The Operations of God's Intellect

a) THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE We have seen that God is the All Perfect. Every pure perfection is found in God in infinite degree.

Now, knowledge is a pure perfection. Therefore, we see how right and reasonable is the statement of our little catechism, “Cod knows all things.” God’s knowledge not only extends to all things, but it exhausts the knowability of things. Such knowledge is called comprehensive knowledge. Truly comprehensive knowledge is beyond the capacity of any creature; all creatural knowledge is apprehensive merely. For to comprehend a thing is to know it thoroughly in itself and in all its actual and possible relations with other things. To comprehend a thing is not merely to know what the thing is, and how it stands with reference to other things; it is also to know all that the thing could be and how it could stand with reference to all other things actual and possible. Manifestly, such complete knowledge is not within the grasp of a finite understanding. Yet such knowledge must be predicated of the Infinite Understanding. Truly comprehensive, and hence infinite, knowledge is called perfect science. It is our purpose to prove that this perfect science exists in God and is one with the Divine Essence Itself. The proof is direct and compelling. The infinitely perfect Being must possess, in a transcendent or eminent way, all pure perfections. Now, knowledge is a pure perfection, for it involves in itself (omitting consideration of the manner in which some creatures must laboriously acquire it)

i8z no imperfection. Hence knowledge must exist in the infinitely perfect Being in a transcendent or eminent way. But knowledge cannot exist in the infinitely perfect Being in a transcendent way except it be comprehensive knowledge, that is, perfect science. Therefore, perfect science exists in the infinitely perfect Being, that is, in God. But, since God is absolutely simple, His knowledge is not something added to His essence, or compounded with His essence; it is something identified with His essence. Hence, God not only has perfect science; He is perfect science ; He is infinite understanding. In Criteriology we learn that non-materiality is the root of knowledge and of knowing. A thing that is wholly material, such as a stone, has no amplitude of function, no power of taking in the “forms” of other things as such (that is, as of other things), but is limited to its own form; and any accidental form which it receives it makes its own. But a knowing-creature (animal or man) can receive or take in other things cognitionally; it can know them; it can take in their forms without making them its own; it can possess the forms of other things (that is, can know other things) as other things. In a word, a knowing-creature is less limited than a nonknowing creature because it has less of the limitation imposed by sheer materiality or bodiliness. And the less of materiality about a knowing-creature, the wider and deeper its range of knowledge, and the more pure, universal, and abstract are the items or elements of its knowledge. Thus the intellectual knowledge of man is of wide and deep range, is universal and abstract, while the sentient knowledge of man or beast is limited to concrete and singular things. In a word, the more a thing is removed from materiality and the limitations that come with materiality, the more perfect is its operation of knowing and the more embracing and complete is its knowledge. Now, God is the Infinite Spirit. In God there is no materiality whatever. Therefore, in God there is nothing to limit and qualify knowledge. It follows that God’s knowledge must be the most perfect possible. In God there is perfect science. God is perfect science; God is infinite understanding. Now, it may be asked, “What is the object of God’s knowledge?” The simple answer is, “All things knowable.” But there is need to make a distinction here, and to discern what is the primary, and what the secondary, object of the Divine Intellect. The primary object of a knowing-power (or simply the primary object of knowledge in any knower) is that which is attained by the knower directly, immediately, and in itself. The secondary object of a knowing-power is that which it can know through or by reason of the primary object. The primary object of the Divine Intellect is the Divine Essence Itself. For, in any knowing-being,

18Z there is a proportion, an equality, between the thing it is framed to know and its power to know it. But between the Infinite Understanding and what it can know there can be a proportion or equality only if the object known be itself infinite. And the only infinite object is the Infinite Being, that is, the Divine Essence Itself. Therefore, God knows Himself, first and foremost (that is, as primary object). Nor is there any force in the objection that if God knows Himself perfectly He is, so to speak, defined and limited by that knowledge, and, since God is in no wise limited, this involves a contradiction and cannot be; therefore, says the objection, God does not perfectly know Himself. The objection is shortsighted. For if there is anything that God’s knowledge does not include, it is imperfect knowledge, and is therefore a lack and a limit in the perfect and limitless God. In a word, the objection seeks to avoid a difficulty which is merely apparent by diving full force into a difficulty which is real and unanswerable. Of course, if God’s knowledge were a thing which God merely has; if it were an acquisition of God; if it were something superadded to the Divine Essence, it would be a limiting thing, and for God to know Himself would be for God to know the boundaries of the Boundless and to recognize limits in the Limitless. But, as we have seen, God’s knowledge is one with Himself. It is not something acquired by God as creatural knowledge is acquired by a knowing-creature. What we call God’s knowledge is only one phase of God’s infinite essence. And to say that God knows Himself perfectly, and that the Divine Essence is the primary object of the Divine Understanding, is merely to say that God is Himself. Hence the objection is manifestly founded upon a seeming difficulty merely, and not upon a real one. In knowing Himself perfectly (that is, comprehensively) God knows the full extent of all His powers. He therefore knows all things creatable, all things sustainable, all things with which He can concur in being and in action. In a word, in and through His knowledge of Himself, God knows all other things. Now, what is known in and through the primary object of knowledge is the secondary object of knowledge. Therefore, all things other than God, all creatures and all their actual and possible relations, constitute the secondary object of God’s knowledge or of the Divine Intellect. St. Thomas Aquinas puts the matter thus, “It is clear that God knows Himself perfectly, else He would not be perfect in being, for His very being is to know. Now, if anything is known perfectly, its power is known. And if a power is perfectly known, there are known also the realities to which the power extends and in which it produces its effects. Therefore, since the Divine Power extends to all things as their First Efficient Cause, it follows that God

in knowing Himself knows all things other than Himself.” God’s knowledge of all things other than Himself, that is, His knowledge of all creatural reality, is not a mere general knowledge, but is perfect in all details. It is truly comprehensive knowledge, since it is knowledge in and of the Infinite Being. Therefore, God knows every single thing that now exists, has existed, will exist, or could exist. All things, actual and possible, necessary and free, substantial and accidental, are perfectly comprehended by the Divine Intellect. God knows Himself perfectly, and He knows all other things in Himself, In this the Divine Knowledge is different from creatural knowledge, say human knowledge. For a man knows things in themselves by reason of a species or cognitional image which the realities known impress upon his knowingpowers or faculties. A man receives his knowledge; it is something over and above his essence and not part and parcel with his essence itself. A man gathers his knowledge, beginning with the sense-grasp of bodily things which he finds about him in this world. From this he rises to intellectual concepts, and to the knowledge of things bodily and non-bodily in their essences. Thus we say that a man knows realities in themselves and not in himself. But God’s knowledge is not acquired, not gathered, not built up, not reasoned out or abstracted. God’s knowledge does not result in God from the impression upon the Divine Mind of the images or species of creatures. God’s knowledge is necessarily one with the Divine Essence, and is therefore changeless and eternal. God’s knowledge of creatures does not depend upon the creatures being here to impress themselves upon His notice; God needs no experience of creatures to form in Himself the ideas by which they are known; His knowledge of creatures is full and perfect from eternity and was thus full and perfect before any creature existed. Nor is God’s knowledge improved or in any wise altered by the fact that certain creatures come into existence at a moment and in a manner eternally decreed by the Divine Will. From eternity God knows all possible creatures, in all their possible relations, in Himself, and not in themselves. In the single and simple and eternal grasp of His unchanging essence, God perfectly and eternally knows all creatural realities. A special question which has been the subject of a prolonged and still unsettled controversy must here be presented. It may be expressed in these terms, “In what manner does God know future free events (called ‘future contingencies’), that is, things that are actually going to happen, but are not in themselves things that need to happen since they depend upon the free choice of rational creatures?” A future contingency or future free event depends upon,

or is contingent upon, the operation of causes that are not truly predictable, since these causes are not necessitated but free. That John, who is three, will marry Jane, newly born, twenty years hence on a certain day and at a certain hour, may be a fact, but, at this moment, it is a future contingency. That James will quarrel with his employer next year and throw up his job, may come to pass in actual fact, but right now it is a future contingency or future free event. God knows that these future contingencies will come to pass; there is no doubt or question on that point. But the controversy focusses upon the manner or the mode of God’s knowledge of future contingencies. How does God know these future free events? The following opinions are offered in answer to this question: 1. The Doctrine of Molina. Molina, a famous Spanish Jesuit of the sixteenth century, notable both as a theologian and a philosopher, held that God knows future free events in his “supercomprehension of causes,” independently of any decree of the Divine Will. This opinion seems inadequate. For to know a contingent or free event in its causes, is to have only a more or less perfect conjectural knowledge of the event; it is to be in position to make a more or less perfectly accurate guess about the event. But God’s knowledge is in all ways most perfect and most certain, with no guesswork about it.

2. The Doctrine of Banez. Banez, famous Dominican contemporary and countryman of Molina, held that God knows future free events in the eternal decrees of His will. This doctrine, baldly stated, seems misleading. For the divine decrees are not blindly issued laws, nor are they decrees which destroy the real freedom of free causes. Yet, in itself, the blunt doctrine of Banez seems to suggest both of these impossibilities. 5. The Doctrine of Cajetan. Cajetan, sixteenth century Italian theologian and philosopher, holds the opinion commonly accepted as the Thomistic doctrine (that is, as the true interpretation of the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas). He teaches that God knows all future events, including future free events, in His own essence, as present, and in the light of His eternal determining decrees. This doctrine appears to be the most acceptable of all. We pause upon its several points for a brief word of explanation and proof. a) God knows future contingencies as present. For the process of time has no limiting effect upon the Infinite Mind; to God there is no future and no past; all things are present to His knowledge. And, granted that future free events are future to finite minds, and hence are but a matter of conjecture or uncertain knowledge, they are present to the Infinite Mind and are thus the object of certain knowledge.

Again, the future free events that are actually going to happen, have, when they happen, the necessity of fact. In themselves, considered abstractly, they do not need to happen; they depend upon free choice; but when the choice is once made and the events actually come to pass, then they have to be what they are. Now, the Infinite Mind actually beholds these events, as present, and hence as having the necessity of fact, which does not in the least affect their essentially free character, but which renders them objects of certain knowledge in the Infinite Mind. b) God knows future contingencies in His own essence. For the Divine Essence, viewed as the Divine Knowledge, embraces completely all possibilities, and so embraces all future realities. Thus the Divine Essence Itself is sufficient reason to account for God’s knowledge of future free events. c) God knows future contingencies in the light of His eternal determining decrees. For all things have their being in the will and power of God to bestow it, and in the will and power of God to concur in creatural activities and operations. Hence, while the free wills of rational creatures are truly free, and they truly choose their proximate objects, such freedom and such choice is dependent upon God’s eternal decrees to create the free wills, to sustain them in freedom, and to move them and to concur in their free choice. Ontology teaches us that the rootprinciple of sheer possibility is the Divine Intellect; things possible have their possibility, in last analysis, because they are known as possible in the Divine Mind. And their extrinsic possibility (that is, their possibility as things existible, not merely as things thinkable) depends upon the Divine Will, and hence on the eternal decrees of God. Now, future free events are more than merely possible, since they are, as a fact, going to take place. But if the Divine Will and its decrees are requisite for extrinsic possibility, it is still more evident that the Divine Will and its decrees are required for future actuality; for if even the lesser mode of being requires the Divine Will, certainly the greater or more perfect mode of being requires It. b) CLASSIFICATION OF THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

We may distinguish in God (by a distinction of reason based on reality) knowledge that is: J. Speculative or Practical; 2, Necessary or Free; 5. Approving or Non-approving; 4, Knowledge of Simple Intelligence or Knowledge of Vision. The last classification is, far and away, the most important we have here to consider. But we shall say a word of the other types too.

1, Speculative knowledge means knowledge that contemplates truth but has no direct concern with action. When a man studies ancient history for the sake of information, he does not propose to do any-

thing with the knowledge acquired. His aim is speculative. He wants knowledge for the enlightenment and enrichment of mind it gives him; he wants truth to know it, to contemplate it. Such, in general, is speculative knowledge. The term speculative comes from the Latin verb speculari “to look at.” But when a man studies carpentry, or engineering, he intends to use his knowledge in doing things. His aim is practical. He wants to know that he may do something in consequence. Such is practical knowledge. The word practical has its roots in the Greek prattein “to make, to do.” Now, God’s knowledge of Himself is manifestly speculative knowledge. His knowledge of things other than Himself is at once speculative and practical. Of things sheerly possible, not considered as to be made or not made but seen merely in themselves as what could be made, God has speculative knowledge, and, inasmuch as possibility involves something practical (namely, what could actually be made or done) His knowledge is also practical. Of things that are not but are going to be, it is manifest that the Divine Knowledge is both speculative and practical; speculative inasmuch as it knows them as things, practical inasmuch as it knows them as things to be made. Of existing things, God’s knowledge is speculative inasmuch as these things are knowable objects and, indeed, are perfectly known in the Divine Essence; and practical inasmuch as God knows how to sustain these things in being and operation. God’s knowledge of evil is mainly speculative, yet it is also practical inasmuch as it is knowledge of what God permits, impedes, or draws into place in His providence. 2. God’s knowledge of Himself is necessary knowledge, that is, He knows Himself perfectly and cannot be ignorant of Himself; as He is Necessary Being, and as His knowledge is one with His Essence, so He is Necessary Knowledge. God’s knowledge of things that depend for being upon His perfectly free and infinite Will is called free knowledge. God cannot be ignorant of these things, but they are not one with Himself as Necessary Knowledge, even though they be known in His eternal Essence. 5. God’s knowledge of creatures in their positive being, that is, in their essential and transcendental goodness, is knowledge which involves approval. So the Creator, looking upon and knowing the works of His hands, “saw that they were very good.” God’s knowledge of things in their positive being or goodness is not something aloof and detached; it is not knowledge merely, but it is causal knowledge, since God, whose essence and knowledge are really identified, is the cause of these things; hence, necessarily, He approves them. God’s knowledge of evils, of deficiencies, is non-approving, since God is only the accidental cause of physical evil, and is in no sense the cause of sin or moral evil.

4. The most important distinction of the Divine Knowledge is that which classifies it as (a) The Knowledge of Simple Intelligence or Simple Understanding, and (b) The Knowledge of Vision. (a) The Knowledge of Simple Intelligence is that Divine Knowledge which has as its object (that is, as the thing known) all things possible but not things that are ever to be. All that could be, but have not been, are not, nor will be,—these things are the object of the Divine Knowledge of Simple Intelligence. (d) The Knowledge of Vision is that Divine Knowledge which has as its object all that has been, is, or will be actual. Things that have existed in the past, or exist now, or will exist in time to come,— these are the object of the Knowledge of Vision; these things lie within the direct view, so to speak, of God, which beholds them as present> no matter what be their position in the time-limited view of finite minds. Now, Molina and many other philosophers have taught that a third classification is to be made in the Divine Knowledge, and that this holds a middle place between the two types just mentioned, and is to be called, in consequence, scientia media or “Middle Knowledge.” The Latin term, scientia media, is universally used when this classification of Divine Knowledge is in question; one never hears or reads the English translation of it. The Molinist doctrine amounts to this: God knows things merely possible by His Knowledge of Simple Intelligence; He knows all actual things, including those truly future, by His Knowledge of Vision. But there is a special class of things not included among the objects of these two types of knowledge. There are the things which a man would do if certain conditions were to be fulfilled, but which, as a fact, he will not do because those conditions will not be fulfilled. These things are called “conditionally future events” or, in the commonly used Latin term, futuribilia. The futuribilia (things that are not truly future, since they will never come to pass, but things conditionally future because under certain conditions, that will not be realized, they would come to pass by the free choice of man) are the objects of the scientia media. We do not find acceptable the doctrine of Molina, nor are we prepared to recognize the scientia media as a necessary classification of the Divine Knowledge. We do not agree that the futuribilia constitute a special class of knowables, distinct from the respective objects of the Knowledge of Simple Intelligence and the Knowledge of Vision. And where we find no truly and definitely distinct object of

knowledge, we must not assert the existence of a definitely distinct type of knowing. Certainly, we admit, and emphatically assert, that God knows all things knowable, including the futuribilia. Our Lord gave expression to His knowledge of such conditionally future events when He said (Luke x, 15) : “Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida. For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” God knows the futuribilia. But we assert that this knowledge is Knowledge of Simple Intelligence. We find no need for declaring the existence of a scientia media. We do not find acceptable the Molinist argument that the futuribilia are an object distinct from the respective objects of the other two types of Divine Knowledge, and that futuribilia are something more than things sheerly possible (which fall under Simple Intelligence) and something less than things to be actual in future (which fall under Vision). God’s knowledge of things to come is Knowledge of Vision, for the time element does not affect the Infinite Mind, and things to come are seen as present. God’s knowledge of things that would come under certain conditions is either knowledge of what will be when conditions are fulfilled (and this is Knowledge of Vision) ; or it is knowledge of what would be, but actually will not be, since the conditions are not to be fulfilled, and this amounts to knowledge of things possible, and comes under the Knowledge of Simple Intelligence. Father Boedder, S.J., in his Natural Theology (p.289), says, “We ourselves hold strongly to what is meant by the term scientia media, without insisting upon the necessity of retaining this term as such.” Well, certainly we all hold strongly to the manifest truth that God knows all knowables, including the futuribilia, and that appears to be the essence of “what is meant by the term scientia media” If we reject the term itself, and the special and distinct type of Divine Knowledge which the term suggests, we have solidly scientific grounds for our action. For the axiom, “Things are not to be multiplied without necessity” forbids the forming of distinctions in the Divine Knowledge without definitely distinct objects of knowledge which demand them. We may conclude our brief discussion of this question by defining the scientia media in terms acceptable to the Molinists: “The scientia media is that Divine Knowledge whereby God, antecedently to His decrees of fulfilling or not fulfilling conditions for action, knows for certain what a man (i. e., a free creature) would do if such conditions were actually fulfilled.”

The discussion of scientia media is rather academic than practical. But there is another, and a most practical, question which we must mention here. It is the question of God’s foreknowledge and man’s free-will. God knows all things, future as well as past and present, and even things conditionally future. But things are necessarily as God knows them to be. Therefore, it appears that human freedom is illusory. For if God knows what I am going to do at every moment of my future, that is what I am surely going to do. How, then, am I free? We answer that knowledge does not necessarily create or cause its object. God knows what I will choose and that I will freely choose it. His knowledge does not impose necessity upon my choice. A man knows that excessive drinking will produce intoxication, but his knowledge does not make him drunk. A sportsman knows that the race will start at a given signal, but his knowledge does not cause the horses to run. The college chef knows that when he rings the dinnergong, there will be a prompt assembling of students in the dining-hall, but his knowledge does not take away the freedom of the students. There is no real difficulty in this matter of Divine Foreknowledge and human free-will. The difficulty is mere seeming. There is a more intriguing, yet not a more real, difficulty in the question of God’s requisite support and movement in man’s actual free choice. This difficulty we shall consider in the next Chapter. c) THE DIVINE IDEAS

When we speak of ideas or concepts we mean, first and foremost, those mental representations of essences which are formed by the human mind acting upon the findings of the senses. Here, when we speak of the ideas in the Divine Mind, our language is analogical. For God knows the essences of all things without having to form the representations of them within Himself; He does not require that things exist to be known, nor does He need to be impressed by the species or images of things to have them cognitionally present in His essence. Since God is the First Being, He exists before all creatures, and His perfect knowledge of creatures is not gained or acquired from them, but is present in and of His essence from eternity before any creatures exist. Further, the cognitional presence (that is, the idea or concept) of any reality is not in God, as it is in man, an accidental thing; it is really identified with the Divine Essence Itself, as we know from the perfect and pure simplicity of the Infinite Being. We must keep all this in mind as we discuss, in human and therefore in metaphorical terms, the ideas in the Divine Intellect. It is manifest from the order and beauty of the universe that its Efficient Cause is a most intelligent cause. The Designer and Governor of the world knows what He is about. Now, where there is design and governance, there is antecedent knowledge, and in accordance with this knowledge the plan is formed and executed. God, therefore, antecedently to the existence of any creature, knows the universe in general and in every smallest detail. We say that the “elements” of this knowledge are the Divine Ideas. God is an intelligent agent, that is, one who acts with understanding of what is being done and with the will to do it. We find around us here in the world, and indeed we find within ourselves,—in the body-processes of digestion and nervous reaction, for instance,—forces or agencies at work which are not themselves intelligent. The stone manifests the action of cohesion and gravitation; the plant grows and matures and reproduces its kind; the animal sees, hears, experiences appetite or tendency; and in all these agents (that is, actors or doers or performers) we find no understanding and no conscious free direction of the activities mentioned. Such agents are called natural agents (agentia per naturam) to distinguish them from intelligent agents (agentia per intellectum). Man, dowered as he is with understanding and free-will, is, in his human or free acts, an agens per intellectum; he is an intelligent agent. And, since intelligent activity is of its nature a finer and purer perfection than natural activity; since, indeed, intelligent activity is, in itself, a pure perfection, it must be attributed in a transcendent or eminent manner to the First Being. God must be the agens per intellectum par excellence. And this means that the ideas of all creatable things, of all things possible, must be perfectly present in and of the Divine Essence from eternity. Now, the ideas according to which, and in the light of which, free intelligent activity is exercised, are the exemplar-causes of the effects which such activity produces. The stately building which wins the admiration of the beholder, was envisioned in the mind and imagination of the architect before a stone of it was actually laid. It was known by the architect before it was given actuality or existence, and the knowledge was the light and guide of the work that produced the building. The knowledge of the architect, which was first expressed in plans and blue-prints and afterwards in steel and stone, was the exemplar-cause of the activity of building and of the finished edifice itself. In a similar manner, God’s perfect knowledge (or the Divine Ideas) of all things created is the exemplar-cause of all creatures. We say that in God there are archetypal ideas of all that He has made, and indeed there are in God archetypal ideas of all things that are possible, of all that can be made. The word archetype literally means the “first model,” or the “first or earliest pattern,” or the “first exemplar-cause. ” The Divine

Ideas, therefore, are exemplary ideas; they are exemplar-eauses; they are archetypal ideas of all creatable reality. A seeming difficulty here arises. God is one, but the world is manifold, that is, creatures are many and various. How can the ideas of all these various creatures exist in the Divine Mind without inducing plurality there, and thus creating a conflict and contradiction in the Divine Simplicity? We answer that it is not the knowledge of a plurality of things that induces plurality in the understanding mind, but the fact that the mind requires, for each item of the several things known, a distinct species or cognitional image. But it is only the finite mind that requires a plurality of species for the understanding of a plurality of objects. The knowledge of God is one with God’s very essence, and if we use the terminology of human knowing when we speak of God, we must say that the only species in God’s knowledge is the Divine Essence Itself. In man, the species is the medium of knowledge; it is that whereby the object is known. But God, the Infinite Being, does not require a medium for knowing; He does not require any means by which knowledge may be acquired, for He does not acquire any knowledge; He has perfect knowledge in and of His essence from eternity. Hence, the Divine Essence, as the species of all knowables, is not that whereby God knows; it is that which God knows. God, knowing

Himself, knows necessarily all His powers and all that His powers can produce. Therefore, in the simple understanding of Himself, God understands the whole manifold universe of possibilities. It is, therefore, not true to say that the plurality of Divine Ideas (called so analogically) means a plurality in what is essentially non-plural or simple. No plurality is induced in God by His perfect comprehension of all things in the one indivisible and infinitely simple species which is His own essence.

Summary Of The Article

In this Article we have learned, by strict reasoning, that in God there is the most perfect knowledge, perfect science, infinite understanding, and that this knowledge is really one with the Divine Essence Itself. We have seen that God’s own essence is the primary object of the Divine Mind, and that the realities other than God (that is, all creatural possibilities) constitute the secondary object of God’s knowledge. We have learned that God, in knowing Himself, knows all other things perfectly and eternally, and thus He knows creatures in Himself, and not in themselves. We have studied the question of God’s knowledge of future contingencies or future free events, and have found the doctrines of Molina and Banez less acceptable than that of Cajetan, who, following St. Thomas Aquinas, holds that God knows all future events, including future

contingencies, in His own essence, as present, and consequent upon His eternal determining decrees. We have classified the Divine Knowledge as speculative and practical, as necessary and free, as approving and non-approving, as Knowledge of Simple Intelligence and Knowledge of Vision. We have rejected the scientia media theory as unnecessary to explain God’s knowledge of futuribilia, that is, of events that depend upon human choice, and which will not take place actually, but would take place were certain conditions to be fulfilled. We have seen that there is no real conflict between God’s foreknowledge and man’s free-will. We have studied the Divine Ideas or exemplars or archetypes of all creatable things, which exist in the mind of God; we have found that these ideas are not formed severally by any knowing-process or knowing-effort of the Divine Intellect, but exist perfectly in and of the Divine Essence from eternity. We have learned that God’s essence is the single and simple and infinite species in which He eternally knows all things.