12. Again, the mode of knowing through essence is nobler than through likeness, which is evident because this mode of knowing pertains to the third heaven, as Augustine says in the twelfth book of his Literal Commentary on Genesis. Therefore, if the nobler things are to be attributed to God, it seems more fitting to hold that God knows things through essences than through likenesses.
13. Again, the nobler the cognition, the more immediate is the conjunction and union of the knower with the knowable. But divine cognition possesses every kind of nobility; therefore it also possesses the most perfect union. But the conjunction and union is more immediate when the knower is united to the knowable with respect to its essence than with respect to its likeness; therefore, etc.
CONCLUSION.
God knows things through the eternal reasons, which are the exemplary likenesses of things, most perfectly representative and expressive, and essentially identical with God himself.
I respond: It must be said that according to blessed Dionysius and according to blessed Augustine in many places, God knows things through the eternal reasons. For blessed Dionysius says in the book On the Divine Names, chapter five: "We say that the exemplars are the substantifying reasons of existing things, singularly pre-existing in God, which theology calls predefinitions , and the divine and good wills that are determinative and productive of existing things, according to which the supersubstantial being predefined and produced all things." Likewise, Augustine in the first book of the Confessions, near the beginning, speaking to God, says thus: "God and Lord of all things that you have created, with you the causes of all unstable things stand firm, and the immutable origins of all mutable things remain, and the sempiternal reasons of all irrational and temporal things live." Likewise, in the eleventh book of the City of God, chapter ten, the same says: "There are not many wisdoms, but one wisdom, in which are certain infinite things and infinite treasures of intelligible things, in which are all the invisible and immutable reasons of things, even of visible and mutable things, which were made through it, since God did not make anything without knowing it," etc.
Now these eternal reasons are not the true essences and quiddities of things, since they are not other than the Creator; but creature and Creator necessarily have different essences: and therefore it is necessary that they be exemplar forms, and thereby representative likenesses of the things themselves; and therefore they are reasons of knowing, because knowledge, by the very fact that it is knowledge, implies an assimilation and expression between the knower and the knowable. And therefore it must be held, as the Saints say and arguments show, that God knows things through their likenesses.
For the understanding of the question itself and the objections, it should be noted that likeness is said in two ways: in one way through the agreement of two things in a third, in which way it is said that "the likeness of different things is the same quality." In another way likeness is said because one thing is the likeness of another: and this is twofold: one kind is an imitative likeness, and thus the creature is a likeness of the Creator; another kind is an exemplative likeness, and thus in the Creator the exemplar reason is a likeness of the creature. Now likeness said in both ways, namely imitative and exemplative, is expressing and expressive; and this is the likeness that is required for having knowledge of things.
But some knowledge is causing things, and some is caused by things. For knowledge caused by things, an imitative likeness is required; and this likeness is from without, and therefore it posits some composition and addition in the knowing intellect; and hence it is that it attests to imperfection.
But for knowledge causing things, an exemplative likeness is required, and this indeed is not from without, nor does it introduce any composition, nor does it attest to any imperfection, but rather to perfection in every way. For since the divine intellect itself is the highest light and full truth and pure act, just as the divine power in causing things is sufficient of itself to produce all things, so the divine light and truth is sufficient to express all things: and because to express is an intrinsic act, it is therefore eternal; and because expression is a certain assimilation, therefore the divine intellect, eternally expressing all things by its highest truth, eternally possesses the exemplar likenesses of all things, which are not other than itself, but are what it is essentially.
Again, because it expresses insofar as it is the highest light and pure act, therefore it expresses most lucidly, most expressly, most perfectly, and thereby equally and according to the intention of a likeness diminished in nothing; and hence it is that it knows all things most perfectly, most distinctly, and most completely.
Having seen these things, it is easy to respond to the objections.
1. To that therefore which is first objected from Anselm, it must be said that Anselm speaks there of a likeness that is caused by the truth of the thing; whence he takes likeness there insofar as it expresses under the notion of imitation rather than exemplarity; and in this way it is placed in the product with respect to the producer, and not conversely, as he goes on to say; but in the other way, nothing prevents it from being placed in the producer with respect to the product.
2. To that which is objected — wherever there is likeness, there is agreement, etc. — it must be said that the likeness which is the agreement of two things in a third is not placed in God with respect to the creature; but a likeness by which something is said to be imitative of another can well be placed in the creature with respect to the Creator, and a likeness by which something is said to be exemplative of another, in the Creator with respect to the creature. For this likeness does not require agreement through participation in something common, but the agreement of order suffices, according to the notion of the causing and the caused, the expressing and the expressed.
3. 4. To that which is objected — that likeness is a relation of equiparance, etc. — it must be said that this is true of that likeness which is caused through the agreement of one participated third; and in this way we do not posit it here.
And through this the response is clear to that which is objected concerning equality.
Yet as to what is asked — why is there not equality in some way, as there is likeness? — it must be said that equality includes in itself commensuration, which can in no way exist between the finite and the infinite; but likeness bespeaks expression, and this can well exist between the Creator and the creature. Whence, just as it does not follow: this is not equal to that, therefore it does not imitate that, or is not exemplated by that — so it must be understood in the matter at hand.
5. To that which is objected — that if there is any likeness between the Creator and the creature, it is minimal, etc. — the response is now clear: because likeness through participation is not only minimal, but indeed none at all; but likeness through imitation is greater and lesser in the creature, according as it approaches more or less to the divine goodness; but likeness through exemplation and expression is supreme in the Creator with respect to every creature, because the truth itself, since it is the supreme light, supremely expresses all things — and therefore it does not follow that He knows one creature more than another.
6. To that which is objected — that one creature is more assimilated to God than another, etc. — the response is likewise now clear: for this is true of imitative likeness on the part of the creature; but this is not the basis of knowing, but the other, namely exemplative likeness, which supremely and equally expresses all things.
7. To that which is objected, that if our intellect were entirely in act, it would not need a likeness, etc.: it must be said that it is true that it would not need a likeness taken in or received from without, but nevertheless it would use itself as a likeness for knowing other things: and in this way, not in another, we posit a likeness in divine cognition.
8. To that which is objected, that a likeness is a principle leading into another, etc.: it must be said that this is true of a likeness that depends on a thing outside: but of the other likeness it is not true that it leads by way of passage and journey, but only by way of a light perfectly expressing and quieting the knower himself.
9. To that which is objected, that truth is the principle of knowing, etc.: it must be said that truth is spoken of in two ways: in one way truth is the same as the entity of the thing, according to what Augustine says in the Soliloquies, that "the true is that which is." In another way truth is an expressive light in intellectual cognition, according to what Anselm says in the book On Truth, that "truth is a rectitude perceptible by the mind alone." In the first way truth is the principle of knowing, but a remote one: in the second way it is the proximate and immediate principle of knowing. Therefore when it is said that truth is more preserved in the entity of the thing itself than in a likeness: this is true of truth in the first way, not in the second. But that truth which is the proximate and immediate principle of knowing is more preserved in the likeness that is in the intellect, most especially and principally in that likeness which is exemplative of things: for that exemplar likeness expresses a thing more perfectly than the caused thing itself expresses itself. And on account of this God knows things more perfectly through those likenesses than He would know them through their own essences: and the Angels know more perfectly in the Word than in their proper genus. On account of which Augustine also frequently says that cognition in the Word is likened to the light of day, but cognition in the proper genus is likened to evening, because every creature is darkness in comparison to the divine light.
10. To that which is objected, that in things separated from matter there is no difference, etc.: it must be said that that statement is understood not only of things separated from matter on the part of those understanding, but also of the intelligibles, namely when that which is separated from matter understands that which is separated from matter, then that which it understands and that by which it is understood will be the same: and this not always, but when the intellect turns upon itself. And this has place when God understands Himself: but it does not have place in Him with respect to creatures, because, although God is separated from matter, the things understood nevertheless are not.
11. To that objection that where there is immediacy between the knower and the knowable, etc., it must be said that the union of the knower and the knowable can be twofold: either according to the nature of being and conserving and causing, or according to the nature of knowing. Now there is an immediate conjunction according to the nature of causing when the cause immediately produces and causes and sustains the effect; and there is an immediate conjunction according to the nature of knowing when the knower knows the knowable either through the essence of the knower or through the essence of the known; and then there is no need for an intermediate likeness that differs from both extremes. Nevertheless, the essence itself, insofar as it is the ground of knowing, holds the nature of a likeness; and in this way we posit a likeness with respect to divine cognition, which is nothing other than the very essence of the knower.
12. To that objection that cognition through essence is nobler than cognition through likeness, etc., it must be said that this is true of that likeness which is abstracted and caused by the very essence of a thing—the sort of likeness required for caused cognition—but it is not true of a likeness that is identical with the essence of the knower. For that cognition by which the knower uses itself as a likeness for knowing something is more perfect than the cognition by which the knower receives something from the side of the known.
13. To that objection that the nobler the cognition, the more immediate is the conjunction and union of the knower to the knowable, etc., the answer is already clear: because a likeness that is nothing other than the knower itself posits no distance either in reality or even in reason, since the knower insofar as it is a knower implies the nature of a likeness; and therefore a likeness that is the ground of knowing in no way goes beyond the nature of the knower and the knowable.