(CG 1/56). That there is no Habitual Knowledge in God | ||||
IN whatever minds there is habitual knowledge, not all things are known together: but some things are known actually, others habitually. But in God all things are known actually (Chap. LV). | ||||
2. He who has a habit of knowledge, and is not adverting to what he knows, is in a manner in potentiality, although otherwise than as he was before he understood at all: but the divine mind is nowise in potentiality. | ||||
3. In every mind that knows anything habitually, the mind's essence is different from its intellectual activity, which is the act of attentive thought. To such a mind, in habitual knowledge, activity is lacking, though the essence of the mind itself cannot be lacking. But in God His essence is His activity (Chap. XLV). | ||||
4. A mind that knows habitually only, is not in its ultimate perfection: hence that best of goods, happiness, is not taken to be in habit but in act. If then God is habitually knowing, He will not be all-perfect (contrary to Chap. XXVIII). | ||||
5. As shown in chapter XLVI, God has understanding by His essence, not by any intelligible forms superadded to His essence. But every mind in habitual knowledge understands by some such forms: for a habit is either a predisposition of the mind to receive mental impressions, or forms, whereby it comes actually to understand; or it is an orderly aggregation of such forms, existing in the mind, not in complete actuality, but in some manner intermediate between potentiality and actuality. | ||||
6. A habit is a quality: but in God there can be neither quality nor any other accident (Chap. XXIII): habitual knowledge therefore is not proper to God. Because the mental state of thinking, or willing, or acting habitually only, is like the state of a sleeper, David says, by way of removing all habitual states from God: Lo, he shall not slumber or sleep who keepeth Israel (Ps. cxx, 4). And again it is said: The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun (Ecclus xxiii, 28), for the sun is always in the act of shining. | ||||
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