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.