important.) In God, essence and existence are identical. There are no accidents in God. He
cannot be specified by any substantial difference; He is not in any genus; He cannot be defined.
But He lacks not the excellence of any genus. Things are in some ways like God, in others not.
It is more fitting to say that things are like God than that God is like things.
God is good, and is His own goodness; He is the good of every good. He is intelligent, and His
act of intelligence is His essence. He understands by His essence, and understands Himself
perfectly. (John the Scot, it will be remembered, thought otherwise.)
Although there is no composition in the divine intellect, God understands many things. This
might seem a difficulty, but the things that He understands have no distinct being in Him. Nor
do they exist per se, as Plato thought, because forms of natural things cannot exist or be
understood apart from matter. Nevertheless, God must understand forms before creating. The
solution of this difficulty is as follows: "The concept of the divine intellect, according as He
understands Himself, which concept is His Word, is the likeness not only of God Himself
understood, but also of all the things of which the divine essence is the likeness. Accordingly
many things can be understood by God, by one intelligible species which is the divine essence,
and by one understood intention which is the divine Word." * Every form, so far as it is
something positive, is a perfection. God's intellect includes in His essence what is proper to
each thing, by understanding where it is like Him and where unlike; for instance life, not
knowledge, is the essence of a plant, and knowledge, not intellect, is the essence of an animal.
Thus a plant is like God in being alive, but unlike in not having knowledge; an animal is like
God in having knowledge, but unlike in not having intellect. It is always by a negation that a
creature differs from God.
God understands all things at the same instant. His knowledge is not a habit, and is not
discursive or argumentative. God is truth. (This is to be understood literally.)
We come now to a question which had already troubled both Plato and Aristotle. Can God
know particular things, or does He only know universals and general truths? A Christian, since
he believes in Provi-
* Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. I, Ch. LIII.-456-dence, must hold that God knows particular things; nevertheless there are weighty arguments
against this view. Saint Thomas enumerates seven such arguments, and then proceeds to refute
them. The seven arguments are as follows:
Singularity being signate matter, nothing immaterial can know it.Singulars do not always exist, and cannot be known when they do not exist; therefore
they cannot be known by an unchanging being.Singulars are contingent, not necessary; therefore there can be no certain knowledge of
them except when they exist.Some singulars are due to volitions, which can only be known to the person willing.Singulars are infinite in number, and the infinite as such is unknown.Singulars are too petty for God's attention.