3. Furthermore, Augustine, in the sixth book of On the Trinity, chapter ten: "The Son is the art of the Almighty, full of all living reasons, and all things in him are one"; but this would not be so if those reasons were really diverse: therefore they are necessarily really indistinct.
4. Likewise, Dionysius shows this same thing in On the Divine Names, chapter five, by the following argument: all lines are originally in the point, and all numbers in unity; and yet from this there is not posited in the point and in unity a real diversity in the creature; therefore neither in the supreme cause.
5. Likewise, there is no terminus except in one; but in any genus of cause it is necessary to posit a terminus; therefore, if God is the exemplar cause, in which is the terminus of all formal causes, it is therefore necessary that He have complete unity in reality.
6. Likewise, what is more perfect must be attributed to God; but it is more perfect to know many things by one than many things by many; therefore, etc.
7. Likewise, divine knowledge is infinite; therefore it is in no way confined or limited; therefore neither is the ground of knowing in God limited in any way. But if for knowing many things there were required many really different ideas, then it would be in some way limited and confined; therefore, if it is impossible to posit this, it is impossible that those ideas be really diverse.
8. Likewise, the ground of knowing in the divine denotes something essential, because it is common to the three persons; but those things which are essential in the divine are in no way multiplied in reality, because if they were really multiplied, there would be in the divine many essences; but this is impossible; therefore it is impossible that those ideas really differ.
9. Likewise, whatever things are really distinguished are distinguished either by origin, or by quality, as Richard says; but those ideas cannot be distinguished by quality, because such a distinction does not occur in the divine; nor by origin, because one does not emanate from another; therefore it is impossible that they be really diverse.
10. Likewise, those eternal ideas are productive of things; therefore either producing only, or producing and produced. If producing and produced: then since the producing and the produced are really distinguished, those ideas would be really distinguished from God, since one cannot posit anything else from which they would be produced; therefore they would not be God Himself, nor would God know things through Himself: which is impossible. If they are producing only: then they hold the character of principle alone; but such a principle is a first principle, and a first principle is nothing but uniquely one; therefore it is impossible that those ideas be really distinguished.
11. Likewise, the exemplar idea denotes that through which a thing is known; but that by which a thing is known is nothing other than form; therefore, if God knew things through exemplar ideas really differing, it would be necessary that the divine being itself be multiform. But this is altogether impossible; therefore so is the first.
12. Likewise, if they are really distinguished: since they are things to be enjoyed, and things to be enjoyed make us blessed, no one would be blessed unless he knew all the exemplar ideas, just as no one is blessed who lacks knowledge of any one of the three persons. But this is false and absurd; therefore so is the first.
13. Likewise, the ideal reason in God does not signify something inhering, but rather something subsisting per se, just as the Word does: therefore if there were many reasons really differing, as many reasons as there are, so many would be substances subsisting per se: therefore there would be as many divine persons, or essences, as there are ideas. But this is false and against the faith: therefore it is erroneous to say that they really differ.
14. Likewise, if they really differ, either as absolute things, or as relations: but not as relations, because no relation is designated by the name of that to which it is referred, especially in a relation of superposition; but the reason of man is called man himself: in God, therefore, the ideal reason is not imposed from a real relation. If, therefore, they are really multiplied, they are multiplied as absolute forms: therefore if this is impossible, it is impossible that those reasons really differ.
15. Likewise, if they are really distinguished as diverse real relations: since in a real relation the relatives are simultaneous by nature, the idea and the ideated would be simultaneous by nature, therefore the Creator and the creature: but this is altogether absurd: therefore it is impossible that those reasons be diversified as diverse real relations: nor as diverse absolute things: this is evident: therefore they have no real diversity.
16. Likewise, every real diversity either makes one thing and another thing, or one person and another person, or one quality and another quality; but in none of these modes is it to be posited concerning those eternal reasons, because there is neither essential diversity nor personal nor accidental: therefore in no way is there a real distinction or difference.
CONCLUSION.
God knows things by Himself as the expressive similitude of all things, such that the ideal reasons are not multiplied in God according to reality, but only according to reason.
I respond: For the understanding of the foregoing, it should be noted that without doubt God knows things, and that He knows by Himself, and that He knows by Himself as by a likeness, and that the likeness by which He knows is not a likeness received from without, nor a likeness through agreement in some third nature, but that likeness is nothing other than expressive truth, as was shown in the preceding question. To say, therefore, that God knows things by Himself as by a likeness is nothing other than to say that God knows things by Himself as by truth, or as by the highest light expressing all other things. And since the divine truth is most powerful for expressing all things totally, just as the divine power is for making all things totally, therefore God knows by Himself as by truth expressing manifold things and totally. Moreover, the divine truth, although it is one, is able to express all things by way of exemplar likeness, because it is entirely beyond genus and restricted to nothing; it is also pure act, while all other things in relation to it are material and potential. Since, therefore, one thing according to form can be likened to many things according to matter, as is evident regarding whiteness in a man and a stone: since it relates indifferently to all things, and all other things are material in relation to it, it as pure act can be the expressive likeness of all things.
In this expression, however, three things are to be understood, namely the truth itself, the expression itself, and the thing itself. The expressing truth is one alone both in reality and in reason; but the things themselves which are expressed have a multiformity either actual or possible; the expression, however, according to what it is, is nothing other than the truth itself, but according to that to which it is directed, it pertains to the side of the things which are expressed. Whence the expression of one thing and of another thing in the divine truth, or from the divine truth, according to what it is, is not one thing and another, but according to that to which it is directed, it is said to be multiplied: because to express a man is not to express a donkey, just as to predestine Peter is not to predestine Paul, nor is creating a man the same as creating an angel, although the divine act is one. Since, therefore, the ideal reasons name the very expressions of the divine truth in respect of things, they are said to be multiplied not according to what they signify, but according to what they connote, not according to what they are, but according to that to which they are directed or to which they are compared. And because they are directed to that not according to a real relation which is in God, since God is not really related to anything extrinsic, but only according to a rational relation of understanding, to which there corresponds a real relation in act or aptitude on the part of things: therefore it must be said that the ideal reasons in God are multiplied not according to reality, but according to reason, which reason indeed is not only on the part of the one understanding, but also on the part of the thing understood.
A likeness of this, however, is not perfectly found in creatures; but if it were understood per impossibile that light were its own illumination and irradiation, we could say that of the same light and luminosity there would be multiple irradiations, because irradiation denotes a diametral or orthogonal direction of the luminosity itself; on account of which the irradiations of diverse illuminated things would be called many, yet in one light and in one luminosity. So too must it be understood in the matter at hand, because the divine truth itself is light, and its expressions with respect to things are, as it were, luminous irradiations, though intrinsic, which determinately lead and direct toward that which is expressed. And this is what Dionysius says in the seventh chapter of On the Divine Names: " The divine intellect does not know beings by declaring them from beings, but from itself and in itself, according to the cause of all things, it pre-possesses and pre-conceives the knowledge, science, and substance of all things, not applying itself to individual things according to an idea; that is, not according to really distinct ideas, but knowing and containing all things according to the one excellence of the cause, just as light also, according to the cause, has pre-received in itself the knowledge of darkness, knowing darkness from no other source than from the defect of light. Therefore the divine wisdom, knowing itself, knows all material things immaterially, and indivisibly the divisible, and singularly the many, knowing and producing all things by that very one ". In this passage Dionysius manifestly shows that in the principle of knowing no real plurality falls, because this would derogate from the perfection of divine knowledge; and he shows this same thing more perfectly in the fifth chapter, as was cited above. And therefore the arguments that were made for this side are to be conceded.
1. To the first objection to the contrary, therefore, from Augustine, that man was created by one idea and a horse by another, etc.: it must be said that the otherness there does not denote a real difference, but only one according to reason.
2. To the objection that an idea is a form and a thing, etc.: it must be said that 'idea' both denotes a thing and denotes a mode of a thing — for it denotes a form compared to that which is expressed — nor is it multiplied insofar as it denotes a thing, but insofar as it denotes a mode of a thing: and therefore, when it proceeds from a plurality of ideas to a plurality of things in the divine, it proceeds from a plurality of mode to a plurality of thing: and therefore it errs according to accident, or according to the figure of speech.
3. To the objection that according to Dionysius ideas are substance-making reasons: it must be said that they are called substance-making either because they subsist in themselves, or because they produce the substances of things, or because they express the substances of things — not because they are the substances or essences of the things themselves. Although the essences of the things themselves are multiplied in things, because they are intrinsic to the things themselves, this is nevertheless not necessary for those exemplar reasons, because they do not enter into the constitution of things.
4. To that which is objected, that an agent acting according to an exemplar is the form of the thing produced: it must be said that this is understood of an agent acting according to an exemplar that is directed and regulated by the exemplar itself, as is the case with a created agent; nor even of such an agent is it understood properly that it is in truth the form of the thing produced, but rather that it has something within itself which bears a likeness of the thing to be produced, just as a physician in healing first has health in his mind and art before he afterwards brings it about in practice; and thus the argument introduced fails on both counts.
5. To that which is objected, that an agent acting from purpose does not produce things unless it has them within itself: it must be said that it is not necessary that it have them in their truth, but through likeness, which likeness indeed need not be conformed in all respects to those things of which it is the likeness; as is evident, because of material things the idea or ratio is immaterial, of corruptible things it is incorruptible, and consequently of many things it can be uniform and of different things undivided: and therefore it does not follow that if plurality is represented by the exemplary ideas themselves, that they themselves are really many; just as it does not follow that the ideas of material things are material.
6. To that which is objected, that whatever things have they receive from God: it must be said that they receive from him as from one who can make something from nothing, not because they receive something that belongs to his substance; and therefore it does not follow that if a creature has something in its own genus, that on this account it is necessary to find that same thing in the giver in act; but it suffices that it be found only according to efficient power or representative exemplarity.