- Can any created intellect see the essence of God?
- Is the essence of God seen by the intellect through any created image?
- Can the essence of God be seen by the corporeal eye?
- Is any created intellectual substance sufficient by its own natural powers to see the essence of God?
- Does the created intellect need any created light in order to see the essence of God?
- Of those who see God, does one see Him more perfectly than another?
- Can any created intellect comprehend the essence of God?
- Does the created intellect seeing the essence of God, know all things in it?
- Is what is known there known by any similitudes?
- Does the created intellect know at once what it sees in God?
- In the state of this life can any man see the essence of God?
- Can we know God by natural reason in this life?
- Is there in this life any knowledge of God through grace above the knowledge of natural reason?
"It is because the contemporary alternatives seem so one-sided and are not more evidently solutions to the problems which Thomas faced, and partly solved, that we return to him and to the tradition of theology and philosophy in which his Summa Theologiae appears: theology as the science of the first principle and this as the total knowledge of reality in its unity." -- Wayne J. Hankey, God in Himself (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.159.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Q12: How God is known by us
Approaching the conclusion of our study of what we can know of the essence of God, we summarize in 13 articles how God is known by us: