10. To that which is objected concerning imaginative cognition, it must be said that the case is not similar, because it does not have certitude, and therefore does not have recourse to the immutable.
11. To that which is objected concerning sense, it must be said that the case is not similar regarding the certitude of sense and of intellect. For the certitude of sense comes from the binding of a power operating by way of nature, determined to something particular. But the certitude of the intellect cannot come from this source, since it is a power free to understand all things; and therefore it must come through something having not binding but freedom without the defectibility of mutability and fallibility; and such is the light and reason of sempiternal truth: and therefore recourse is had to it as to the font of all certitude.
12. To that which is objected, that for cognition nothing more is required than the knower and the knowable and the turning of the one upon the other: it must be said that this turning includes judgment; but certain judgment is not made except through a certain and unjudgeable law, according to what Augustine says in the book On True Religion and in the book On Free Choice , that "no one judges concerning truth, and without truth no one judges well"; and therefore the reason and eternal truth is here included.
13. To that which is objected, that we understand when we will, and therefore we do not need extraneous aid: it must be said that extraneous aid is twofold:
one kind that is always at hand, and another that is absent and distant. That argument does not conclude regarding the first kind of aid, but regarding the second, as is evident: because if corporeal light were always present to the eye, just as spiritual light is always present to the mind, we would see when we willed, just as we understand when we will.
14. To that which is objected, that the principles of being and of knowing are the same: it must be said that just as the intrinsic principles of being do not suffice without that first principle from without, which is God, for being, so neither do they suffice for knowing fully. Whence, although those principles are in some way a ground of knowing, they do not on that account exclude that first ground of knowing from our cognition, just as neither do they exclude it in the act of being from creation.
15. To that which is objected, that to each knowable thing there corresponds its own proper ground of knowing: it must be said that because we do not see those grounds entirely distinctly in themselves, they are therefore not the whole ground of knowing; but together with them there is required the created light of principles and the likenesses of known things, from which the proper ground of knowing is had with respect to each thing known.
16. To that which is objected, that "on account of which each thing is such, that itself is more so": it must be said that, as is already clear, the eternal ground does not alone move to knowing, but together with the truth of principles, not specifically of itself, but generally in the state of the wayfarer; and therefore it does not follow that it is known to us according to itself, but insofar as it shines forth in its principles and in its generality: and thus in a certain way it is most certain to us, because our intellect can in no way think that it does not exist—which indeed cannot be said of any created truth.
17. To that which is objected concerning the mirror, it must be said that this is true of a mirror that has the character of representing properly and distinctly, and that together with the character of representing has the character of terminating: as is clear in this material mirror, which distinctly and properly represents the visible species and terminates sight. These conditions, however, belong to the eternal mirror with respect to the comprehensors, as is clear from what has been said above.
18. To that which is objected, that those grounds are equally certain with respect to contingent things as with respect to necessary things: it must be said that this argument would conclude well if those grounds were the whole ground of knowing, and if one saw fully in them: but now it is not so according to the state of the present time, because together with them we need proper likenesses and determinately apprehended principles of things, which indeed are not found in contingent things, but only in necessary ones.
19. To that which is objected, that if we know in those reasons, then every knower is wise: it must be said that this does not follow, because to attain those reasons does not make one wise unless one rests in them and knows that one attains them, which indeed pertains to the wise. For reasons of this kind are attained by the intellects of those who know as guiding, but by the intellects of the wise as leading back and bringing to rest . And because few there are who attain them in this manner, therefore few are wise, although many are knowing; few indeed are those who know that they attain those reasons: indeed, what is more, few are those who are willing to believe this, because it seems difficult to an intellect not yet elevated to contemplate eternal things that it should have God so present and so near, even though Paul says in Acts, chapter seventeen , that He is not far from each one of us.
20. To that which is objected concerning the knowledge of the homeland, the response is already clear, because there is a great difference between knowledge that is in part and in an enigma, and that which is perfectly . and distinctly, as was said above.
21. To that which is objected, that the mirror of the eternal reasons is voluntary, etc.: it must be said that, as the Apostle says in Romans, chapter one, that which is known of God is manifest in them: although God is simple and uniform, nevertheless that eternal light and that exemplar represents certain things as it were exteriorly and openly, but certain things more profoundly and hiddenly. The first are those things which come about according to the necessary ordering of the divine art; but the second are those which come about according to the disposition of the hidden will. And that which is called a voluntary mirror — this is not with respect to exemplified things in the first way, but in the second: and therefore in the eternal reasons, natural things are known by the natural judgment of reason, but supernatural and future things only by the gift of supernal revelation; and therefore that argument does not conflict with the position set forth.
22. To that which is objected, that whatever is known in those reasons is known either with a veil or without a veil: it must be said that in the state of the wayfarer, things are not known in those eternal reasons without a veil and enigma on account of the obscuration of the divine image. From this, however, it does not follow that nothing is known with certitude and clearly, for the reason that created principles, which are in some way means of knowing — although not without those reasons — can be seen perspicuously and without a veil by our mind. — If, however, it were said that nothing in this life is known fully, this would not be a great absurdity.
23. 24. 25. 26. To that which is objected against the arguments of Augustine, that if immutable truth is God, then the truth of a demonstrative principle would be God, and that all truths would be one, and that they ought to be adored, and that demons would see God: to all these it must be said that immutable truth is spoken of in two ways, namely, absolutely and on supposition. When, however, it is said that immutable truth is above the mind and is God, this is understood of truth which is immutable absolutely. But when it is said of the truth of a demonstrative principle that it is immutable: if that truth designates something created, it is evident that it is not immutable absolutely, but on supposition, because every creature begins from non-being and is convertible into non-being.
And if it is objected that that truth is absolutely certain to the soul through itself: it must be said that although a demonstrative principle, insofar as it expresses something complex, is created, nevertheless the truth signified by it can be signified either insofar as it exists in matter, or insofar as it exists in the soul, or insofar as it exists in the divine art, or indeed in all these ways simultaneously. For truth in an exterior sign is a sign of the truth which is in the soul, because "words are signs of those affections which are in the soul"; but the soul according to its highest part has a relation to higher things, just as according to its lower part to these lower things, since it is a mean between created things and God: and therefore truth in the soul has a relation to that twofold truth, as a mean to two extremes, such that from the lower it receives certitude in a qualified sense, but from the higher it receives certitude absolutely. And therefore truth of this kind, as immutable absolutely, is above the soul, as the arguments of Augustine show. But the arguments to the contrary proceed from truth that is immutable on supposition, which the demonstrator properly considers, which is multiplied in diverse things and is not to be adored, and is able to be beheld by demons and the damned. For that truth which is absolutely immutable cannot be seen clearly except by those who can enter into the innermost silence of the mind, to which no sinner attains, but only he who is the supreme lover of eternity.