To the Question.

Henry of Ghent’s Answer

6. The question here is about the knowledge of truth, which is known by the intellect as it combines and divides; the question is not about the first truth or being, but about the idea, etc     .

7. The opinion of Henry [of Ghent] about this question is in the negative. Here one must note that, just as there is a twofold exemplar, namely created and uncreated (the uncreated the idea, and the created the impressed intelligible species), so there is a twofold conformity corresponding to them. But Henry says that through the created exemplar, or the acquired one within us, there cannot be had an altogether sound and certain truth; in fact it is fallible, which he proves as follows:

8. The object from which the created exemplar (that is the true species posited above) is abstracted is changeable;     therefore it cannot be the cause of anything unchangeable, but the sound and certain knowledge of any truth about anything is had about it under the idea of changeability; therefore it is not had from such an eternal exemplar. Hence Augustine in 83 Questions q.9 says that sound truth is not to be expected from sensible things, because they are changeable, etc     .

9. Further, the soul is not ruled or perfected by anything more changeable than itself; but the sort of created exemplar posited above is more changeable than the soul;     therefore etc     . The major is from Augustine On True Religion,     etc .

10. Further, he who has such eternal truth should have wherewith to discern the true from the untrue or from the seeming true, which the wayfarer does not have (for the created exemplar or species cannot do it). And the proof is that this species either represents itself as it is, and then it is a true understanding, or represents itself as the object, and then it is a false understanding; therefore      it can err, as is plain in dreams. From these premises the conclusion is drawn that sure knowledge cannot be had by looking at the created exemplar.

11. His way of putting this is as follows: for he says that God does not have the idea of exemplar as a known thing by which, when looked at, sound truth is known; so God is known in some general attribute. But he is the reason for knowing as naked exemplar and as proper idea of uncreated essence. Hence Henry says that the uncreated light illumines the intellect of an angel by direct vision, as it were, and this light, as seen, is the reason for an angel’s seeing in himself other things. But the uncreated light illumines our intellect as by reflected vision in this present state, and therefore it is the reason of seeing for our intellect and is not seen.

12. I argue against this opinion, and first by turning Henry’s reasons in the opposite direction. For if the object too in the containing mind changes [n.8], no certitude can be had about it under an unchangeable idea; indeed in no light at all can certitude about it be had, because there is no certitude when the object can be known in a way other than how the subject is. There is no certitude then in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reasoning is false, for it imposes the view of Heraclitus, that sensibles are continually changing, Metaphysics 4 text 23. It also follows that if, because of the changeability of the exemplar in our soul, there can be no certitude (since anything posited subjectively in the soul is changeable, including the act of understanding itself), then it follows that by nothing in the soul will the soul be set right so as not to err.

13. Likewise, according to this opinion [n.9], the created species is inherent with this species alonea apart from the being;The text prints ‘absente’ but, to make sense, it should be ‘abs ente’. ¹²³ but when something is known that is repugnant to certitude, no certitude can be had; for, just as from one contingent premise joined to another contingent premise a contingent conclusion follows [Prior Analytics ch.21], so from an uncertain thing and a certain thing (when they come together for some piece of knowledge) no certain conclusion follows, etc.

14. Again, the same is plain about the third reason [n.10], for if the species abstracted from the thing is concurrent with all knowledge and if it is not possible to judge when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, however much something else is concurrent with it, no certitude can be had whereby to discriminate the true from the seeming true etc.

15. Now, that this opinion is not, as some mean to say, the opinion of Augustine, is plain from Augustine when he says [Soliloquies 2] that for no reason does anyone concede that the speculations of the sciences to be the truest. And Boethius says [De Hebdomadibus] that the common conceptions of the soul are those that, when heard, everyone approves. The Philosopher too in Metaphysics 2 com.1 says that the first principles are certain and known to everyone, like the doors in a house.

16. From these three authorities the argument goes as follows: Whatever agrees with everything of some species is consequent to the specific nature;     therefore since everyone has sure knowledge of the first principles, and since knowledge of the conclusions depends on knowledge of the principles, it follows that sure knowledge of the conclusion can be known by anyone. And elsewhere Augustine says On the Trinity 15.13, “Far be it that we should doubt to be true and certain the things we have learnt through the senses of the body.”

17. I now solve Henry’s arguments etc     . As to the first [n.8], about the changeability of the object, I say that the antecedent is false. Nor is it the opinion of Augustine but of Heraclitus [rather Cratylus], who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4. And given that the antecedent were true, sure knowledge could still, according to Aristotle, be had about the fact that everything is moved contingently; and from the fact that everything is moveable contingently, sure and sound and unchangeable knowledge is had that everything changeable was changeable. For the following consequence does not hold: the object is changeable; therefore whatever is generated by it does not represent anything under the idea of being unchangeable. For the changeability of the object is not the reason for knowledge, but rather the nature of the changeable object is; what is generated by it, then, represents the nature per se; therefore if the nature has some unchangeable relation to something else, this something else is represented by its exemplar as being unchangeably united to it and thus through two exemplars.

18. To the second [n.9] I say that a double changeability can be understood in the soul: one is from affirmation to negation and conversely, namely from non-intellection to intellection and conversely; the other is as it were from contraries to contrary, namely from correctness to error and conversely. The soul is changeable in the first way as to any object whatever, and such changeableness is not removed from it by anything existing formally in the soul. But the soul is not changeable in the second way until it reaches propositions that are not evident from the terms. But about propositions that are evident from the terms the soul cannot change in this second way of being changeable, because the apprehended terms are a necessary cause of the conformity of the composition with the terms. Therefore if the soul is capable of absolute changeability from rightness to error, then there is nothing by which it can set itself right; at least it cannot set itself right as to the objects that the intellect, once the terms are grasped, cannot be in error about.

19. To the third [n.10] I say that, when the intelligible species or the exemplar is said not to represent itself as the object in dreams, then it is a phantasm and not an intelligible species; therefore if the intellect is using only a phantasm in which the object is present to it and is not using another intelligible species, then it does not seem able to discern the true from the seeming true by anything that the object is manifest in; but positing an impressed species in the intellect is not valid reasoning, because the intellect cannot use that species itself for the object, because in fact it does not use it in sleep.

20. And if answer be made that because a phantasm can represent an object the intellect can at least err and can even be impeded from operating correctly, as is plain of the mad and people asleep - I say that the intellect does not then err because it does not then act.

21. And so the response to Henry’s arguments is plain, etc.

22. What remains now is to argue against the conclusion of Henry’s opinion. Hence I ask what he means by sound truth. For either he means certain and infallible truth, without any doubt or deception, and this can be had by purely natural power. Or he means by truth a property of being; but since being can be naturally known, so too can its property, namely the true; consequently, by abstraction, truth can be known, for any form that can be understood in something can also be understood in itself by abstraction. Or he means by sound truth conformity with the exemplar, and then I ask whether the conformity is with the created exemplar (and then the proposed conclusion is gained) or with the uncreated exemplar; and if with the uncreated exemplar then, since conformity cannot be known unless what the conformity is with is known, it follows that the uncreated exemplar is known in the created exemplar, which is contrary to how he posits things.

23. Further, when the intellect understands something confusedly it can grasp it definitively by investigating its definition through a process of division. This knowledge is the most perfect kind and belongs to simple understanding, and from this most perfect kind of knowledge of terms the intellect can understand principles, and from principles conclusions, and in this way its knowledge becomes complete, etc.

Andreas’ own Answer

24. To the question I say that, because of Augustine’s words [nn.2-4],Note that because Andreas accepts the arguments at the beginning he has no need to give an answer to them; so no section responding to such arguments is found in this question. ¹²⁴ one must concede the fact that infallible truths are seen in eternal patterns. But here the ‘in’ can be taken as meaning the object and in four ways: as in the proximate object, or as in what contains the proximate object, or as in that by virtue of which the proximate object moves, or as in the remote object.

25. To understand the first of these I say that all intelligibles have intelligible being by act of the divine intellect, and all truths about these intelligibles are visible in them; and the intellect, understanding them as intellect and the necessary truths about them by virtue of them, sees the necessary truths in them as in its objects. Now these are truths insofar as they are secondary objects of the divine intellect, because they are conformed to their exemplar, namely to the divine intellect; they are also light because they make things manifest and are unchangeable and necessary; they are also eternal, but in a certain respect, because eternity is a condition of what exists in a certain respect, and these things only have existence in a certain respect. Thus we can in a first way say that the intellect sees things in the eternal light, that is, in a secondary object of the divine intellect, which, in the way just expounded, is the truth or the eternal light.

26. The second way is plain from the fact that the divine intellect contains the truths as a sort of book, after the manner stated by Augustine [On the Trinity chs.14-15], that the eternal patterns are written in the book of eternal light, that is, in the divine intellect insofar as it contains these truths. And although the book is not something seen, yet the things written in it are seen to be the quiddities of things; and the intellect could be said to see truths in the light, that is, in the book as it contains the object (and this is the second way), or to see them also in the truths that are in a certain respect eternal light, as we see truths in objects (and this according to the first way). The latter of these ways seems to be of Augustine’s mind, because the idea of square body remains incorruptible and unchangeable but the body itself does not remain so, save as it is a secondary object of the divine intellect, etc.

27. But there is a doubt here; for if we do not see the truths as they are in the divine intellect (for we do we not see that intellect), then we will be said to see them in the uncreated light, and that because what we see in such eternal light (eternal in a certain respect) are things that have being in the uncreated light as in the intellect that knows them. Here the second way replies that things as they are the secondary object of the divine intellect have being only in a certain respect. But real operation does not belong to any being by that being’s power as it precisely is a being in a certain respect; but if operation does in any way belong to it then it must do so by the power of another thing that has being simply. These objects, then are, according to Aristotle, only able strictly speaking to move the intellect by virtue of the being of the divine intellect, which is being simply and through which the objects have being in a certain respect. Thus it is, then, that we see things in the eternal light (eternal in a certain respect eternal) as in the proximate object; but we see them in the uncreated light as in the proximate cause, by virtue of which the proximate object moves the intellect, etc.

28. Alongside this can be said that, as to the third way [n.24], we see things in the eternal light as in the proximate cause of the object in itself. For the divine intellect produces things by its own indwelling intelligible act, and by this act it gives to each object, to this object and to that, this or that sort of being; consequently to each is given the idea of the kind of thing it is, and through these ideas do things first move the intellect to sure knowledge. But the fact that one can indeed say the understanding of the matter is to see things in the eternal light (because the light is the cause of the object) is apparent from a likeness: for we are properly said to understand in the light of the agent intellect -although however this light is but the active cause, either as being what makes the object actual, or as that by virtue of which the object moves, or as both. So this double causality of the divine intellect (namely that it is the true uncreated light which produces secondary objects in intelligible being and is that by virtue of which produced secondary objects also actually move the intellect) can as it were integrally include the third member (the one about the cause [n.24], because of which we are said to see truly in the eternal light).

29. But if you object against these two ways (which integrally include the third one about the cause) that then it seems rather to be the case that we are said to see in God’s will, or in God as will, than in God as he is light, because the divine will is the immediate principle of any extrinsic act of God etc. - I reply that the divine intellect produces objects in intelligible being insofar as it is in some way prior to the divine will, and so it seems to be a merely natural power with respect to them, because God is only a free cause with respect to something if the supposition is first made that some willing or act of will in some way precedes it; and so the intellect, as prior to the act of will, produces intelligible objects such that a prior cause seems to cooperate naturally with the intelligibles for their effect, namely in the way terms, when apprehended and joined together, cause apprehension of the conformity [of the proposition] to themselves. There seems, then, to be a contradiction in the intellect forming some such composition of terms and the composition not being in conformity in the terms - though it is possible that the terms not be conceived; for although God voluntarily acts along with the intellect in putting or not putting terms together, nevertheless, when the intellect has put them together, the conformity of the composition with the terms seems to follow necessarily the intelligible nature of the terms, which nature they have from the intellect of God as this intellect naturally brings the terms about in intelligible being.

30. Thus it is apparent how no special illumination is necessary for seeing things in the eternal patterns. For Augustine posits those truths alone to be seen in them that are, by the force of the terms, necessary extremes, and in such cases there is the maximum of necessity, that is, in both the proximate and the remote causes with respect to the effect, namely, in both the divine intellect with respect to the objects that move the intellect, and in the objects in relation to the truth of the proposition about them. But if it is posited that God cooperates as to the effect with a general influence but not with natural necessity, I say that, whether there is a general influence here or a natural necessity, plainly no special illumination is necessarily required.

31. The assumption from Augustine [n.30] is plain from On the Trinity 4.15 when he speaks about these matters: “Some are able to raise the sharpness of their mind above every creature to attain in some way or other to the light of incommunicable truth, which they mockingly say Christians who live by faith alone are not yet able to do.” Therefore he maintains that Christians do not see the things of faith in the eternal patterns. But philosophers see many necessary things in those patterns according to Augustine when he says [On the Trinity 9.6] “the mind must not be of the sort it is in just any man,” as if he were to say, “contingent things are not seen there but necessary ones;” therefore he means the necessary ones are seen through eternal patterns, because contingent things, which are only known through the senses are or believed from histories, are not known; and yet a special illumination is more required in the case of believing contingent things than in knowing necessary ones, where a special illumination is furthest removed and the general illumination is alone sufficient.

32. On the contrary: Why then does Augustine say [On the Trinity 12.14] that few are able by sharpness of mind to attain to the intelligible ideas, and that only pure souls reach them?

33. I reply that the purity in question here should not be understood as purity from vices, because Augustine maintains [83 Questions q.46, On the Trinity 14.15] that an unjust man may see in the eternal patterns what in them one should think. But the purity must be understood as an elevating of the intellect to understanding truths as they are manifest in themselves, and not only as they are manifest in phantasms. Here one needs to note that a sensible thing causes a single confused phantasm representing in the imaginative power something per accidens one, namely the thing in its size, shape, color, and other sensible accidents. And just as the phantasm represents the thing only confusedly and per accidens, so many people perceive only a per accidens thing. But pure truths are precisely what they are through the proper nature of the terms, to the extent the terms are abstracted from everything joined per accidens with them. For the proposition, ‘every whole is greater than its part’, is true not only as it is a whole of stone or wood, but as it is a whole abstracted from everything to which it is per accidens conjoined. Therefore when the intellect understands a whole as it is in wood or stone, it does not have sound truth about it; and in this way Augustine says that few are able thus to understand, for few have so subtle a sort of mind; and he who understands with a confused and per accidens sort of concept is in the valley and surrounded by fog. But he who understands truths purely, and understands them as, from the idea of their terms, they precisely are, is on a broad mountain, having the valley and fog below.The printed text has ‘sincerum’ or ‘sound’ which makes no sense in the context. It may be a misprint for ‘inferius’ or ‘sub pedem’ or the like, which is what is translated here. ¹²⁵

33. One can, then, in this way concede that sound truths are known in uncreated light as in a remote known object [n.24]; for the uncreated light is the first principle of theoretical matters and the ultimate end of practical ones, and the principles of theory and practice are taken up in this way.     Therefore knowledge of beings through such principles is nobler, and such knowledge belongs to theologians. Yet, notwithstanding, Augustine says that sound truth can be had without special illumination, etc     .