1. Against the Common Conclusion

14. Against these opinions, - and first against the conclusion in which the opinions agree, namely that these relations of reason must necessarily be posited in God so that creatures be understood distinctly, according to reason, by God, in idea of objects.

The first argument is as follows: these [ideal] reasons are knowable by the divine intellect. I ask, by what reason of knowing? If by other reasons, determining the essence as it is the reason of knowing [n.9] or determining the essence as it is the first object with respect to secondary objects [n.12], there will be a process ad infinitum, because other reasons will again precede for understanding those reasons, and thus those other reasons are never intelligible by God because he will have to understand other infinite reasons an infinite number of times before those reasons. Therefore a stand must be made that those reasons can be understood by God through his essence is it is taken bare, either as it is understood through reason [n.9] or as they are understood through the essence as through the first known object absolutely [n.12]; and the reason by which they will be able to be known by the essence whereby it is essence bare will be as equally reason whereby those other secondary objects will be able to be known, because those reasons thus seem to have the natures of distinct objects just as also do the other things.

15. But if you say that these reasons of knowing are known by the divine intellect through the objects themselves toward which they are, so that the essence under those reasons is the reason for knowing other objects, and they - known together with the essence under diverse reasons - are the reason of knowing those reasons, as the extremes of a relation seem to be the reason of knowing the relation. - This seems to cheapen the divine intellect, because then it will be passive with respect to the other objects known through those reasons by which it will be actuated for knowledge of those reasons.

16. Further, second: any object of which there is ‘some reason of knowing determinately’ that can be a thing limited to it, can have ‘some reason of knowing determinately’ that is a thing unlimited to that and to that; but if the essence were limited with respect to some one determinate knowable, it would be the reason of knowing that object determinately without any respect real or of reason; therefore if it is posited as an unlimited reason with respect to several knowables it can be of itself the reason of knowing any and all of them, without any relation real or of reason.

17. Proof of the major: unlimitedness does not take perfection away from anything, but, with the perfection that was to something remaining in place, it posits as it were a similar perfection to it; and therefore, as was said in distinction 7 nn.20-21 and distinction 28 nn.106-107, a thing indeterminate out of unlimitedness (namely which is indeterminate to several positive things) is of itself determinate to each of them, with determination being repugnant to indetermination to contradictories.

18. Proof of the minor: the essence is posited as the proper reason for knowing itself, and this whether as first object or as reason of knowing the object. And this belongs to the essence purely under an absolute reason, without any real respect, because a real respect does not exist in the same person to itself. Also without any respect of reason, proof: because the intellection is not collative or comparative or negotiative; therefore no relation of reason is caused by it in anything.

19. Further, third: to one operation should be given a principle ‘by which’ that is per se one and an object that is per se one, and this especially in the simply first operation, of which sort is the divine intellection; but a relation of reason and a real being make nothing ‘per se one’, because they cannot even have the unity of the second mode of per se (Metaphysics 5.6.1015b36-16b3), which is less than essential unity is (for a relation of reason cannot follow a thing from the nature of the thing, and therefore it cannot be a property of it); therefore the essence - whether as object or as reason of understanding -and the relation of reason are not ‘one per se’ object, nor one reason of understanding. Therefore one must grant a second thing precisely in reason of first object or as reason ‘by which’. Not precisely the relation of reason, because this is not the first object known by which, when known, something else is known to which the respect is; nor even is it the reason by which the divine intellect may have intellection of this sort of object, because to understand a stone is a perfection simply, so that the divine intellect would not be altogether a perfect intellect if it did not understand a stone; but no relation of reason seems to be a reason of inherence of any perfection simply. Therefore one must grant precisely the essence - which is under this relation - to be as it were the first object, which, when known, a stone would be known, or to be as it were the formal reason of understanding a stone.

20. And from this further: in vain is such a relation determining the divine essence itself posited; for under a respect of reason it is an infinite form, because the intellect, however it compares the essence and thereby causes in it a relation of reason, does not compare it save as it is formally infinite, and so as it is under such reason it is formally infinite - and consequently it is, as it is under that reason, as indeterminate as it is in itself; and it can, as it is under the first reason, found another (because of its infinity) just as it can in itself; therefore it is not determined by a relation of reason.