqq.; John I, 3 sqq., and other similar passages. 10 De Gen. ad Lit., V, 35 sq. 11 Cfr. Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, p. 57. quidem intellectum divinum, sed non determinant - The objects existing outside of God terminate, but they do not determine, the Divine Intellect." To assume that the Divine Intellect could be influenced by truths existing outside of Itself, would be tantamount to asserting that God is essentially dependent on the created universe, which would be to deny His self-existence. There is nothing outside the Divine Essence which can determine God's knowledge, just as there is nothing external to Him that can determine His being; for both His knowledge and His being are self-existing. It follows that the Divine Intellect can be determined. only from within, that is to say, by the Divine Essence Itself. However, we must not conceive of this process as a real influence exerted by God's Essence upon His Intellect, lest we fall into the mistake, already censured, of taking aseitas to mean self-realization in the strict sense of that term. God, being pure actuality (actus purissimus), cannot in any sense be conceived as potential. Cfr. 1 John I, 5: "Deus lux est et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae - God is light, and in Him there is no darkness." To say that God is determined from within, can, therefore, only mean that His knowledge is determined by His essence in the same way as His existence.12 The doctrine we are here defending has found pointed, not to say drastic, expression in the writings of those Fathers of the Church who hold that God does not know the things outside Himself because they exist, but they exist because He knows them. "Universas creaturas suas, et spirituales et corporales," says St. Augustine, "non quia sunt ideo novit, sed ideo sunt quia novit; non enim nescivit quae fuerat creaturus - And with respect to all His creatures, both 12 Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogm., Vol. II, p. 93. |
