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Objection 1: It seems that God does not know things besides
Himself. For all other things but God are outside of God. But
Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi) that "God does
not behold anything out of Himself." Therefore He does not know
things other than Himself.
Objection 2: Further, the object understood is the perfection of
the one who understands. If therefore God understands other things
besides Himself, something else will be the perfection of God, and
will be nobler than He; which is impossible.
Objection 3: Further, the act of understanding is specified by the
intelligible object, as is every other act from its own object. Hence
the intellectual act is so much the nobler, the nobler the object
understood. But God is His own intellectual act. If therefore God
understands anything other than Himself, then God Himself is
specified by something else than Himself; which cannot be. Therefore
He does not understand things other than Himself.
On the contrary, It is written: "All things are naked and open to
His eyes" (Heb. 4:13).
I answer that, God necessarily knows things other than Himself.
For it is manifest that He perfectly understands Himself; otherwise
His existence would not be perfect, since His existence is His act
of understanding. Now if anything is perfectly known, it follows of
necessity that its power is perfectly known. But the power of anything
can be perfectly known only by knowing to what its power extends.
Since therefore the divine power extends to other things by the very
fact that it is the first effective cause of all things, as is clear
from the aforesaid (Question 2, Article 3), God must
necessarily know things other than Himself. And this appears still
more plainly if we add that the every existence of the first effective
cause---viz. God---is His own act of understanding. Hence
whatever effects pre-exist in God, as in the first cause, must be in
His act of understanding, and all things must be in Him according to
an intelligible mode: for everything which is in another, is in it
according to the mode of that in which it is.
Now in order to know how God knows things other than Himself, we
must consider that a thing is known in two ways: in itself, and in
another. A thing is known in itself when it is known by the proper
species adequate to the knowable object; as when the eye sees a man
through the image of a man. A thing is seen in another through the
image of that which contains it; as when a part is seen in the whole by
the image of the whole; or when a man is seen in a mirror by the image
in the mirror, or by any other mode by which one thing is seen in
another.
So we say that God sees Himself in Himself, because He sees
Himself through His essence; and He sees other things not in
themselves, but in Himself; inasmuch as His essence contains the
similitude of things other than Himself.
Reply to Objection 1: The passage of Augustine in which it is said
that God "sees nothing outside Himself" is not to be taken in such a
way, as if God saw nothing outside Himself, but in the sense that
what is outside Himself He does not see except in Himself, as above
explained.
Reply to Objection 2: The object understood is a perfection of the
one understanding not by its substance, but by its image, according to
which it is in the intellect, as its form and perfection, as is said
in De Anima iii. For "a stone is not in the soul, but its
image." Now those things which are other than God are understood by
God, inasmuch as the essence of God contains their images as above
explained; hence it does not follow that there is any perfection in the
divine intellect other than the divine essence.
Reply to Objection 3: The intellectual act is not specified by what
is understood in another, but by the principal object understood in
which other things are understood. For the intellectual act is
specified by its object, inasmuch as the intelligible form is the
principle of the intellectual operation: since every operation is
specified by the form which is its principle of operation; as heating
by heat. Hence the intellectual operation is specified by that
intelligible form which makes the intellect in act. And this is the
image of the principal thing understood, which in God is nothing but
His own essence in which all images of things are comprehended. Hence
it does not follow that the divine intellectual act, or rather God
Himself, is specified by anything else than the divine essence
itself.
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