The Attributes of Divine Life: The Mode of Divine Knowledge

Chapter III: The Attributes of Divine Life — Divine Knowledge

§1: The Mode of Divine Knowledge

CHAPTER III THE ATTRIBUTES OF DIVINE LIFE — DIVINE KNOWLEDGE Considered dynamically, aseity, God’s fundamental attribute, is purest activity; consequently the attributes of Divine Activity must be deducible in the same manner as the attributes of Divine Being; and, since immanent activity is synonymous with life, the attributes of Divine Activity must be identical with the attributes of Divine Life.1 As God is a pure spirit, and spiritual life utters itself in knowing and willing, it is plain that God’s vital activity can find expression only in cognition and volition. This furnishes a natural division of the attributes of divine life, viz., attributes of the Understanding and attributes of the Will. In the words of the Vatican Council : 2 Ecclesia credit et confitetur, unum esse Deum verum et vivum … intellects ac voluntate omnique perfectione infinilCfr. Deut. XXXII, 40: * Vivo eral, consult Scheeben, Dogmatik, ego in aeternum — I live forever.” Vol. I, § 89; St. Thomas, Summa John XIV, 6: “Ego sunt via et Theol., 1a, qu. 8. Veritas et vita (if £ ayfj) — I am 2 Cone. Vatic, Sess. Ill, De Fide, the way, and the truth, and the cap. U life.” — On the Divine Life in gen327 328 DIVINE KNOWLEDGE turn — The … Church believes and confesses that there is one true and living God, … infinite in intelligence, in will, and in all perfection.” 8 In respect of the divine understanding, we will discuss (i) the manner in which it is exercised, (2) its object, and (3) its medium. In treating of these three points we shall have to be very careful not to trench on the infinite perfection of the Divine Knowledge. Not only must we conceive it as self-existent, but likewise as blending with all the other attributes of Divine Being, especially the negative ones, sternly excludiiiig from the Divine Understanding every imaginable imperfection of human cognition, such as supposition, doubt, discursive reasoning, and so forth. It is with a view to emphasizing the certainty and infallibility of Divine Cognition that theologians generally speak of it as scientia divina, for scientia (science) is the certain and evident knowledge of things by their causes. aCfr. Dtonzfafter-Btamtotit, Enchiridioh, n. 1782. SECTION i THE MODE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE From what we have previously said about the manner in which created perfections are contained in God, it follows that every mixed perfection (such as, e. g., the faculty of discursive reasoning), must be subjected to a process of logical refinement before it can be applied to the Deity; and further that when we undertake to transfer a simple perfection, i. e.} one formally capable of being predicated of the Divine Essence (e. g., intellect), from the creature to the Creator, we must abstract from the mode in which that perfection exists in the creature. The following theses are calculated to show how divine differs from human knowledge in regard to its mode. Thesis I: Because of the identity of being and thought in God, the Divine Knowledge is a substantial act of cognition, in which consciousness and selfcomprehension co-incide. This is de fide. Proof. We have already shown, in treating of the Absolute Truth,1 that in God being and thinking really co-incide; that a notion which adequately comprehends its object, must be conceived as a substance ; and that this entire process must culminate in a most complete comprehension by God of His Essence, or of Himself. All three of these momenta are implicitly contained in the decree of the Vatican Council, according to which God is infinite in intelligence, in will, and in all perfection, and, at the same time, “one … absolutely simple and immutable spiritual substance.” 2 The absolute identity of being and thinking in God is, indeed, an immediate consequence of His self-existence, which altogether excludes a transition from faculty to act. The substantiality of the divine act of understanding is a corollary flowing from that metaphysical simplicity of the Divine Essence which does not admit of parts and accidents; and, finally, resulting from both, the comprehension by God of His own Self or Essence, is a consequence of the infinite, absolute spirituality, by virtue of which, in God, truth must co-incide with knowledge, goodness with volition.8 1 Supra, pp. 230 sqq. 2 Cone. Vatican., Sess, III, De Fide, c. 1: ” Intellectu ac voluntate omnique perfectione infinitus • . . (et simul) simplex omnino et incommutabilis substantia spir* itualis.” 8Cfr. Isidor. Hispal., Etymol. VII, 1: ” Deus habet essentiam, habet et sapientiam; sed quod THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 331 The leading characteristic of God’s knowledge is doubtless His comprehension of Himself (comprehensio sui), which wholly governs and determines His intellectual life in itself as well as in its relations ad extra. From this comprehensive knowledge which God has of Himself, flows, as from a fruitful idea matrix, the knowledge of all truth and of all truths within and without the Divine Essence. The absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Essence makes it impossible for any created or creatable intellect, either in this life or in the life beyond, to form a comprehensive notion of God. God, and God alone, is able to compass Himself and to exhaust His Essence as the Infinite Truth. Sacred Scripture attributes this comprehensive knowledge to each of the three Divine Persons in particular. Cfr. Math. XI, 27: “Nemo novit (cVtyivwoxct) Filium nisi Pater, neque Patrem quis novit nisi Filius — No one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father but the Son.” 1 Cor. II, 10 sq. : ” Spiritus enim omnia scrutatur, etiam profunda Dei (ra fidOrf tov Oeov) ; … quae Dei sunt, nemo cognovit (tyvtoKtv) nisi Spiritus Dei — The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God … the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God/’ Among the Fathers it is especially St. Augustine who regards the Logos, or Son, as the adequately comprehensive image of the Father. For God, he says, to speak (dicere) is the same as to comprehend Himself (comprehendere). ” Tanquam seipsum dicens Pater genuit habet, hoc et est, et omnia units est have said supra, on the divine atac proind* simplex est, quia in eo tributes of substantiality and imnon aiiquid accidentis est” The mutability, reader is also referred to what we

MODE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE Verbum sibi aequale per omnia; non enim seipsum integre perfecteque dixisset, si aliquid minus aut amplius esset in eius Verbo, quam in ipso — As though uttering Himself, the Father begat the word equal to Himself in all things; for He would not have uttered Himself wholly and perfectly, if there were in His word anything more or less than in Himself .” 4 If God comprehends Himself, He must be self-conscious. Our inadequate human mode of conception distinguishes the two, by conceiving of God’s self-comprehension as directed to the Divine Essence (cognitio directa), and His self-consciousness as bearing on the operation of the Divine Intellect (cognitio reflexa). God knows Himself — His Substance, His Essence, His Nature, and everything that pertains to His knowledge or the exercise of His intellect; and this self-knowledge naturally implies consciousness of the Ego, — a truth which needs to be emphasized in view of the Pantheistic fallacy that the Divine self-consciousness is enkindled by God’s (immanent) production of the created universe. This absurd and heretical notion of ” a gradual awakening of the divine consciousness ” is incompatible with God’s most fundamental attribute, i. e., selfexistence, and was already refuted by Aristotle when he defined the Divinity as “wfyo-ts vo^o-cus.” God Himself has revealed the reality of His consciousness by His inimitable effatum: Ego sum qui sum — I am who am. 5 Not only the Godhead in the oneness of Its nature, but likewise each of the three Divine Persons possesses self-consciousness and gives expression to it by the word ” I.” 6 However, we must beware of the 4D* Trinit., XV, 14, 23 (Had- 6 Thus the Father: Math. Ill, dan’s translation, p. 407). 17: “Hie est filius tneus dilectus, « Ex. Ill, 14. in quo mihi complacui — This is

gross error which the school of Giinther at one time propagated among the theologians of Germany, — that consciousness formally constitutes personality. If this were so, then we should have to distinguish in Jesus Christ, who had both a divine and a human consciousness, two separate persons, and in the Godhead three distinct Natures, because of the trinity of the (relative) self-consciousness, and but one Person on account of the oneness of God’s (absolute) consciousness. This would spell, on the one hand, Nestorianism ; on the other, Tritheism or Sabellianism. In matter of fact, as there is in God but one Nature, so He has only one consciousness, which belongs to all three Divine Persons per modum identitatis, and by virtue of which each separate Hypostasis, and all three Hypostases together, are aware of their existence and their infinite perfection. If, therefore, consciousness is multiplied according to natures, not according to persons, it follows inevitably that consciousness and self-comprehension in God coincide in the same manner as being and cognition.7 Hence in the Godhead : being = thought = comprehensio sui = consciousness.8 Thesis II: By virtue of His infinite comprehension of His own Essence, God in and through Himself also knows all extra-divine truths, in such manner that truth is dependent on Him, not He on truth. Proof. This thesis consists of two distinct parts. In the first, God’s self-comprehension is my beloved Son, in whom I am bam — Separate me Saul and Barnawell pleased.” The Son: John X, bas.” 30: Ego et pater unum sumus — 7 Cfr. Franzelin, De Verbo InI and the Father are one. And carnato, 3rd ed., Rome 1881, pp. the Holy Ghost: Acts XIII, 2: 249 sqq. ” Segregate mihi Saulum et Barn a- 8 Cfr. Otten, Apologie des gottlichen Bewusstseins, Paderborn 1897.

made to comprise within its radius the entire domain of truth external to His Essence; while in the second, the relation of the former to the latter is defined more clearly by excluding all real dependency of God on the objects of His knowledge. The question here at issue, therefore, is not : How many and what classes of truths form the object of Divine Knowledge, but: How does God know the several truths, the possible and the real, the present and the future, etc? Our thesis answers this question in a twofold way. (i) Positively: God knows all truths in and through Himself, that is to say, by virtue of His own Essence and His self -comprehension ; (2) negatively: the truths which He knows do not really affect His knowledge. Inasmuch as the Church has never defined the mode of divine cognition, and her magisterium ordinarium teaches nothing definite on this subject as of faith, we cannot assert our thesis to be de fide, though we can surely claim for it the value of a theological conclusion. All theological schools unanimously uphold God’s absolute independence of the objects of His knowledge, as a corollary from the divine attributes of self-existence and infinite perfection. I. It is not difficult to demonstrate that God must know all truths without exception by reason of His self-comprehension. According to the axiom: “Ens et verum convertuntur” truth is co-extensive with being. Now, whatever is, is either God, or something external to God. The things external to God can be di 

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES vided into two classes: the possible and the actually existing. We know from the preceding thesis that God has an adequate knowledge of all divine being by reason of His comprehension of His own Essence. As for the two classes of extra-divine beings, the possibles depend on the Divine Essence as their exemplary cause, while the actually existing things depend on the same not only as their exemplary but also as their efficient and final cause. As, therefore, God comprehends His own Essence, which is the exemplary, the efficient, and the final cause of all things outside of Himself, so by virtue of His comprehensio sui He must envisage these things one and all in His own Essence. To prove this thesis from Revelation, we must fall back on the attribute of divine omnipotence. If God can do whatever does not imply an intrinsic contradiction, then His omnipotence is co-extensive with being, that is, with the sphere of possible being. Even the things that now actually exist, prior to the moment of their creation or realization were merely possible. Now, God envisages His omnipotence in His own Essence, of which it is an attribute; consequently he must also perceive in His Essence whatever comes within the scope of His omnipotence, vis.: all real and all possible things. Cfr. Ecclus. XXIII, 29: “Domino Deo, antequam crearentur, omnia sunt agnita, sic et post perfectum respicit omnia (irplv rj KTiaOrjvai rh irdvra 2yva>or, ovrco? Kal fura to (nnn-eXrjaOvjpai) — For all things were known to the Lord God, before they were created, so also after they were perfected he beholdeth all things.* 9 The following quotation from St. Augustine’s treatise De Genesi ad Lit., is often cited in this connection: * Sicut vidit, ita fecit. Non praeter seipsum videns, sed in seipso, ita enumeravit omnia, quae fecit… . Nota ergo fecit, non facta cognovit. Proinde antequam fierent, et erant et non erant: erant in Dei scientia, non erant in sua natura.” 10 The Schoolmen, under the leadership of St. Thomas, defended the thesis: “Dens intellectu suo intelligit se principaliter, et in se intelligit omnia alia — God with His understanding knows Himself in the first place, and in Himself perceives all other things.” 11 2. If God, as we have just shown, by virtue of His self-comprehension, knows all extradivine things (or truths) in His Essence, it follows as a matter of course that He is nowise dependent on the objects of His knowledge. A created intellect cannot perceive an object without being influenced by it. The object, as the Scholastic phrase runs, determines the intellect. Not so the Divine Intellect, which, in perceiving Itself as well as the things outside Itself, is determined only by Itself. Therefore no extra-divine truth in its relation to God • can ever be a causa determinans, though it may be a conditio sine qua non. In other words: The things outside of God are merely the terminus, but in no sense the cause of Divine Knowledge. Or, as the Scholastics put it: ” Objecta alia a Deo terminant 9 Cfr. Wisdom VII, 21 sqq.; 10 D$ Gen. ad Lit., V, 35 sq. Prov. VIII, 22 sqq.; John I, 3 11 Cfr. Rickaby, Of God and His sqq., and other similar passages. Creatures, p. 57,

quidem intellectum divinutn, sed non determinant — The objects existing outside of God terminate, but they do not determine, the Divine Intellect.,, To assume that the Divine Intellect could be influenced by truths existing outside of Itself, would be tantamount to asserting that God is essentially dependent on the created universe, which would be to deny His self-existence. There is nothing outside the Divine Essence which can determine God’s knowledge, just as there is nothing external to Him that can determine His being; for both His knowledge and His being are self-existing. It follows that the Divine Intellect can be determined only from within, that is to say, by the Divine Essence Itself. However, we must not conceive of this process as a real influence exerted by God’s Essence upon His Intellect, lest we fall into the mistake, already censured, of taking aseitas to mean self-realization in the strict sense of that term. God, being pure actuality (actus purissimus) , cannot in any sense be conceived as potential. Cfr. 1 John I, 5: * Deus lux est et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae — God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.* To say that God is determined from within, can, therefore, only mean that His knowledge is determined by His essence in the same way as His existence.12 The doctrine we are here defending has found pointed, not to say drastic, expression in the writings of those Fathers of -the Church who hold that God does not know the things outside Himself because they exist, but they exist because He knows them. ” Universas creaturas suas, et spirituales et corporales” says St. Augustine, ” non quia sunt ideo novit, sed ideo sunt quia novit; non enim nescivit quae fuerat creoturus — And with respect to all His creatures, both 12 Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Proelect. Dogm., Vol. II, p. 93*

spiritual and corporeal, He does not know them because they are, but they are because He knows them. For He was not ignorant of what He was about to create.” 18 Similarly St. Gregory the Great: “Quae sunt, non in aeternitate eius ideo videntur quia sunt; sed ideo sunt quia videntur — The things that are, are not seen in His eternity because they are, but they are because He sees them.” 14 These authorities do not mean to deny that the things outside of God are actually the terminus of Divine knowledge; for there can be no knowledge without an object; but they certainly do deny that the ” objecta alia a Deo” exercise a causal influence upon the knowledge of God ; in other words, that God’s knowledge is dependent upon its objects. 3. The proposition of the Schoolmen: “Divina essentia est objectum formale et primarium, omnia alia vera sunt objectum materiale et secundarium divinae cognitionis/’ is merely a different way of formulating our thesis. The formal object of a vital faculty is that which determines the faculty to act and imparts to it its own specific perfection. Such is, for instance, color with respect to the eye. The material object is that which is viewed in the light of the formal object, and comes within the purview of a faculty only from that particular coign of vantage, as, e. g., bodily substance and magnitude, which the eye can perceive only ratione coloris. Similarly the primary object is that which is apprehended by a faculty primo et per se, and to which 13 S. Augustin., De Trinit., XV, 14 Greg. M., Moral, XX, 29, n. 13, 22. Haddan’s translation, p. 63.

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES whatever else is apprehended (obiectum secundariutn) must be referred as to its principle. Hence a formal object must always be primary; a material object, secondary. Mutatis mutandis the same terminology may be employed in defining the object of any other science, as, for instance, geometry or metaphysics. Now, if God’s knowledge receives its peculiar form and perfection not from without, but from the Divine Essence itself, and if it is the Divine Essence alone which determines the Intellect of God and so renders His knowledge truly divine ; then the truths outside of God cannot possibly constitute the formal object of His knowledge; hence they must be its material object, because, being truths, they cannot be unknown to Him Who is All-Truth. We say, material object, and nothing more; for, whether, e. g., the world exists or no, cannot in any wise affect the perfection of God’s knowledge, because in neither case would God’s knowledge be increased or diminished, either materially or formally.15 For precisely the same reason God’s Essence is the primary, and the things that exist outside of it are merely secondary objects of His knowledge. Kleutgen16 points out a beautiful parallel. If we take theology as the subjective knowledge of things divine, he says, the most accomplished theologian can be none other than God Himself, whereas theological knowledge on earth grows in nobility and perfection according as a man learns to consider all things in the light isCfr. St. August., De Trinit. XV, 13: ” Non aliter ea scivit areata quam creanda; non enim eius sapientiae aliquid accessit ex eis, sed Mis existentibus sicut oporfebat et quando oportebat, ilia per* mansit, ut erat — Nor did He know them when created in any other way than He knew fhem when still to be created, for nothing accrued to His wisdom from them; but that wisdom remained as it was, While they came into existence as it was fitting and when it was fitting.” 16 De Ipso Deo, p. 259. 34Q MODE OF DJVINE KNOWLEDGE of the Divine, and reaches its final culmination in the beatific vision vouchsafed only in Heaven.17 Thesis III: God knows the things external to Himself not only in His own Essence, but also as they are in themselves. Proof. The things outside of God have a twofold being, to wit : ideal or eminent being, in the Essence and Knowledge of God, and real or formal being, in their own reality and individual determination. I. Purely possible being (ens possibile) has objective existence only in the first-mentioned sense. It is something ideal, sans actual existence, though capable of being conceived as existing; e. g., a galloping centaur. Actual being, on the other hand, besides ideal also has real being, inasmuch as that which was merely possible has become actually existing. It is easy to see that the ideal being of the possibles objectively coincides with the Divine Essence itself. The infinitely variable mutability of that Essence furnishes the basis for an infinite number of prototypes, which the Divine Intellect conceives as archetypes of creatable things, and which the Divine Will by its creative power is able to posit outside of itself as so many ectypes. It must be noted, however, that the purely possible, even before its realization, does not merely possess an indistinct sort of being, but is as definitely stamped and as individually determined in its archetype as after it has become existent. Goethe was able with his eyes closed to summon before his imagination a full-blown rose and he derived as 17 Cfr. also Franzelin, De Deo Uno, thes. 38; Chr. Pesch, Praelect. DogmaU, Vol. II, thes. 33. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 34i much pleasure from contemplating its various beauties as though he held a real flower in his hand. The question next suggests itself, whether the knowledge of the omniscient God is limited to the ideal or eminent being of extra-divine things as reflected ,in His Essence, or whether His intellectual vision can penetrate to the real, formal or individually determined being which objects have, or can have, in themselves. In formulating the question thus, we do not, of course, mean to deny the independence of the Divine Knowledge, which we have proved in the preceding thesis. Like the individually determined being of the purely possible, the real or formal being of actually existing things can be the terminus, but never the cause of divine cognition. Hence we have formulated our present thesis in this wise : ” God knows the things outside of Himself, not only in His own Essence, but also as they are in themselves (not: but also in themselves).99 I know of but one theologian who denies that God’s knowledge extends to things as they are in themselves; viz.: Aureolus, who says:18 “Si quaeratur, an Deus sic intelligat quod intuitum suum ferat super essentiam [suam] et ex hoc procedat ulterius usque ad creaturam, ita quod sint duo intuit a: Deus et creatura, sic nullo modo concedi potest, quod Deus Jntelligat creaturas.” 18 It is not difficult to refute this obviously false view. 2. If God knew the things outside Himself only in their ideal or eminent being, He would really know nothing beyond His own Essence; the real, formal being of existing things, and 18 In Mag. 1, dist. 35, p. 2, art. 2.

the concretely individualized being of the purely possibles, as they are or can be in themselves, would remain hidden from Him. Consequently, there would be something knowable which God did not know, and it would be precisely that which created intelligences are so well able to know, because they direct their mind’s eye to the real, formal, and determinate being as it exists outside the Divine Essence. Now, the assumption that anything knowable eludes the knowledge of God, or that the created mind commands a wider range than the infinite intellect of the Creator, is preposterous as well as derogatory to the dignity of the Most High. There is this further consideration. God must needs know created things in the same manner in which He creates, or can create, them. Now, the object and end of God’s creative activity is not the ideally-eminent, but the really-formal being of extra-divine objects. Consequently, God not only knows the former but also the latter. It is solely from this point of view that we can understand such revealed texts as these: “For he beholdeth the ends of the world, and looketh on all things that are under heaven, who made a weight for the winds, and weighed the waters by measure, when he gave a law for the rain, and a way for the sounding storms. Then he saw it, and declared, and prepared, and THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES searched it.” 19 Again : “Who telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them by all their names … and of his wisdom there is no number.”20 A question quite apart from the one just treated is whether God perceives the real and formal being of the things outside His Essence immediately in these things themselves, or mediately in and through His own Essence. We shall treat this point later, when we come to discuss the medium of divine cognition.21 Thesis IV: God’s knowledge of the things outside Himself is an adequately comprehensive knowledge, and is invested with that absolute infallibility which flows from metaphysical certainty. This thesis enunciates an article of faith. Proof. God has an adequately comprehensive knowledge not only of His own Essence, but of whatever exists or can exist. By an adequately comprehensive knowledge we mean one which exhausts its object so completely that the entire cognoscibility of that object becomes as it were absorbed by cognition. A knowledge that is not adequately comprehensive always includes some remnant of uncomprehended being. Thus a mathematician has no adequately comprehensive knowledge of a triangle so long as he has not thor10 Job XXVIII, 24 sqq. Cfr. also S. Thorn., Ccntr. Gent. 20 Ps. CXLVI, 4 sq. Cfr. Hebr. I, c. 49 sqq. IV, 13. For the teaching of St. 21 § 3, infra, Augustine, see the preceding thesis. oughly mastered the geometrical propositions concerning triangles and their relations to parallel lines, the circle, the square, etc., — a mastery which, needless to say, cannot be acquired in this life. i. We call God’s knowledge scientia, in order to indicate that it excludes, on the one hand, doubt, and on the other, mere opinion and suspicion. Doubt (dubium) is that state of the mind in which it hesitates between two contradictory members of a judgment, as, for instance, in trying to solve the question whether the number of existing stars is odd or even. Opinion (opinio) is a judgment which the mind accepts for weighty reasons, though unable to rid itself of the fear that its contrary may be true; as, for instance, in assenting to a proposition regarding space in the wth dimension. Suspicion (suspicio), like doubt, is no true judgment, but merely an inclination, based on weak grounds, to prefer one member of an alternative to the other, as, for instance, that this particular person has committed a certain specified crime. Certitude (certitudo) absolutely excludes the possibility of error, and hence spells the true ideal state of the intellect, as, for instance, the certainty a man has concerning his own existence. We cannot, consequently, conceive of real knowledge except as based on certainty. Be it remarked, however, that subjective certitude does not of itself engender knowledge, but must have a foundation in fact. A man who is moved by prejudice, or swayed by his passions, may be subjectively certain, and yet err. Subjective certitude must be based upon objective certainty, because it is the latter that furnishes the grounds for the former. It follows from what we have said that certainty may inhere not only in judgments and conclusions, but also in the very objects themselves, as

when I say : ” The fact is certain,” ” This proposition is sure.” It is objective certainty that furnishes the basis for knowledge and thereby engenders true subjective certitude. Now, what is objective certainty? It is nothing else than the intestine necessity of a thing, or, in other words, the impossibility of its contradictory being true, as, e. g., 2X2 = 4. When this necessity remains hidden, there can be no certitude or true knowledge. When perceived by the intellect, this necessity is called evidence, and the intellect must bow to it. 2. There are three kinds of certitude: metaphysical, physical, and moral. The first, which is the strongest, rests upon the intrinsic impossibility of the contradictory proposition, and is often called mathematical. Physical certitude is based upon the necessary operation of the contingent laws of nature (e. g., the sun is hot). It is inferior to metaphysical certitude, because the momentary suspension of any law of nature (as, e. g., in the case of the three children in the fiery furnace), diminishes the impossibility. The weakest of the three is moral certitude, which rests merely on the constancy and universality governing the conduct of free beings, who — despite occasional exceptions — as a rule follow their inborn inclinations (as, e. g., mothers love their children). Though the necessity upon which moral certitude rests, and which may ultimately be traced to the watchfulness of Divine Providence, may at any moment be broken through by the free will of man, yet the propositions derived from it remain certain in their moral generality, as, e. g., that the majority of mothers will always love their offspring. Verisimilitude, or probability (verisimilitude), probabilitas) differs from certitude in all of its three stages, though we often refer to a particularly high degree of it as 23

” moral certitude.” It lacks necessity : there is no guaranty that the contradictory proposition may not be true. The mathematical formula for probability is W=^ -£-(/> designating favorable, n possible instances). With the number of favorable instances (the denominator remaining the same), probability increases until, p becoming equal to n, it changes into certitude : W = .g.=s JL = i. The figure i is consequently termed ”the symbol of certitude.” Probability does not rest on necessity, and therefore does not per se engender certitude; but it is to be noted that a mathematical judgment concerning the a priori degree of probability of an event is always metaphysically certain, even though concrete predictions based upon a probable calculation frequently miss the mark. Inasmuch as God knows all things with metaphysical certitude, it is not sufficient to attribute to His intellect the absolute certainty proper to mathematical judgments. He has and must have an absolutely infallible knowledge of each and every individual event; else His knowledge would be little more than a calculation based on probabilities. 3. An intelligence is infallible if it cannot err. From this definition it is evident that the formal characteristic, of infallibility (infallibilitas) is not the mere fact of noterring (inerrantia) , just as the formal characteristic of impeccability (impeccabilitas) is not actual freedom from sin (impeccantia). Infallibility not only implies posse non errare, but non posse errare. It may be either absolute or relative, according as it is unlimited, comprising all truths without exception, or limited in extension and derivative in regard to its contents. Absolute infallibility postulates an infinite being, in whom truth and subsistent reason are identical. Relative infallibility is proper to the human intellect, which,

created as it is for the truth, is infallible when guided by the general criterion of evidence. To deny this would plunge mankind into scepticism. Besides the natural infallibility, which we have been considering, there is a supernatural infallibility, which is a gift of Divine Grace. Such was the prophetic and charismatic infallibility of the Old Testament seers, and of the Apostles ; such to-day is the infallibility of the ecclesiastical teaching office in matters of faith and morals, no matter whether it enunciates its decisions by the magisteriutn ordinarium of daily instruction, or in a solemn definition by an ecumenical council, or in an ex cathedra pronouncement on the part of the Roman Pontiff. This explains the practical importance of divine, as the foundation of derived, infallibility. 4. After the foregoing explanations it will not be difficult to prove our thesis, which not only avers that God knows all things outside Himself in globo,22 but that He has an adequate comprehension of each one of them individually. If He had no such adequate comprehension, some things would be unknown to Him, and He would either remain in eternal ignorance of them, or be compelled constantly to acquire new knowledge. The former assumption is repugnant to His infinite perfection, the latter to His absolute immutability. Cfr. Ecclus. XXXIX, 24 sqq. : “The works of all flesh [i. e., all men] are before him, and there is nothing hid from his eyes ; he seeth from eternity to eternity, 22 Cfr. First Thesis, supra.

and there is nothing wonderful before him.” In its innermost essence this comprehensive cognition is true knowledge — exempt from doubt, opinion, and suspicion. It is in consequence metaphysically certain ; for metaphysical certitude alone can wholly eliminate the possibility of error. For the same reason the knowledge of God must ultimately culminate in absolute infallibility, which positively excludes all possibility of error. Cfr. Hebr. IV, 13: “Non est ulla creatura invisibilis in conspectu eius; omnia autem nuda et aperta sunt oculis eius — Neither is there any creature invisible in his sight; but all things are naked and open to his eyes.” The possibility of erring would entail the possibility of correcting errors, and this could not be made to square with the immutability of God’s knowledge and Essence.23 28 Consult here the passages from cited in 8 2. Cfr. also Cone, VatiSacred Scripture and the Fathers can., Sess. Ill, cap. 1, * De Deo.*