Thirty Eighth Distinction

Single Question. Whether God’s Knowledge with respect to Makeable things is Practical

1. About the thirty eighth distinction I ask whether God’s knowledge with respect to makeable things is practical.

That it is not:

Metaphysics 2.1.993b210-21: “The end of practical science is a work;” but nothing outside God is his end.

2. On the contrary:

On the Trinity VI ch.10 n.11: “Art belongs to the wise God,     etc .;” art is a practical habit; therefore      etc.

3. Likewise 83 Questions q.46: “Ideas are the reasons according to which everything formable is formed.”

I. To the Question

4. Above in the question ‘On theology, whether it is practical’ [Prol. nn.217-366], much was said there about practical and speculative knowledge. Briefly applying some of these to the issue at hand, one can say that two things belong to the nature of a practical habit, namely conformity to praxis (which conformity it has from the object about which it is) and its natural priority to the same praxis, because praxis -as practical operation is named from it - is an operation that is distinguished from speculation; but no operation, different from speculation, is in the power of the speculator unless it is or can be naturally posterior to speculation; but knowledge is not posited as practical in anyone, as it belongs to him, save by respect to the praxis that is in his power.

5. From this one needs to know further that practical knowledge - the most practical and closest to praxis - is some opinion about eliciting some praxis (to wit, a judgment about the conclusion of a practical syllogism), which ‘knowledge’ is the end of the movement of the intellect, but operation begins from it (and not only is the knowledge practical that is thus proximately practical, but also the knowledge of practical principles that virtually include it, and also the quidditative knowledge of the terms that includes the practical principles, as was said there [Prol. nn.26-263, 276-277, 314]), therefore any intellect that cannot have some such knowledge giving commands about operating naturally prior to the praxis which such knowledge regards (and that cannot have knowledge of the principles from which to infer such knowledge giving commands about things to be done, and cannot have quidditative knowledge of the terms in which are included such principles), such an intellect does not seem able to have practical knowledge most properly taken according to the two conditions before stated, namely conformity to the object and priority [n.4]; but the divine intellect - comparing his knowledge to the act of his will - does not pre-have any knowledge giving commands about anything to be made (nor knowledge of any principle nor quidditative knowledge of the term) which includes a practical principle; therefore it does not have any knowledge that is conform and prior to such praxis.

6. Proof of the minor [sc. about the divine intellect, n.5]: if prior to an act of the divine will the divine intellect could have any such knowledge, it would have it purely naturally and necessarily, because all knowledge preceding there the act of will is purely natural, and the intellect would have it through the essence as the essence is purely the natural principle of understanding; so of necessity the intellect would know that this is to be made, and then the will - to which it would present it - would not be able not to will it, because then it could fail to be right, able to be discordant with practical right reason, and so it could be non-right. Of necessity, therefore, the divine will would will anything that was to be done, because the same reason would hold of one thing as of another.

7. Here an objection is first raised that for this reason [n.6] the divine intellect would not have any speculative knowledge; for either the will would necessarily will the intellect to speculate, and then liberty would not be first on the part of the will, - or the will would be able not to will the intellect to speculate, and then it could be non-right.

8. And further, if there is first presented to the divine intellect some universal law (to wit, that there needs to be glorification, needs to be gratification), and the divine will accepts it (and from this a law of wisdom is laid down), and if second the intellect offer to the will that Peter is to be beatified, - if the will accept this, thereby the intellect seems to know that Peter is to be glorified, and this by a dictating knowledge that has not been accepted in itself formally by the will, although the will would have verified the premises from which the intellect has it.

9. To the first of these [n.7]: the divine intellect by the necessity of nature is speculative, and there is no liberty formally for this, although it is not without the will being pleased therewith; for God is necessarily knowing, but he is not properly a knower by the will in the way that by necessity - not by will - he is God. When therefore you argue ‘if the will is not able not to will the intellect to speculate, then it is not supremely free’ [n.7], the inference does not hold, because the will’s freedom is not to things intrinsic (things which precede its act), but its freedom is to all makeable things, and therefore the first determination in the will must be posited in respect of makeable things; but it would not be thus if the practical intellect were to determine beforehand, nay liberty could not properly be preserved in the will with respect to makeable things (but neither would any contingency be preserved), because the intellect would necessarily determine it beforehand with pure natural necessity and the will would be necessarily conformed to the intellect; but what is necessarily - even by the necessity of consequence - conform ‘necessarily’ cannot be contingent.

10. To the second [n.8] I say that the divine intellect does not know things in this way, that is discursively, as the argument proceeds; but, by distinguishing the moments of nature, it apprehends in the first moment any doable thing whatever (as much the things that are principles of doable thing as the particular doable things), and in the second moment it presents them all to the will (from all of which the will accepts some, both from all the practical principles and from the particular doable things), and then in the third moment the intellect knows as equally immediately the particulars as the universals, and so it does not acquire its knowledge of the particulars from principles pre-determined by the will. This point will be more evident in the question ‘About the knowledge of God with respect to future contingents’.In d.39, which is lacking in the Ordinatio. See the Interpolation that follows at the end of distinction 38. ⁶

II. To the Principal Arguments

11. To the authority from Augustine [n.2] I say that art is “a habit of making along with true reason” (Ethics 6.4.1140a20-21); and, to the extent the definition of art is taken completely, ‘right reason’ is understood, that is, reason which directs and makes right the power to which operation according to art belongs; but in a diminished way art is ‘a habit with true reason’, when it is only a habit that apprehends the rightness of things to be done and is not a habit that directs or makes right in things to be done. In this second way art can be conceded to exist in God because, when a determination of the will with respect to certain things to be done has been posited, his intellect knows this order of things to be done; and then there is ‘right reason’ there, that is reason knowing rightness - there is not there however a ‘right reason’ that, namely, is directive of the power of the one who operates, and this above all if the power ‘operating extrinsically’ is the will and not some executive power; but if some executive power is posited other than the will, then a ‘right reason’ in the second way seems able to be preserved, which is disposed with respect to the power of the one who operates according to that right reason, and it can be now preserved with respect to the will.

12. The same point makes plain the answer to the other argument from Augustine [n.3], that the ideas are secondary known objects (as was said before [d.35 nn.40, 42]), according to which things outside are made - but these secondary objects do not include any knowledge giving commands about operating or non-operating, although they represent doable things; but knowledge ‘of a doable’ is precisely not practical knowledge, unless it virtually includes a practical principle or conclusion; but there is no such inclusion in the case of the ideas in the divine intellect.a

a [An empty space for the second part of d.38 and for d.39 was left here by Scotus. The following Interpolation is found in its place, from Appendix A.]