QUESTION IV.
Whether whatever is known by us with certitude is known in the eternal reasons themselves.
Supposing that the eternal reasons are really indistinct in the divine art or knowledge, it is asked whether they are the reasons of knowing in every certitudinal cognition; this is to ask whether whatever is known by us with certitude is known in the eternal reasons themselves. That it is so appears from manifold authority.
1. Augustine, On the Teacher: "Concerning all things which we understand, we consult not the speaker who sounds forth outwardly, but the truth presiding within over the mind itself. Moreover, he who is consulted teaches, he who is said to dwell in the interior man, Christ, the unchangeable power of God and everlasting wisdom, whom indeed every rational soul consults."
2. Likewise, the same, On True Religion: "It is apparent that above our mind there is a law which is called truth: nor should it any longer be doubted that the unchangeable nature which is above the human mind is God. For this is that unchangeable truth which is rightly called the law of all arts and the art of the almighty artificer."
3. Likewise, Augustine, in the second book of On Free Will: "That beauty of wisdom and truth is neither measured out in time nor migrates in place nor is intercepted by night nor shut off by shadow nor lies subject to the bodily senses: to all from the whole world who turn to it and love it, it is near to all, everlasting to all; it is in no place, it is nowhere absent; outwardly it admonishes, inwardly it teaches. No one judges of it, no one judges well without it; and thereby it is manifest that it is without doubt more excellent than our minds, which from it alone are made individually wise, and judge not of it but through it concerning other things."
If you should say that from this it does not follow that we see in the truth or in the reasons, but that we see from the reasons; on the contrary: Augustine, in the twelfth book of the Confessions: "If we both see that what you say is true, and we both see that what I say is true: where, I ask, do we see this? Neither I in you, nor you in me, but both of us in that unchangeable truth itself which is above our minds."
4. Likewise, in the eighth book of the City of God, speaking of the philosophers, he says: "These, whom we rightly set before all others, said that the light of minds for learning all things is the very same God by whom all things were made."
5. Likewise, in the eighth book of On the Trinity, chapter three: "When a mind pleases us, so that we prefer it to every corporeal light, it does not please us in itself, but in that art by which it was made. For it is approved as made from the same source where it is seen to have been worthy of being made: this is truth and the simple good."
6. Likewise, in the ninth book of On the Trinity, chapter six: "By altogether other rules, remaining unchangeably above our mind, we are convicted of either approving or disapproving, when we rightly approve or disapprove of something."
7. Likewise, in the same work, chapter seven: "In that eternal truth, from which all temporal things were made, we behold with the sight of the mind the form according to which we exist and according to which we accomplish something by true and right reason either in ourselves or in bodies."
8. Likewise, in the fourteenth book On the Trinity, chapter fifteen: "When the impious see the rules according to which each person ought to live, where do they see them? Not in their own nature, since it is established that their minds are mutable, while these rules are immutable; nor in the habit of their mind, since those rules are rules of justice.
Where does one discern that what he himself does not have ought to be possessed? Where then are they written, if not in the book of that light which is called truth, from which every just law is transcribed?" — If you say that he retracted this: to the contrary: Augustine, in the first book of the Retractations: "It is credible that even those unskilled in certain disciplines can answer truly concerning them, when they are able to grasp the eternal light of reason, where they behold these unchangeable truths — not because they previously knew and afterwards forgot, as it seemed to Plato." — Likewise: "The intellectual nature is connected not only to intelligible things, but also to immutable things, having been made in such an order that, when it moves itself toward those things to which it is connected, or toward itself, to the extent that it sees them, to that extent it answers truly concerning them."
From these authorities of Augustine it is manifestly clear that all things are known in the eternal reasons.
9. Likewise, Ambrose: "Through myself I see nothing except what is vain, fleeting, and perishable": therefore if I see anything with certitude, I see it through something that is above me.
10. Likewise, Gregory, on that passage of John fourteen: He will teach you all things, says: "Unless the same Spirit is present to the heart of the hearer, the speech of the teacher is idle: let no one therefore attribute to the man who teaches what he understands from the mouth of the teacher, because unless there is one who teaches within, the tongue of the teacher labors outwardly in vain."
11. Likewise, the same author in the same place: "Behold, you all equally hear the one voice of the speaker, and yet you do not all equally perceive the meaning of the voice heard. Since therefore the voice is not different, why is the understanding of the voice different in your hearts, unless it is because, through the fact that the voice of the speaker commonly admonishes, there is an interior teacher who specially teaches certain ones concerning the understanding of the voice?"
But if our intellect were sufficient of itself for understanding through the light of created truth, it would not need a heavenly teacher: since therefore it does need one, the conclusion is clear, etc.
12. Likewise, Anselm in the Proslogion, chapter fourteen: "How great is the light from which shines forth every truth that gives light to the rational mind! How ample is that truth, in which is everything that is true, and outside of which there is nothing except nothingness and falsehood!" Therefore if truth is not seen except where it is, no truth is seen except in the eternal truth.
13. Likewise, Origen: "Human nature, even if it had not sinned, could not shine by its own proper powers." But to understand is a certain kind of shining: therefore even if it had not sinned, it could not understand by its own powers; therefore it needs a higher agent.
14. Likewise, on that verse of the Psalm: Your hands have made me and formed me; give me understanding: the Gloss says: "God alone gives understanding: for God through himself, who is light, illuminates devout minds."
15. Likewise, Isaac, treating that verse of the Psalm: In your light we shall see light, says: "Just as from the sun proceeds that by which the sun can be seen, and yet what shows the sun does not leave the sun: so in God the light which proceeds from God irradiates the mind, so that it first sees the very radiance itself, without which it would not see, and in that radiance sees all other things." Therefore according to this, all things are seen in the divine light.
16. Likewise, the Philosopher, in the sixth book of the Ethics, chapter three, according to the new translation: "We all suppose that what we know cannot be otherwise; but contingent things, when they fall outside our contemplation, escape our notice as to whether they exist or not. Therefore what is knowable is eternal by necessity; for all things that are by necessity are simply eternal; and eternal things are ungenerated and incorruptible." Therefore in no way can there be certain knowledge without the notion of eternal truth entering therein. But this exists only in the eternal reasons: therefore etc.
Likewise, this same point is shown by arguments, and first by arguments drawn from the words of Augustine, and second by other arguments. For Augustine suggests arguments of this kind in the second book of On Free Choice and in On True Religion and in On the Teacher, in the sixth book of On Music and in the eighth book of On the Trinity.
17. Everything immutable is superior to what is mutable; but that by which something is known with certitude is immutable, because it is a necessary truth; but our mind is mutable: therefore that by which we know is above our minds. But what is above our minds is nothing other than God and eternal truth: therefore that by which there is knowledge is divine truth and the sempiternal reason.