A. First Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

40. To the second question the response is made [Aquinas] that the intellect of Christ’s soul cannot see everything that the Word sees. The reason is that the more perfectly a cause is seen the greater is the number of effects seen in it and conversely, as is plain about principle and conclusion; for the more perfectly a principle is seen the greater is the number of conclusions seen in it; so he who can see all the effects in a cause can comprehend the cause. No created intellect can do the latter; therefore not the former either.

41. A distinction is therefore drawn in God’s knowledge, one sort being that of simple apprehension, which concerns possibles, whether these are going to exist in some part of time or not thus going to exist, and another sort being that of vision, which is only of things having existence in some part of time. Everything that is known by the knowledge of vision is posited as known by the soul of Christ in the Word, but not everything that is known by the knowledge of simple apprehension.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

42. Against the reasoning of this position I argue as follows:

If b, c, d belong to a in a certain order such that b is the whole reason for c, then if he who understands b does not comprehend a, much less would he who does not understand c comprehend a. An example about subject, definition, and property: if he who understands the definition does not comprehend the subject, then he who does not understand the property would not understand the subject; or let a prior property be taken for the middle term, and let a more remote property be taken for the third term (which more remote property is present in the subject by reason of the prior property) - in this case the intended proposition is plain. But the properties of ‘being intensively infinite’ and of ‘being that to which infinite possibles are somehow reduced’ are related to God in an ordered way, such that it is because God is intensively infinite that infinite possibles are reflected in him and that he has power for infinite possibles, and not conversely. But someone who knows God under the idea of the intensively infinite does not for this reason comprehend God (from what was said in the preceding question, n.35); therefore, much less does someone who knows the infinites that are reflected in God, or who knows God’s infinite effects, comprehend God.

43. Besides, he who knows one effect in the Word does not comprehend the Word, nor does he comprehend the Word as cause of it; therefore, no matter how many effects he knows, he does not comprehend any of them, nor the Word as cause of any of them - and so, much less does he simply comprehend the Word even if he knows all the effects.

44. Further, the example about principle and conclusion [n.40] takes up something false: for a cause, qua cause, receives no perfection from the caused, for it is naturally prior to it; therefore knowledge of the principle, as it is cause of knowledge of the conclusion, is in no way perfected by knowledge of the conclusion.

45. Confirmation of the argument [n.44]: let some principle be taken as it is in some degree known; I ask whether some conclusion can be known through it such that precisely this knowledge [of the principle] stays in the intellect without increase or not without increase. If the first, then the proposition intended here is gained, that he who knows the conclusion does not know the principle more perfectly - and as this holds of one conclusion so it holds of any conclusion at all that is included in the principle. If the second, then this principle, as known in this degree, is not the principle, because it is [as thus known] not the principle of any conclusion - which is false; again, there would be a circle of causality [in knowing] between principle and conclusion.

46. There is also confirmation from the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1.1.71a11-16, where he holds that one must know not only the ‘what it is’ of the subject but also the ‘why’ of the property and predicate. And his reason is that the whole idea of science is contained virtually in the whatness of the subject, and that in no way is knowledge of the ‘what it is’ of the subject acquired by the demonstration but is totally presupposed to it, and that what is acquired by the demonstration is only knowledge of the inherence of the properties in the subject; and so the upshot is that, as regard knowledge of the conclusion with respect to the principle, knowledge of the principle, the ‘what it is’, is altogether presupposed to the demonstration, and that it in no way becomes more perfect through the demonstration.

47. To the argument then [n.40] one can say that there is a fallacy of the consequent in the arguing; for although he who more perfectly knows the cause more perfectly knows the effect, and so can know more things when the cause more perfectly represents the things caused, yet it is not, conversely, the case that when he knows more effects he then more perfectly knows the cause; for knowledge of the principle can stand in itself without being increased by the greater number of conclusions elicited from it. And can one also say the same about a cause and the several effects known from it.

48. As to the distinction which is used to solve the question about the two kinds of knowledge, namely knowledge of vision and of simple apprehension [n.41], I argue against it because the soul of Christ can apprehend in the Word any never-to-be future possible; therefore his soul has precisely no term set down for its knowledge of what God knows by the knowledge of vision. The proof of the assumption is that it is also likely that other souls will see in the Word, and see distinctly, that he can create things he does not create; so much more will Christ’s soul be able to see in the Word any of the possibles.

49. Further, it can be that his soul sees in the Word some possible in a relation of one thing to another; so, in order to avoid infinity, it is necessary to fix a term other than by inclusion of actuals and exclusion of possibles.