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I. Controversy between Philosophers and Theologians
5. On this question there seems to be a controversy between philosophers and theologians. And the philosophers maintain the perfection of nature and deny a supernatural perfection; but the theologians acknowledge a defect of nature and a necessity of grace and a supernatural perfection.5
A. Opinion of the Philosophers
A philosopher might say, then, that no supernatural knowledge is necessary for man in this present life, but that he can acquire all knowledge necessary for himself from the activity of natural causes. Adduced for this are both the authority and also the reasoning of the Philosopher in diverse places.
6. First, On the Soul 3.5.430a14-15, where he says that “the agent intellect is that whereby it makes all things and the possible intellect that whereby it becomes all things.” From this I thus argue: 6when that which is naturally active and that which is naturally passive are brought together and are not impeded, action necessarily follows, because action depends essentially on these alone as on prior causes; but the active element with respect to every intelligible is the agent intellect, and the passive element the possible intellect, and these are naturally in the soul and are not impeded. The thing is plain. Therefore, by the natural virtue of these two, the act of understanding can ensue with respect to any intelligible whatever.
7. There is a confirmation by reason: to every natural passive power there corresponds something naturally active, otherwise the passive power would in nature be in vain if it could be reduced to act by nothing in nature; but the possible intellect is the passive power with respect to any intelligible whatever; so to it there corresponds some natural active power. The proposed conclusion then follows. The minor premise is plain, because the possible intellect naturally desires knowledge of any knowable thing whatever; it is also naturally perfected by any knowledge whatever; therefore it is naturally receptive of any understanding whatever.
8. In addition, 7in Metaphysics 6.1.1026a18-19, there is a distinction of theoretical habits into the mathematical, the physical, and the metaphysical; and from the proof of this in the same place it does not seem possible for there to be more theoretical habits, because in those habits the whole of being, both in itself and in its parts, is considered. But just as there could not be any theoretical science other than these, so neither could there be any practical science other than the acquired active and productive sciences. Therefore the acquired practical sciences are sufficient for perfecting the practical intellect, and the acquired theoretical sciences sufficient for perfecting the theoretical intellect.
9. In addition, 8that which is naturally able to understand the principle can naturally know the conclusions contained in the principle. I prove this conclusion from the fact that the knowledge of the conclusions depends only on the understanding of the principle and on the deduction of the conclusions from the principle, as is plain from the definition of ‘know’ in Posterior Analytics 1.2.71b9-12; but a deduction is manifest of itself, as is plain from the definition of the perfect syllogism, Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24, because “it is in need of nothing for being or appearing clearly necessary;” therefore if the principles are understood, there is possession of everything that is necessary for knowledge of the conclusion. And thus the major is plain.
10. But we naturally understand the first principles, and in these principles all the conclusions are contained; therefore we can naturally know all knowable conclusions.
Proof of the first part of the minor: because the terms of the first principles are the most common terms, therefore we can naturally understand them, because from Physics 1.1.184a21-22 the most common things are understood first; 9“but we know and understand the principles insofar as we know the terms,” Posterior Analytics 1.3.72b23-25; therefore we can naturally know the first principles.
11. Proof of the second part of the minor: because the terms of the first principles are the most common, therefore, when they are distributed, they are distributed for all the subordinate concepts; now, such terms are taken universally in the first principles and thus they extend to all particular concepts, and so as a result to the extremes of all special conclusions.10
B. Rejection of the Opinion of the Philosophers
12. Against this position one can argue in three ways.11
Note: it cannot be shown by natural reason that something supernatural exists in the wayfarer, nor that it is required necessarily for his perfection, nor even can he who has it know that it is present in him. Therefore it is impossible to use natural reason here against Aristotle; if one argues from things believed, it is not a reason against the philosopher, because he will not concede the believed premise. Hence the reasons given against him here possess one or other premise as something believed, or as proved from something believed; therefore they are only persuasive theologically, from things believed to a thing believed.
13. [First principal reason] - First thus: everything that acts through knowledge has need of distinct knowledge of its end. I prove this because everything that acts for an end acts from desire of the end; everything that per se acts, acts for an end; therefore everything that per se acts desires the end in its own particular way. Therefore, just as a natural agent needs desire of the end for which it must act, so a thing that acts by knowledge - which is also a per se agent, from Physics 2.5.196b17-22 - needs desire of the end for which it must act. The major then is plain.
But man cannot from his natural powers distinctly know his end; therefore he needs some supernatural knowledge of it.
14. The minor is plain: first, because the Philosopher, following natural reason, lays down that happiness is perfected in the acquired knowledge of separate substances, as he seems to mean in the Ethics 1.6.1097b22-98a20, 10.7.1177a12-b1, 10.8.1178b7-32, 10.9.1179a22-32, or, if he does not determinately assert that it is the supreme perfection possible for us, he does not conclude anything else by natural reason, so that, by relying on natural reason alone, he will either be in error or remain in doubt about the end in its particular nature; 12hence in the Ethics 1.10.1099b11-13 he says hesitatingly “if any gift is from the gods, it is reasonable that happiness is.”
15. Second, the same minor is proved through reason, because the proper end of any substance is not known to us save from the acts of it that are manifest to us, from which acts is shown that such an end is fitting for such a nature; 13in this present life we do not experience or know that any acts are present in our nature from which we might know that the vision of separate substances is fitting for us; therefore we cannot naturally know distinctly that that end is fitting for our nature.
16. From this it is at least certain that some conditions of the end, on whose account it is more desirable and more fervently to be sought, cannot be determinately known by natural reason. For even if it were granted that reason was sufficient to prove that the end of man is the pure vision and enjoyment of God, yet the conclusion will not follow that these fittingly belong in perpetuity to the man perfect in soul and body, the way it will be said in 4 d.43 q.2 n.32. And yet the perpetuity of a good of this sort is a condition that renders the end more desirable than it would if it were transitory. For to obtain this good in a perfect nature is more desirable than to obtain it in a separated soul, as is plain from Augustine The Literal Meaning of Genesis bk. 12. ch. 35 n.68. These and the like conditions of the end must be known, then, if the end is to be efficaciously sought, and yet natural reason is not sufficient for them; therefore a doctrine delivered supernaturally is required.
17. [Second Principal Reason] - Second, thus:14 every knower that acts for an end needs knowledge of how and in what way such an end may be acquired; and also he needs knowledge of all the things that are necessary for the end; and, third, he needs knowledge that all those things are sufficient for such an end. The first condition is plain, because if he does not know how and in what way the end may be acquired, he will not know how to dispose himself so as to obtain it. The second condition is proved because if he does not know everything necessary for the end, he could, because of ignorance of some act necessary for it, fail of the end. Also, as to the third condition, if those necessary things are not known to be sufficient, he will, from doubt that he is ignorant of something necessary, not pursue what is necessary in an effective way.
18. But these three conditions cannot be known to the wayfarer by natural reason. The proof of the first is that beatitude is conferred as a reward for the merits that God accepts as worthy of such a reward, and so as a result beatitude does not follow by natural necessity on any acts whatever of our own, but it is a contingent gift of God, who accepts some acts in their order to him as meritorious. 15This fact, as it seems, is not naturally knowable, because here too the philosophers erred, laying down that everything that is from God proceeds from him by necessity. The other two conditions, at any rate, are manifest: for the acceptance by the divine will, insofar as it contingently accepts such and such things as worthy of eternal life, cannot be known by natural reason, nor too that these things are sufficient; it all depends on the divine will in respect of those things the divine will is in a contingent way related to; therefore, etc.
19. [Instances against the two Principal Reasons] - Against these two reasons an instance is given. Against the first thus: every created nature depends essentially on any per se cause of it at all and, on account of such dependence, knowledge can be had from the thing caused by a ‘proof-that’, 16and any per se cause of it at all can be known; therefore, since the nature of man is naturally knowable to man, because it is not incommensurate with his cognitive power, the conclusion follows that the end of the nature can be naturally known from knowledge of the nature.17
20. Confirmation of the reason: for if the end of a lower nature is known from knowledge of that nature, no less is this possible in the proposed case, because there is in the proposed case no lesser dependence of a determinate thing on its end than in other cases.
21. From this reason too it seems that the proposition ‘the end of a substance is not known save from its acts’, which was assumed in the proof of the minor, is false, because the end of a nature can from the knowledge of that nature in itself be known by a ‘proof-that’.
22. But if it be said the reason concludes that man can naturally know his natural end but not his supernatural end, on the contrary Augustine says, On Predestination Sanctorum ch.5 n.10: “Being able to have faith, like being able to have charity, belongs to the nature of men, although having faith, like having charity, belongs to the grace of the faithful.” If, therefore, the nature of man is naturally knowable to man, then that ability as belonging to such a nature, and consequently such a nature’s directability to the end for which faith and charity dispose it, are also naturally knowable to him.
23. Again, man naturally desires the end which you say is supernatural; therefore he is naturally directed to that end; therefore that end can be concluded from such directedness as from knowledge of the nature directed to it.
24. Again, that the prime object of the intellect is being is naturally knowable, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 1.6 (72rb), and naturally knowable is that the nature of being is most perfectly realized in God; but the end of any power is the best of the things that are contained under its prime object, because in that alone is there perfect rest and delight, from the Ethics 10.4.1174b14-23; therefore it is naturally knowable to man that he is in respect of his intellect directed to God as to his end.
25. The reason is confirmed, because what the prime object is of some power is naturally knowable to him to whom the power is naturally knowable, and, further, he can know what the nature of that prime object is realized in and that the most perfect such thing is the end of the power; but the mind is known to itself, according to Augustine On the Trinity bk.11 chs.11-12, nn.16, 18; therefore what is its prime object is known to it. Also known to it is that God is not transcended by the nature of that prime object, because then God would be in no way intelligible by the mind; therefore it knows that God is the best thing in which the nature of its object is realized, and so it knows that he is the end of the power.
26. Against the second reason [nn.17-18] the argument runs as follows: if through one extreme the other extreme is known, therefore the means in between are known; but the means between the nature and the end of it that is to be obtained are necessary for obtaining the end; therefore, since, according to what was proved above [n.19], the end can be known from knowledge of the nature, it seems that the means necessary for the end can in like manner be known.
27. The reason is confirmed: for it thus seems that the connection of the things to the end is just as necessary in the proposed case as it is in other cases; but on account of this sort of connection in other cases other things are known from the end, as that from the nature of health is deduced that such and such things are required for health; therefore etc.
28 [Response to the Instances] - To the first of these instances [nn.19-21] I say that, although the process of reasoning is from the end which is the final cause and not from the end that must be attained by operation - the distinction between these ends will be stated below (1 d.1 p.1 q.1 n.5) - yet with a single response it can be said to the instance, and to the next one about Augustine, and to the third one about the power and the prime object, that all of these accept that our nature or intellective power is naturally knowable to us; but this is false in that proper and special respect under which our nature or intellective power is ordered to this sort of end and is capable of complete grace and has God for its most perfect object. For our soul and our nature are only known to us in this present life under some general reason that is capable of being abstracted from sensible things, as will appear below in 1 d.3 p.1 q.1 n.24. And according to such a general reason it does not fittingly belong to our soul or nature to be ordered to that end, or to be capable of receiving grace, or to have God for most perfect object.
29. Next to the form. When it is said [n.19] that from a thing that exists for an end the end can be demonstrated by a ‘proof-that’, I say that it is not true unless the thing that exists for an end is known under the proper reason under which it has that end. Thus the minor is false. - And when proof is given by commensuration [n.19], I say that the mind, although it is the same as itself, is yet not in this present life capable of being commensurate as an object with itself save in accord with the general reasons that are abstractable from sensible things.
30. To the confirmation [n.20] I say that the proper ends of other substances are not known either, namely the ends that belong to them according to their proper reasons, unless some acts are manifest from which the order of those substances to such end may be deduced.
31. And from this the response to what is added [n.21] against the proof of the minor is clear, because the proposition ‘the proper end of a substance is not known to us save by a manifest act of it’ [n.15] is not false; for the proposition does not suppose that the end could not be known in some other way. For the truth very much is that if a substance were known under its proper nature, from this knowledge of it the per se cause of it might be known. But no substance is now thus known to us, and therefore we can conclude to no end proper to a substance save through an evident act of the substance as that substance is known universally and confusedly. Both these ways are lacking in the proposed case; but the proof of the minor [n.15] touches on one of them, that about ignorance of the act, and it supposes the other, namely that about the ignorance of the nature in itself.
32. To the second instance about Augustine [n.22] I say that the power to have charity, as it is a disposition under the proper idea of love with respect to God in himself, is fitting to man’s nature in accord with a special reason, not with a reason common to himself and to sensible things; therefore the potentiality is not naturally knowable about man in this present life, just as man too is not known under the reason in which this power belongs to him. 18Such is my reply to the instance insofar as it can be adduced for the principal conclusion [nn.19-20], namely the one opposite to the minor of the first reason [nn.14-15]. But insofar as it is adduced against the response about the supernatural and natural end [n.22] my reply is: I concede that God is the natural end of man, but as obtainable supernaturally and not naturally. And this is proved by the subsequent reason about natural desire [n.23], which I concede.
33. To the other argument [n.24], one must deny what it assumes, namely that it is naturally known that being is the prime object of our intellect, and that it is so in respect of the total indeterminacy of being to sensible and non-sensible things; and this is what Avicenna says is naturally known. For he has mixed his sect - which was the sect of Mohammed - together with philosophical matters, and some things he has said that are philosophical and proved by reason, others that are in conformity with his sect; he expressly lays down in his Metaphysics 9.7 (107ra)19 that the separated soul knows immaterial substance in itself, and therefore he had to lay down that immaterial substance was included under the prime object of the intellect. Not thus Aristotle [On the Soul 3.6.430b27-29], but according to him the prime object of our intellect is or seems to be sensible quiddity, and this either sensible in itself or in its inferior; and this is the quiddity that is abstractable from sensible things.20
34. But as to what is said in confirmation of the reason from Augustine [n.25] my reply is: I say that the statement of Augustine must be understood of first act, which is altogether sufficient of itself as to second act but is now however impeded; and because of this impediment the second act is not now elicited from the first act. But of this more below [1 d.3 p.1 q.3 nn.24-25].
35. If it is objected to this that man in the state of nature, when that state was established, could, by the deduction of the first reason [n.19], know his nature and therefore the end of his nature; therefore that knowledge is not supernatural.
36. Again, if it is objected to the response to the final reason [n.33]: if what the prime object is of the intellect is for this reason not known that the intellect is not known in every proper respect in which it has regard to the object, then it cannot be known about anything at all that it is intelligible, because the power is not known in every proper respect in which it has regard to anything at all as to an intelligible object.
37. I reply: to the first objection [n.35] one would need to say of what sort the knowledge of man was when he was established, which may be put off to another occasion [4 d.1 p.2 q.2 n.7]. However at least in respect of the wayfarer in this present life the said knowledge is supernatural, because it exceeds his natural faculty; natural, I say, in the sense of in accord with the state of fallen nature.
38. To the second [n.36] I concede that knowledge of the soul now, or of any of its powers, is not had so distinctly that from it could be known that some intelligible object corresponds to it; but we deduce from the act itself which we experience that the power and nature of which it is the act have respect to the object as to the object which we perceive to be attained by the act, such that we do not deduce the object of the power from knowledge of the power in itself but from knowledge of the act which we experience. But we can have neither of these knowledges about a supernatural object; and for this reason both ways of knowing the proper end of that nature are there lacking.
39. To the argument [n.26] against the second reason, it is plain that it supposes something [n.19] already denied [nn.28-29]. - To the confirmation [n.27] for the reason I say that when the end naturally follows the things that are for the end, and naturally requires them in advance, then the things that are for the end can be deduced from the end; here, however, the attainment is not natural but is only an acceptance by the divine will that rewards the merits as worthy of such end.
40. [Third Principal Reason] - Again, 21there is a third principal argument against the opinion of the philosophers. Metaphysics 6.1.1026a21-23: the knowledge of separate substances is the most noble because it is about the noblest kind of being; therefore knowledge of their characteristic properties is most noble and necessary, for those properties are more perfect knowables than are the ones they share with sensibles. But we cannot know those properties from pure natural powers alone. First, because if some science taught that it finds those properties in a way that is possible way, it would be the science of metaphysics; but a metaphysics about the characteristic features of those separate substances cannot be naturally had by us, as is plain.22 And this is what the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 1.2.982a8-10, that the wise man must know all things somehow and not in particular; and he subjoins: “For he who knows the universals somehow knows all the things under them.” He there calls the metaphysician ‘the wise man’, just as he there calls metaphysics ‘wisdom’.
41. Second, I prove the same because those properties are not known by a ‘knowledge-why’ unless the proper subjects are known, which alone include the proper ‘why’; but their proper subjects are not naturally knowable to us; therefore etc.
Nor do we know their properties by a ‘demonstration-that’ and from the effects. Here is the proof; for the effects either leave the intellect in doubt as to those properties, or lead them away into error. And this is clear from the properties of the first immaterial substance in itself; for a property of it is that it is communicable to three; but the effects do not show this property, because these do not come from it insofar as it is three. And if an argument is made from the effects to the cause, the effects lead rather to the opposite and to error, because in no effect is there found one nature save in one supposit. It is also a property of that nature to be a contingent cause of things outside it; and the effects lead rather to the opposite of this, to error, as is plain from the opinion of the philosophers who posit that the first thing causes necessarily whatever it causes. 23About the properties of other substances too the same is plain, because the effects, according to the philosophers, lead rather to the eternity and necessity of those properties than to their contingency and newness. Likewise, the philosophers also seem to conclude from the celestial motions that the number of those separate substances accords with the number of the motions. Likewise, that those substances are naturally blessed and incapable of sin. All which things are absurd.24
42. [Instance against the Third Principal Reason] - Against this reason I argue that any necessary property at all of separate substances that is now known to us by faith or common revelation could be known by natural knowledge. And this as follows: 25those necessary properties of which we naturally know the terms we can also naturally comprehend; but we naturally know the terms of all the necessary things that have been revealed; therefore etc.
43. Proof of the major: those necessary things are either mediate or immediate; if they are immediate, then they are known when the terms are known, Posterior Analytics 1.3.72b23-25; if they are mediate, then when we are able to know the extremes we are able to conceive the mean between them. And by conjoining the mean with either extreme, we get either mediate or immediate premises; if the premises are immediate, the same as before; if mediate, the process continues by knowing the mean between the extremes and by conjoining it with the extremes, until we come to things immediate. Therefore ultimately we will come down to immediate necessities that we understand from the terms, from which all the mediate necessities follow; therefore we will be able naturally to know those mediates through the immediates.
44. Proof of the principal minor, because to have and not to have faith, being contradictories to each other, are not contradictory in words only but in concepts, as is plain when a philosopher and a theologian contradict each other over ‘God is triune,’ where one of them denies and the other affirms not only the same name but the same concept; therefore every simple concept that the one has the other has.
45. [Response to the Instance] - To this instance I reply: There exist some immediate truths about separate substances. I take then some such first and immediate truth, and let it be a. In it are included many mediate truths, as for instance all those that in particular assert things common to the predicate of things common to the subject; let them be called b, c. Those true mediate assertions do not have their truth save from something immediate. Therefore they are not naturally known save from the understanding of that something immediate. If therefore some intellect could understand the terms in b and combine them with each other, but could not understand the terms in a nor consequently a itself, b will be indeterminate for his intellect, because it will not be known either from itself or from an immediate proposition, because this latter is, by supposition, not known. Such is how it is with us, because we have certain common concepts about material and immaterial substances, and we can combine them with each other; but the complexes we thus form are not evident save from the true immediate propositions that are about those essences in their proper and special idea; but we do not conceive those essences under this idea, and so we do not know those general truths about the general concepts.
46. An example: if it were impossible for someone to conceive a triangle in its proper idea, although he could abstract and conceive the idea of the figure from a quadrilateral, it would also be impossible for him to conceive a triangle’s primacy as this primacy is a proper quality of a triangle, because it is not in this way conceived except when it is abstracted from triangle; yet he could abstract primacy from other primacies, as for instance primacy in numbers. Although this intellect could form this composite ‘some figure is primary’, because it can apprehend its terms, yet the composite when formed will be indeterminate for it, because it is a mediate one included in the immediate proposition ‘the triangle is primary in this way’; and because he cannot understand this immediate proposition, because he cannot understand its terms either, therefore he cannot know the mediate proposition, which only has its evidence from the immediate one.
47. Hereby to the argument [n.42]: I deny the major; to the proof [n.43] I say that those necessary things are mediate. - And when you say ‘therefore we can conceive the mean between the extremes’, I deny the consequence, because the mean between the extremes is sometimes ordered essentially between them, for example the definition of one or other extreme, or a property that is prior in respect of a later property; and such is a mean for universally proving the extreme of the extreme. I therefore concede that whoever can understand the extremes can understand such a mean between the extremes, because the understanding of it is included in one or other extreme, or is the same as one or other extreme. But if the mean is a particular, contained under one or other extreme and not essentially between the extremes, then it is not necessary that he who can understand the general extremes can conceive the mean that is particular to the extremes. Thus it is here. For a whatness that has in its proper and particular idea some property immediately inhering in it, is a mean inferior to the common concept about which the property in the common concept is asserted; and so it is not a mean for proving the property of the common term universally, but only particularly. This is plain in the example [n.46], because it is not necessary that he who is able to conceive figure in general and primacy in general could conceive triangle in particular, because triangle is a mean contained under ‘figure’; a mean, I say, for proving primacy of a figure in particular.
48. This third reason [n.40] is especially conclusive about the first immaterial substance, because knowledge of it as the beatific object is especially necessary. And then the response to the objection [n.42] against it: namely the supposition is that we do not now naturally conceive God save in a concept common to him and to sensibles, which point will be expounded below, in 1 d.3 p.1 q.1 nn.5-10. Even if that supposition is denied, one must still say that the concept which can be made about God by virtue of a creature is imperfect; but the concept that might be made by virtue of the very essence in itself would be perfect. So, just as we spoke about general and special concept [n.47], let us thus in another way speak about perfect and imperfect concept.
49. [Fourth Principal Reason]. Fourth it is argued thus: a thing that is ordered to some end for which it is not disposed must be little by little moved to the disposition for that end; man is ordered to a supernatural end for which he is not of himself disposed; therefore he needs to be disposed little by little for possessing that end. This is done through some supernatural imperfect knowledge of the sort set down as necessary.
50. But if it be instanced that a perfect agent can remove an imperfection and act at once, I reply: although this might be possible by absolute power, yet it is more perfect to communicate activity to the creature with respect to obtaining its own perfection than not to communicate it; but man can have some activity with respect to his own final perfection; therefore it is more perfect that this be communicated to him. But this would not be possible without some imperfect knowledge preceding the perfect knowledge toward which it is finally directed.
51. [Fifth Principal Reason]. Fifth, it is argued thus: every agent using an instrument in its acting has through that instrument no power for any action that exceeds the nature of the instrument; but the light of the agent intellect is the instrument which the soul now uses in its natural understanding; therefore it has through that light no power for any action that exceeds that light. But that light is of itself limited to acquiring knowledge in a sensitive way through means of the senses; therefore the soul has no power for any knowledge that cannot be had by means of sense. But knowledge of many other things is necessary for this present life; therefore etc.
52. This reason seems to produce a conclusion contrary to him who has made it. For, according to this deduction, the uncreated light will not be able to use the agent intellect as an instrument for knowledge of any pure truth, because, according to him, such cannot be had by means of the senses without special illumination. And thus it follows that in the knowledge of pure truth the light of the agent intellect does not in any way perform any action; but this seems problematic, because this action is more perfect than any understanding; and consequently that which is more perfect in the soul insofar as the soul is intellective ought to contribute in some way to the action.
53. [To the Fourth and Fifth Reason]. These two final reasons [nn.49, 51] do not seem as effective as they could be. For the first would be effective if it had been proved that man is ordered finally to supernatural knowledge (the proof of which pertains to the question about beatitude, 4 Suppl. d.49 q.7 nn.2-7), and if along with this it were shown that natural knowledge does not in this present life sufficiently dispose for attaining supernatural knowledge. The second reason begs two questions, namely that there is need for knowledge of certain things that cannot be known by means of the senses, and that the light of the agent intellect is limited to knowables of that sort.
54. The first three reasons [nn. 13, 17, 40] appear more probable.
However, that no such knowledge is necessary for salvation I prove:26
Suppose there is someone who is not baptized; although he is an adult, has no one to teach him, he has the sort of good motions in conformity with right reason that he is capable of having, and he avoids the things that natural reason shows him to be bad.
Although God by common law would visit such a person and teach him through a man or an angel - in the way he visited Cornelius, Acts 10.1-48 - nevertheless suppose him not taught by anyone, he will be saved. Likewise, although he were taught later, yet he was just before and so worthy of eternal life, because by willing the good things that precede teaching he merits the grace whereby he is just; and yet he does not have theological knowledge, even as to the first objects of faith, but only natural knowledge. Therefore nothing of theology is simply necessary for salvation.
55. One could say that by meriting things good in their kind he merits by congruity to be justified from original sin, and God does not deny the gift of his liberality; therefore he gives the first grace without a sacrament, because he is not bound by the sacraments; grace is not given without the habit of faith; therefore that person has the habit of theology, although he is not able to activate it, just as neither is he baptized unless he is instructed. And although there is no contradiction in grace being given without faith, since the habits are distinct and exist in different powers, nevertheless just as in baptism the supposition is that these are infused simultaneously, so for the same reason simultaneity can be supposed in this case. For God is not less gracious to him whom without a sacrament he justifies because of his merit by congruity, than to him whom he justifies in the reception of the sacrament without any merit of his own. Therefore it is possible for God by his absolute power to save anyone he likes, and also to bring it about that the latter deserves glory without infused faith, if, in the absence of it, he gives the grace which the possessor uses well as far as to willing what he is able to acquire in accord with natural reason and acquired faith, or without any acquired faith if a teacher is lacking; although by his ordained power God does not give grace without the preceding habit of faith, because grace is supposed not to be infused without it; not because of any need, as if grace without it would not be sufficient, but because of divine liberality, which reforms the whole man; also a man would, without infused faith, be less perfectly disposed as to assenting to certain truths.
56. And as in this case, so analogously about the habit of theology I say that the perfectly existing habit includes infused and acquired faith of the articles and other things revealed by God in Scripture, such that it is not infused faith alone nor acquired faith alone but both together. Theology is therefore necessary, but it is so when speaking of ordained power and when speaking of the more principal or prior habit that pertains to theology, namely the one which is infused faith, and this in general as far as concerns everyone; it is not so as far as concerns the second habit that it includes, which is acquired faith, although perhaps it is by ordained power necessary in an adult who is able to have a teacher and can understand him, and can do so as far as concerns acquired faith of certain general things.