Question Three. Whether Christ’s Soul knows Everything in its own Proper Genus

90. Third I ask whether Christ’s soul knows everything in its own proper genus.

91. That it does not.

Luke 2.52, “Jesus advanced in age and wisdom before God and men.”

92. But if this verse [n.91] is expounded as meaning he advanced in appearance, then to the contrary is Ambrose On the Incarnation ch.7 n.52 (and it is found in the text for the preceding question), where he concludes that there was some sense other than divine in Christ because according to some sense Christ advanced; but this proof would have no validity if it had to be understood only of Christ advancing in appearance, because wisdom according to the divine intellect could display more things [sc. if Christ advanced in wisdom in appearance, a divine sense would be enough to explain the appearance, and no further sense would be required, contrary to Ambrose’s reasoning].

93. Further, Hebrews 5.8, “He learnt obedience through the things he suffered.”

94. Again, Christ was not only blessed and possessed of comprehensive vision but also a wayfarer; so he had the knowledge that belongs to a wayfarer, namely a knowledge arising from repeated acts (according to what is determined by the Philosopher in Metaphysics 1.1980b29-81a3 and Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a3-8);     therefore etc     .

95. Further, Christ was rational; therefore he had power for acts belonging to a rational nature as this nature is rational, which is to proceed from things known to things unknown, and so to learn by progressing through a knowledge of such unknown things in a discursive way.

96. On the contrary:

Christ had, according to the Master, no kind of ignorance, for Christ’s assuming this deficiency was of no expedience for us.

97. Further, the angels know everything in its proper genus; therefore much more does Christ’s soul, which (as was said before [n.26]) was perfect with the highest supernatural perfection and so, by parity of reasoning, with the highest possible natural perfection.

I. To the Question

A. First Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

98. A distinction is drawn here [Aquinas] between infused knowledge and acquired knowledge.

99. And the statement is made that as to infused knowledge Christ’s soul knew everything through certain principles infused into it (namely through intelligible species infused by God), and that, to this extent, it could not advance; but it could advance as to acquired knowledge.

100. The proof is that Christ’s soul had a possible and agent intellect just as we do, and the proper operation of these intellects is to abstract intelligible species and take them in; so these powers in Christ’s soul had this ability; but an intelligible species is either knowledge of an object or a necessary principle of knowing.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

101. Argument against this conclusion [n.99] is drawn from the statements of him who thinks it, because according to him ‘two accidents of the same species cannot exist in the same thing’; but infused and acquired knowledge of the same thing in its proper genus are of the same species.

102. If it be said that they can be distinct in species, as ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ knowledge are distinct in species - on the contrary: knowledges are not distinguished into species by the intellect (according to those who hold this view), nor according to the proper idea of the object, that is, as the object is present in itself and in the Word. Therefore the two knowledges, acquired evening knowledge and infused evening knowledge, must have the same object, and their difference is only as to their efficient causes (as in the case of a man created and a man generated naturally) - but such a distinction of causes does not distinguish the form itself of knowledge,a according to Augustine, Letters to Deogratias q.1 n.4, and Ambrose, On the Incarnation ch.9 nn.102-105: ‘difference of origin does not produce difference of nature’, as is plain in the case of Adam and ourselves.

a.a [Interpolated note] for the object is the same; but the distinction is in the diverse means and principles of knowing, which are efficient causes of the distinction.

103. Further, against the conclusion in itself [n.99] I argue as follows: even if two knowledges of the same species could be in the same thing at the same time, yet two perfect knowledges of the same species and in accord with the same idea could not be; for either the object, to the extent it is knowable, would be known perfectly by either of the knowledges and then the other would be superfluous, or it would not be perfectly known and then neither knowledge would be perfect.

104. There is argument too against the reasoning for the conclusion [n.100], because then someone blessed, since he has an agent and a possible intellect, would be able to acquire knowledge; and the power too of growth and the other powers, which in the blessed will be of the same nature as they are in us, will be able to perform their acts; and so someone blessed is now able to grow, just as Adam too in the state of innocence could have grown.

103. From these instances and others like them it is plain that the proposition is false that ‘powers are, wherever they are, perfectly able to perform their acts’; for this proposition is true only of something imperfect that is in potency to the term of the actions of the powers; but if some agent anticipates those powers and induces the terms which the actions of those powers had the ability to attain, then those powers will not be able to act to attain those terms -not because of any imperfection in themselves but because of the positing of the term by the anticipating agent; nor for this reason should those powers be denied to exist in the nature of the thing, for they are perfections of the nature simply, whether they have reached the terms of their perfection through that nature or in some other way.

B. Second Opinion

106. But if another opinion here be held [Henry of Ghent], namely that Christ’s soul knows everything in habit, the way that a single habit is posited in angels as sufficient reason for having habitual knowledge of everything - then this opinion about Christ’s soul is refuted in the same way as it was refuted about angels, in Ord. 2 d.3 nn.355-363, 366-367, 400-407.

C. Scotus’ own Opinion

107. In response to the question, then, it can be said that knowledge is twofold, namely abstractive and intuitive (the distinction was proved in Ord. 2 d.3 n.321); and by each kind of knowledge can one know both nature as it is prior to singularity and nature as it is a ‘this’.

1. On Abstractive Knowledge

108. To speak, then, of abstractive knowledge, that is, knowledge which is of an object, whether singular or universal, one can say that Christ’s soul has, through infused species, habitual knowledge of all universals or quiddities. For since this sort of knowledge is a mark of perfection in a created intellect -because a created intellect is passive with respect to any intelligible object (a created intellect does not have the perfection of all intelligibles in itself, and the lack of a perfection possible to it in respect of some object makes the intellect to be in some way imperfect) - it seems reasonable to attribute to Christ’s intellect the sort of perfection with respect to every intelligible that is attributed to angels. For such perfection is not repugnant to a created intellect, nor is it an imperfection in it, nor even is it incompossible with the perfection of the knowing in the Word which is posited as belonging to Christ’s soul, because, according to Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 4 ch.30/47, “there, in the creature’s knowledge taken in itself, it is always day, always evening.” Therefore knowledge in the Word and knowledge in its proper genus can stand together.

109. But by knowledge in this way, namely abstractive and habitual, Christ’s soul, on the one hand, either does not know all singulars in their proper idea - if, that is, it has infused species only of quiddities, for these are not principles of knowing singulars in their proper idea; for just as the universal does not state the whole entity of singulars, nor consequently their whole knowability, so neither is the proper principle for knowing the universal the proper principle for distinctly and properly knowing the singular. Or, on the other hand, if Christ’s soul is posited as knowing singulars abstractively and habitually (to the extent singulars are knowable by a created intellect), then one must concede that there is in Christ’s intellect a proper species for each singular, and so several species for the same species of thing, and even an infinite number of species for the infinite number of possible singulars.

110. But if someone thinks one should not attribute to Christ’s soul a confused knowledge of singulars, nor a distinct infinite knowledge through infinite species [n.109], he can say that this soul knows some singulars habitually and abstractively through infused proper species, and does not habitually know other singulars, though it can know them habitually if they come to exist in reality (in the way that was stated in Ord. 2 d.9 nn.52, 97, 103 about the ability of angels to acquire knowledge of some objects through the action of their intellect about those objects). However, it is not necessary to posit that Christ’s soul knows quiddities and singulars at the same time actually; for actual knowledge of things in their proper genus is through the natural virtue of the intellect in itself, and a finite intellect cannot, by its natural virtue, turn itself to any number whatever of distinctly perceived objects at the same time.

2. On Intuitive Knowledge

111. But to speak of the other sort of knowledge, namely intuitive knowledge, which is about natures or singulars as regards actual existence, I say that this knowledge is either perfect (which is the kind that is about an object as it is now present and existent), or imperfect (which is the kind that opinion about the future is, or memory about the past).

112. In the first way Christ’s soul does not know everything in its proper genus in the Word, even by habit, because an object taken in this way is only knowable as it is actually present in itself, or in something in which it possesses being more perfectly than in itself; but a thing known in this way is not in its proper genus; so ‘Peter’s sitting down’ would not then be of a nature to be known unless Peter’s sitting down were in itself now present. Thus, since many objects neither were nor could have been present, as to their actual existence, to Christ’s intellect, it will not be able to have intuitive knowledge of them.

113. And if it be said that it could have had knowledge of all existing things for any period of time through infused species [Aquinas], this is false: first because infused species represent an object as it is abstracted from actual existence (for they represent the object regardless of whether it is existing or not, and so they are not principles for knowing the existent as existent); second because truths that are knowable by intuitive knowledge of existents as they are existent, namely contingent truths, cannot be known by any sort of innate species at all; for from knowledge of the terms of contingent things the truth of contingent propositions about those terms cannot be known (because the truth of those propositions is not included in the terms the way the necessary truth of scientific propositions is included in the intelligible species and in their terms). So, because of truths knowable by intuitive knowledge (which are contingent truths about existents as they are existent), and because of actually knowing these existents as they are in themselves, one has to have the objects present in themselves so that they may be intuitively known and seen in themselves; and this is only possible about things in their proper genus if the very things are in themselves present in their proper existence.

114. And this intuitive knowledge of things in their proper genus, actual or habitual, could be given to Christ’s soul about everything. And to this extent one must say that it advanced as do other souls, and that it comes in some way to know other objects.

115. But as to imperfect intuitive knowledge, of which sort is opinion about the future and memory of the past [n.111], which is what remains from perfect intuitive knowledge - I say that because many experiences and memories of many such things, since these things were perfectly intuitively known, remain in the intellect, and by them the objects can (as regard the conditions of their existence) be known as they are present and not as they are past - and I say this because Christ’s soul knows them in their proper genus in this way as well.

116. And if the objection be made that what is left from a present thing is only the intelligible species impressed on the intellect and the imaginative species impressed on the sensitive faculty (as it is imaginable virtually) - I say that this is false, because what is left from a present thing is not only the intelligible species in the intellect (whereby the thing is known without any reference to time), but also another species in the power of memory. And these powers know the object in different ways: one knows the object as it exists in its presence, the other knows it as apprehended in the past, such that the apprehension of the past is the immediate object of memory, and the immediate object of that past apprehension is the mediate object of recollection.

117. Thus also, when some sensible thing is present to the senses, a double knowledge can, by virtue of it, be caused in the intellect: one knowledge is abstractive, whereby the agent intellect abstracts the species of the quiddity, as it is a quiddity, from the species in imagination, and this species of the quiddity represents the object absolutely (and not as it exists at this time or that); the other knowledge can be intuitive knowledge in the intellect whereby the object as existing cooperates with the intellect, and from this knowledge there is left a habitual intuitive knowledge imported into intellective memory; and this knowledge is not of the quiddity absolutely (as the first abstractive knowledge was) but of the known thing as existent, namely in the way it was apprehended in the past.

118. In this way Christ is said to have learnt many things by experience, that is by instances of intuitive knowledge (intuitive knowledge of things known as to their existence) and by the memories left over from them.

II. To the Principal Arguments

119. To the arguments.

To the first [n.91] the answer is plain from this, that the text of the Gospel is not to be expounded of Christ’s advance such that he advanced only in appearance, because according to Augustine, 83 Questions q.80 n.1.3 against the Apollinarists, the evangelists give historical accounts of what was done and is true; and therefore the words of the evangelist must be true as written - but this does not hold of other figurative passages of Sacred Scripture.

120. The same point is made by Ambrose [n.92] and by the Apostle in Hebrews [n.93], that some sense in Christ did truly advance: not that he acquired some habitual abstractive knowledge (at least not any infused such knowledge), but that he acquired intuitive knowledge, both habitual and actual.

121. To the passage from the Philosopher in the Metaphyics [n.94], I say that knowledge arising from many repeated acts is in some respect necessary in us and in some way not: as regard intuitive knowledge it is simply necessary, and to this extent it belonged to Christ, since he was a wayfarer along with us; as to abstractive knowledge such a process is not necessary in Christ, and he had knowledge as to abstractive knowledge through infused species; so to this extent such a process was not necessary in him as it is in us.

122. To the next [n.95] I say that discursive reasoning does not always make one acquire knowledge of an unknown conclusion to which the reasoning proceeds, but it either does this or it makes one use a knowledge already possessed. So I say about the issue at hand that Christ could have proceeded discursively from principles to conclusions that he had habitual abstractive knowledge of beforehand - or he could have learnt a scientific conclusion even though he did not have total quidditative knowledge of the terms (which is called ‘science’ by Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.4.1139b18-34, Physics 8.1.252a32-b5, On the Soul 2.2.413a16) - but it would not be a properly scientific habit of the conclusion.

III. An Objection against Abstractive Knowledge of Singulars

123. And if objection be made against the first part of the solution [n.108], namely about abstractive knowledge of singulars according to the proper ideas of all of them (the second way, n.109) or of some of them (the third way, n.110), that such knowledge could not have belonged to Christ, just as it does not belong to us either and we are of the same species as he and cannot know singulars - my reply is that this absence of knowledge of singulars is not in us because it is repugnant to our intellect (for we will know singulars in their proper ideas in the fatherland with the same intellect as we have now - such that we ‘know God as he is in himself and know ourselves’ - for otherwise we would not be blessed); but our intellect in this present state knows nothing save what can generate a phantasm, for our intellect is not moved save by a phantasm or by something of which there can be a phantasm. Now a singular entity is not the proper reason for generating a phantasm, but only the entity of nature is that precedes the singular entity; for the singular entity was not of a nature to move any cognitive power save the intellect, and the fact that it does not move our intellect is because of our intellect’s connection to imagination. But there will be no such connection in the fatherland, and so in the fatherland, when we will be blesseds, a ‘this’ as it is a ‘this’ will be understood as it is in itself [cf. Ord. 1 d.3 n.187, 2 d.3 nn.288-290].