Divine Knowledge

Le Quaestiones 2 («Se l’oggetto adeguato della conoscenza divina sia l’essenza di Dio o l’ente universale») e 3 («Se le creature secondo le loro proprie nature e le loro essenze siano vita in Dio e nel Verbo») della Distinctio 35 dello Scriptum di Pietro Aureoli sono importanti per la ricostruzione sia del pensiero del loro autore che della storia della dottrina delle idee divine nel Medioevo. Aureoli rifiuta il modello tradizionale di causalità esemplare, secondo cui Dio avrebbe creato il mondo sulla base di modelli archetipi esistenti dall’eternità nella sua mente. Ricorrendo al concetto di aequivocatio, stabilisce che l’essenza di Dio è in maniera equivoca l’unico esemplare per tutte le creature ed elabora, così, la teoria della causalità esemplare equivoca.

Exemplar Causality as similitudo aequivoca in Peter Auriol

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the theory of exemplary causality of Peter Auriol (1280-1322). Until at least the late 13th century, medieval authors claim that the world is orderly and intelligible because God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind (i.e. divine ideas). Auriol challenges the view of his predecessors and contemporaries. He argues that assuming divine ideas amounts to assuming multiplicity in God and therefore questioning the principle of his absolute simplicity. To avoid this problem, he develops a system that enables him to account for God’s knowledge of creatures (both as individuals and as species) and hence to preserve the theological principle of providence, but at the same time allows him to reject divine ideas as intermediaries for creation. In Auriol’s theory of exemplary causality, divine essence is the only object of God’s knowledge and thus the only exemplar for creation. God’s cognitive act is directed exclusively towards his own essence. However, he knows creatures through multiple connotations, i.e. the multiple ways divine essence is connotated when God knows himself. But these connotations play no role in creation, because imitability is only proper to divine essence. To explain how an object can be the only exemplar for the creation of many different creatures, Auriol has to rethink the concept of imitability and develop a new model of exemplary causality enabling him to account for the relationship between God and his creatures. The traditional model was that of analogy: a cause produces an effect which is partly similar and partly different from it. Auriol relies on the concept of equivocity. He argues that it is unnecessary to assume a particular similarity between a cause and its effect. Quite the contrary: for an object to be the exemplar of multiple different things, it is necessary that it should not be similar to any of them. The concept of aequivocatio allows Auriol to reject the traditional model of creation. Aequivocatio does not entail a resemblance between idea and ideatum. There is no contradiction, then, in claiming that a single object (divine essence) is in an equivocal way (aequivoce) the exemplary cause of multiple different objects. This is Auriol’s new theory of divine exemplarism: the theory of similitudo aequivoca.

In order to understand how God knows his own being and through himself to know all creation, it is first necessary to lay out how the intellect knows. After that we will examine the proper object of the intellect's knowing, namely intelligible being. Finally we will examine how God knows creation. In our investigation of how the intellect knows, first let us examine how the intellect in act and the thing understood are identical, then we will look at how this identity relates to the three descriptions of truth found in De Veritate 1.1. Finally we will look at how this relates to God's self understanding and divine truth. 1. The intellect and the intelligible 1.1. The distinction between intellect and intelligible. How then are the intellect and the intelligible distinct? Every operation involves a power which is in act and an object which is the term of the operation. The more imperfect and material are the power and its object, the more are they distinguished from each other. For matter is the principle of individuation in imperfect beings, and upon individuation, or being undivided in oneself, follows being divided from all other things. Thus, in material operations, the object is wholly extrinsic to the agent and so the term of its motion will be extrinsic as well. " Et secundum hoc tantum sensus vel intellectus aliud est a sensibili vel intelligibili, quia utrumque est in potentia. " 1 But in operations that are immaterial and which involve an immaterial power and object the term of the operation will be intrinsic to the agent, since there will not be matter to distinguish them. " In operationibus quae sunt in operante, obiectum quod significatur ut terminus operationis, est in ipso operante; et secundum quod est in eo, sic est operatio in actu. " 2 How does knowledge or the union of intellect and intelligible take place? The way that the object of the intellect is able to be within the intellect itself is because the agent intellect " denudes " the intelligible species of its matter making what was only a potentially intelligible object actually intelligible so that the object which is intelligible in act is able to perfect the intellect which was understanding potentially. 3 And how does this " perfection " of the intellect take place? As Aquinas says in the De Veritate, " Omnis autem cognitio perficitur per assimilationem cognoscentis ad rem cognitam, ita quod assimilatio dicta est causa cognitionis: sicut visus per hoc quod disponitur secundum speciem coloris, cognoscit colorem. " 4 It is thus through the assimilatio or likeness of the knower to the thing known that knowledge occurs. In being made similar to the intelligible species, the intellect is " informed in act " by the species. " Ex hoc enim aliquid in actu sentimus vel intelligimus, quod intellectus noster vel sensus informatur in actu per speciem sensibilis vel intelligibilis. " 5 And through being informed in act, the

Para santo Tomás es evidente que en Dios hay ciencia. La justificación, sin embargo, no es simple, pues ella nos exige precisar la noción de ciencia y el sentido en que puede atribuirse a Dios. En este trabajo, quisiéramos mostrar cómo para santo Tomás la existencia del conocimiento divino basta para concluir su carácter científico, incluso cuando en el artículo de la Summa theologiae donde trata este problema (I, q. 14, a. 1 c) esta conclusión permanece implícita.
ABSTRACT It is clear for Aquinas that there is science in God. Justify it, however, is not simple, because it requires to specify the notion of science and the sense in which it can be attributed to God. In this paper, we would like to show why the existence of perfect knowledge in God is sufficient for Aquinas to conclude its scientific character, even if in the article of the Summa Theologiae where he treats this problem (I, q. 14, a. 1 c) this conclusion remains implicit.

Ciencia Tomista 145 (2018) 73-80

The De scientia Dei (On God's Knowledge) is one of the few major texts by John Wyclif that has not already been published. According to John A. Robson, the De scientia Dei is 'in some way, the most important of all the treatises' of Wyclif's so-called Summa de ente. It was probably written in 1372, when the editorial project of the Summa de ente was in its final stages, and when Wyclif was at the peak of his academic career. In it he deals with God's knowledge as a divine attribute, presents his peculiar view of God's knowledge as a relation of reason, distinguishes between God's knowledge of creatures in their intelligible being and in their actual existence, and argues in favour of a compatibilism between God's foreknowledge of future events and the liberty of human will. In this connection, a long section is also devoted to questions about the doctrine of salvation, and to the first elaborated exposition of Wyclif's doctrine of grace.

The edition is preceded by a historical and doctrinal introduction, enabling the reader to situate the tract within the framework of Wyclif's own production and to appreciate the relevance of some of the topics faced in the text in the light of the development of Wyclif's theological and philosophical thought.

Zusammenfassung
Der Aufsatz untersucht die Theorie der exemplarischen Kausalität von Petrus Aureoli (1280–1322). Mindestens bis zur zweiten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts behaupteten mittelalterliche Autoren, dass die Welt geordnet und intelligibel war, weil Gott sie nach aus der Ewigkeit in seinem Intellekt existierenden Modellen (d.h. göttlichen Ideen) geschaffen hatte. Aureoli focht diese traditionelle Ansicht an. In Aureolis Theorie ist die göttliche Essenz das einzige Urbild für die Erschaffung. Um zu erklären, wie ein einziges Objekt allein als Urbilder für die Erschaffung mehrerer verschiedener Kreaturen fungieren kann, muss er den Begriff der Nachahmbarkeit neu überdenken und ein neues Modell der exemplarischen Kausalität entwickeln. Das traditionelle Modell war das der Analogie: Eine Ursache erzeugt einen Effekt, der zum Teil ähnlich wie sie und zum Teil anders als sie ist. Aureoli greift auf den Be-griff von Äquivokation zurück. Er argumentiert, dass keine direkte Ähnlichkeit zwischen Ursache und Effekt notwendig ist. Im Gegenteil: Damit ein Objekt das Urbild für mehrere verschiedene Dinge sein kann, ist es notwendig, dass es für keinen von ihnen repräsentativ ist. Der Begriff der Äquivokation erlaubt es Aureoli, das traditionelle Modell der Erschaffung abzulehnen. Aequivocatio sieht keine Ähnlichkeit zwischen Idee und Ideatum vor. Es be-steht also kein Widerspruch darin, wenn man sagt, dass ein einziges Objekt (göttliche Essenz) aequivoce die exemplarische Ursache für mehrere verschiedene Objekte ist.

WALTER BURLEY ON THE DIVINE IDEAS



Abstract: This paper focuses on the theory of divine ideas of Walter Burley (1275-1347). The medieval common theory of divine ideas, developed by Augustine, was intended to provide an answer to the question of the order and intelligibility of the world. The world is rationally organized since God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind. Augustine’s theory, however, left open problems such as reconciling the principle of God’s unity with the plurality of ideas, the way in which ideas can or cannot be said to be eternal, their ontological status. Medieval authors discussed such questions until at least the late 14th century. By resorting to the semantic tool of connotation, Burley explains both in what way ‘idea’ can signify the divine essence as much as the creatures (thereby reconciling the principle of God’s unity with the multiplicity of ideas), and in what sense we can say that God has thought them from eternity, without slipping into a necessitarian view that undermines the principle of divine freedom. Moreover, by envisaging the objective mode of being as the only mode of being of ideas, he explains in what way they truly differ from one another on the basis of their different conceptual contents.

Keywords: Walter Burley, Exemplar causality, Divine ideas, Connotation, divine Knowledge, Objective being