B. Second Opinion

125. There is another opinion [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24, q.8], which posits that God is the first object of the intellect, and the fundamental reasons for it are those that were adduced for the first part of the question [nn.108-109], arguing to the main point. And for the same reasons it posits that God is the first object of the will, because God is the reason for willing everything else - the way the opinion adduced the authority from Augustine On The Trinity VIII ch.6 n9, “Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just, and not the form itself where we see what a just mind is, so that we too can be just? Or is it that, unless we loved this form, we would in no way love him we believe to be just, whom we love because of this form? But while we are not just, we do not love it enough to have strength to be just.”

126. Against this opinion I argue as follows: the natural first object of any power has a natural order to that power; God does not have a natural order to our intellect under the idea of moving it, save perhaps under the idea of some general attribute, as that opinion supposes;     therefore God is only the first object under the idea of that attribute, and so that general attribute will be the first object - or, according to the opinion that I held before [n.19] (that God is only understood under the idea of being [nn.56-60]), he will not have a natural order save under such universal concept. But a particular that is only understood in something common is not the first object of the intellect, but rather that common thing is. Therefore etc     .

127. Further, it is certain that God does not have a primacy of adequacy because of being common, so as to be asserted of any object per se intelligible to us. Therefore, if he has some primacy of adequacy this will be because of virtuality, namely that he contains virtually in himself everything per se intelligible. But not for this reason will he be the object adequate to our intellect, because other beings move our intellect by their own virtue, so that the divine essence is not moving our intellect to knowing him and all other knowables. And as was said before in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. nn.152, 200-201], the essence of God is for this reason the first object of the divine intellect that it alone moves the divine intellect to knowing itself and all the things knowable by that intellect.

128. Through the same reasons [nn.126-127] is it proved that substance could not, on the ground that all accidents are attributed to it, be posited to be the first object of our intellect, for accidents have their own power to move the intellect. Therefore, substance does not move to knowledge of itself and of all other things.