26. Furthermore, if every unchangeable truth is God: then whoever clearly sees any unchangeable truth clearly sees God: but demons and the damned clearly see some unchangeable truths: therefore they clearly see God. But this is to be blessed: therefore the damned are blessed: but nothing is more absurd than this: therefore it is most absurd that whatever is known is known in the eternal reasons, if it is known with certitude.
CONCLUSION.
For the certitudinal cognition of the intellect, even in the wayfarer, it is required that the eternal reason be attained in some way as a regulating and moving reason, not however as the sole reason and in its clarity, but together with a proper created reason, and as known in a mirror and in an enigma.
I respond: For the understanding of the aforesaid, it should be noted that when it is said that everything which is known with certitude is known in the light of the eternal reasons, this can be understood in three ways: in one way, so that it is understood that for certitudinal cognition the evidence of the eternal light concurs as the whole and sole reason of knowing.
And this understanding is less correct, because according to this there would be no cognition of things except in the Word: and then the cognition of the wayfarer would not differ from the cognition of the fatherland, nor cognition in the Word from cognition in its proper genus, nor the cognition of science from the cognition of wisdom, nor the cognition of nature from the cognition of grace, nor the cognition of reason from the cognition of revelation: all of which, since they are false, this way is in no manner to be held.
For from this opinion, which certain ones held, that nothing can be known with certitude except in the archetypal and intelligible world, as the first Academics held, there arose the error, as Augustine says in the second book Against the Academics, that nothing at all could be known, as the new Academics held, because that intelligible world is hidden from human minds. And therefore, wishing to hold the first opinion and their own position, they fell into a manifest error: because "a small error in the beginning is great in the end".
In another way, so that it may be understood that the eternal reason necessarily concurs in certitudinal knowledge with respect to its influence, such that the knower in knowing does not attain the eternal reason itself, but only its influence.
And this manner of speaking is indeed insufficient according to the words of blessed Augustine, who by express words and arguments shows that the mind in certitudinal knowledge is regulated by immutable and eternal rules, not as by a habit of its own mind, but as by those which are above it in the eternal truth. And therefore to say that our mind in knowing does not extend itself beyond the influence of the uncreated light is to say that Augustine was deceived, since in expounding his authorities it is not easy to draw them to this sense: and this is very absurd to say of so great a Father and Doctor, the most authoritative among all expositors of Sacred Scripture.
Furthermore, that influence of light is either general, insofar as God influences all creatures, or special, as God influences through grace. If it is general: then God ought not to be called the giver of wisdom any more than the fertilizer of the earth, nor would knowledge be said to come from him any more than money; if special, of the kind that is in grace: then according to this all knowledge is infused, and none is acquired or innate: all of which are absurd.
And therefore there is a third way of understanding, holding as it were a middle course between both ways, namely that for certitudinal knowledge the eternal reason is necessarily required as regulating and as a moving principle, not indeed as sole and in its complete clarity, but together with created reason, and as in part seen by us according to the state of the wayfarer.
And this is what Augustine suggests in the fourteenth book On the Trinity, chapter fifteen: "The ungodly is reminded, so that he may turn to the Lord as to that light by which, even when he turned away from him, he was in some way touched. For hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity and rightly censure and rightly praise many things in the conduct of men." Where he also adds that they do this by rules which "are written in the book of that light which is called truth ".
That our mind in certitudinal cognition in some way attains those rules and unchangeable reasons is necessarily required by the nobility of the cognition and the dignity of the knower.
The nobility, I say, of the cognition, because certitudinal cognition cannot exist unless there be immutability on the part of the knowable and infallibility on the part of the knower. But created truth is not immutable absolutely, but only by supposition; similarly, neither is the light of a creature altogether infallible by its own power, since both are created and have proceeded from non-being into being. If, therefore, for full cognition there is a recourse to truth altogether immutable and stable and to a light altogether infallible: it is necessary that in cognition of this kind there be a recourse to the supernal art as to a light and truth: a light, I say, giving infallibility to the knower, and a truth giving immutability to the knowable. Whence, since things have being in the mind and in their proper genus and in the eternal art, the truth of things is not sufficient for the soul unto certitudinal science according as they have being in themselves, or according as they have being in their proper genus, because in both respects they are mutable, unless it in some way attains them insofar as they are in the eternal art.
The dignity on the part of the knower likewise requires this. For since the rational spirit has a higher portion of reason and a lower, just as for a full judgment of deliberative reason in matters of action the lower portion does not suffice without the higher, so also for a full judgment of reason in matters of speculation. Now this higher portion is that in which the image of God resides, which both cleaves to the eternal rules and through them judges and determines with certitude whatever it defines: and this befits it insofar as it is the image of God.
For a creature is compared to God under the aspect of vestige, image, and likeness. Insofar as it is a vestige, it is compared to God as to a principle: insofar as it is an image, it is compared to God as to an object: but insofar as it is a likeness, it is compared to God as to an infused gift. And therefore every creature is a vestige that is from God: every creature is an image that knows God: every creature and only that creature is a likeness in which God dwells. And according to this threefold degree of comparison there is a threefold degree of cooperation.
In a work that is from a creature by way of vestige, God cooperates by way of creative principle; in a work, however, that is from a creature by way of likeness, such as a meritorious work pleasing to God, God cooperates by way of infused gift: in a work, however, that is from a creature by way of image, God cooperates by way of a moving reason; and such is the work of certitudinal cognition, which indeed is not from the lower reason without the higher.
Since therefore certitudinal cognition belongs to the rational spirit insofar as it is the image of God, for this reason in this cognition it attains the eternal reasons. But because in the state of the wayfarer it is not yet fully deiform, it does not attain them clearly and fully and distinctly: but according as it approaches more or less to deiformity, accordingly it attains them more or less, yet always in some manner, because the character of image can never be separated from it. Whence, because in the state of innocence the image was without the deformity of fault, yet not yet having the full deiformity of glory, it attained them in part, but not in an enigma. In the state, however, of fallen nature, it lacks deiformity and has deformity, and therefore attains them in part and in an enigma. In the state, however, of glory, it lacks all deformity and has full deiformity, and therefore attains them fully and perspicuously.
Again, because the soul is not entirely from itself wholly an image, therefore together with these it attains the likenesses of things abstracted from the phantasm as proper and distinct reasons of knowing, without which the light of the eternal reason does not suffice for it to know, so long as it is in the state of the wayfarer, unless perhaps by a special revelation it should transcend this state, as in those who are rapt, and in certain revelations of the Prophets.
It must therefore be conceded, as the reasons show and the authorities of Augustine expressly assert, that in every certitudinal cognition those reasons of knowing are attained by the knower, although in one way by the wayfarer and in another way by the comprehensor, in one way by the one knowing and in another way by the one possessing wisdom, in one way by the one prophesying and in another way by the one commonly understanding, as has already been made clear and will be made clear in the solutions to the objections.
1. To that, therefore, which is objected first, that he dwells in unapproachable light: it must be said that he speaks of that approach which is to that light in the fullness and splendor of its clarity, in which way one does not approach it through the power of a creature, but through the deiformity of glory.
2. To that which is objected, that the weak gaze of the human mind is not fixed in so excellent a light, etc.: it must be said that in order for it to know through the eternal reasons, it is not necessary that it be fixed in them, except insofar as it knows wisely. For the wise person attains those reasons in one way, and the one knowing in another: the one knowing attains them as moving, but the wise person as quieting: and no one arrives at this wisdom "unless he is first cleansed through the justice of faith."
3. To that which is objected, that the mind has knowledge of incorporeal things through itself: it must be said that just as in the works of creation the cooperation of the Creator is not excluded, so in the created reason of knowing the uncreated reason of knowing is not excluded, but rather is included in the same.
4. To that which is objected, that one sees in a light of its own kind: it can be said that light of its own kind is said broadly of every incorporeal light, whether created or uncreated; or if it is understood of created light, uncreated light is not thereby excluded; nor does it follow that we do not know in the eternal truth, but that we do not know in it alone, but also in the light of created truth; and this indeed is true and does not conflict with the position stated above.
5. 6. To that which is objected from Gregory and Dionysius, it must be said that neither denies that that true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world, is attained by our minds, but that in this life it is not yet fully seen.
7. 8. 9. To that which is objected from the Philosopher, that we understand with the continuum and time, and that we have a possible intellect and an agent intellect, and from the experience of human cognition: it must be said that this posits that the light and reason of created truth concur in our understanding; but nevertheless, as was said in the preceding, the light and reason of eternal truth is not excluded, because it is possible that the soul according to its lower portion attains those things which are below, while the higher portion nonetheless attains those things which are above.