Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Q12 A13: Whether by grace a higher knowledge of God can be obtained than by natural reason?

Yes. We have a more perfect knowledge of God by grace than by natural reason because the knowledge which we have by natural reason contains images (percepts derived from sensible objects) and the natural intelligible light (enabling us to abstract from percepts intelligible conceptions); in both of these, human knowledge is assisted by the revelation of grace.

The intellect's natural light is strengthened by the infusion of gratuitous light. And sometimes also the images in the human imagination are divinely formed (e.g., visions and voices), so as to express divine things better than those do which we receive from sensible objects.