A. First Opinion

307. If, when holding this negative proposition, you ask by what affirmative it is held, the response is that the angel does not know the divine essence naturally, throughTr. This proposition too is negative but it depends on the prior affirmative proposition that what is known by creatures naturally is known through a species. ⁷¹ any species.

308. The proof is:

Because every reason proper for understanding any object represents that object adequately; no created essence or species can represent adequately the divine or uncreated effigy, because anything of the former sort is finite but the object is infinite (there is no proportion of the finite to the infinite);     therefore etc     .

309. Again, the created species of one thing is more similar to another created thing than to God, because each of them is finite;     therefore it more distinctly represents a creature than God. Therefore it is not a reason proper and distinct for understanding God.

310. Again, the formal reason according to which an object is apprehended is determinate (as is also the idea of the object), otherwise it would not represent this object more than that; God is most indeterminate and unlimited because he is infinite; therefore etc     . Hence Augustine On the Trinity 8.3 n.4, “Take this good away and that good away, and look at the good itself, if you can, and you have indeed seen God, the good of every good, beyond every good;” therefore God cannot be known distinctly by such a species.

311. Again, if it is necessary to posit a species such that through it God is known distinctly, then as a result that species will be more an image of God than an angel or the soul in themselves are; but this is against Augustine (ibid., 14.8 n.11), who says that “the more something is an image of God, the more it is able to have a capacity for him and to participate in him;” but an angel is able more to participate in God than a species;     therefore etc     .a

a.a [Interpolated note] There are two arguments missing here, as is plain in the responses [nn.342, 345]. However, according to what can be elicited from the responses, the first can be formed enthymematically as follows: if an angel can have a distinct knowledge of the divine essence through some species distinctly representing it, then as a result he can naturally know the Trinity and the whole mystery of it. The second argument as follows: since a blessed angel can see the species in the intellect of another angel, as Michael for instance in the intellect of Gabriel, then as a result Michael, by virtue of the species seen in Gabriel’s intellect, will see everything supernatural.