A. Opinions of Others

1. First Opinion

9. The position then is that the relations to things other than himself are eternal in God, known by simple intelligence, and that the relations are in the essence as it is the reason of knowing, because of the fact that nothing is a reason of knowing several things save as that reason is appropriated in some way to those several known objects.

10. There is a also a confirmation, that knowledge happens by likeness; therefore the reason of knowing should have some proper reason of likeness to the thing known.

11. So because of this determination and this assimilation of the reason of knowing to the object, eternal relations are posited as reasons determining the essence as it is a reason of understanding, and by these the essence is distinctly like the known objects.

2. Second Opinion

12. Another position is that these relations are in the divine essence as it is the altogether first know object; the divine essence indeed is understood ‘by an intellection altogether first’ as completely without distinction, but so that creatures may be understood the intellect first compares the essence - known first - to creatures under the idea of its being imitable, and then, by understanding the essence as imitable, it understands creatures through that first object, thus considered under such a relation of reason.

13. And this opinion differs from the first [n.9] as the two ways of speaking differ, one of which would posit ‘the same species’ to be the reason of knowing both the principle and the conclusion, only however as under distinct relations of reason corresponding to those known things under their proper ideas - but the other would say that ‘the known principle itself’ is the reason of knowing the conclusion, and this not as a principle absolutely understood, but in comparison or relation to the conclusion.a

a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] A third opinion posits almost the same, and it posits ideas or ideal reasons in the act of understanding. And they [proponents of this opinion] have the following reasoning.

     Our understanding, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.6.1016b18-21, has a respect to the intelligible as measured to measure; therefore if it were infinite as the divine intellect is, it would have a respect to infinite intelligibles, and so there would in our intellect be infinite respects to infinite intelligibles; but because it is finite, it has respect to one intelligible; therefore since the divine understanding is infinite, there will in its ability for understanding be infinite relations to infinite intelligibles.