Q12 A8: Whether those who see the essence of God see all in God?

No. Whosoever sees the essence of God does not know all things because all things are seen in God as an effect is seen in its cause.

An intellect can know all the effects of a cause and the reasons for those effects in the cause itself, if it comprehends the cause wholly. But no created intellect can comprehend God wholly.

Therefore no created intellect in seeing God can know all that God does or can do, for this would be to comprehend His power wholly. Yet any intellect can know more of what God does or can do if it sees God more perfectly.

Q12 A7: Whether those who see the essence of God comprehend Him?

No. It is impossible for any created intellect to fully comprehend God because everything is knowable according to its actuality.

God, whose being is infinite (Q7 A1), is infinitely knowable. And no created intellect can know God infinitely.

Q12 A6: Whether of those who see the essence of God, one sees more perfectly than another?

Yes. He who possesses the more charity, will see God the more perfectly, and will be the more beatified.

The faculty of seeing God does not belong to the created intellect naturally, but is given to it by the light of glory, which establishes the intellect in a kind of "deiformity" (quod intellectum in quadam deiformitate constituit).

Hence the intellect which has more of the light of glory will see God the more perfectly; and he will have a fuller participation of the light of glory who has more charity; because where there is the greater charity, there is the more desire; and desire in a certain degree makes the one desiring apt and prepared to receive the object desired.

Q12 A5: Whether the created intellect needs any created light in order to see the essence of God?

Yes. The created intellect needs the grace of supernatural illumination of the intellect in order to see the essence of God because when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect.

This supernaturally created light is necessary to see the essence of God, not in order to make the essence of God intelligible, which is of itself intelligible, but in order to enable the intellect to understand in the same way as a habit makes a power abler to act.

Q12 A4: Whether any created intellect by its natural powers can see the Divine essence?

No. To see the essence of God is possible to the created intellect by grace, and not by nature, because the knowledge of every knower is ruled according to its own nature.

To know self-subsistent being is natural to the divine intellect alone; and this is beyond the natural power of any created intellect (for no creature is its own existence, since its existence is participated).

Therefore the created intellect cannot see the essence of God, unless God by His grace unites Himself to the created intellect, as an object made intelligible to it.

Q12 A3: Whether the essence of God can be seen with the bodily eye?

No. God cannot be seen by any sensitive power because such power is the act of a corporeal organ and God is incorporeal (Q3 A1).

God cannot be seen by the sense or the imagination, but only by the intellect.

Q12 A2: Whether the essence of God is seen by the created intellect through an image?

No. The essence of God cannot be seen by any created similitude because by the likeness of a body the essence of an incorporeal thing cannot be known.

The divine essence is uncircumscribed, and contains in itself super-eminently whatever can be signified or understood by the created intellect. Now this cannot in any way be represented by any created likeness. Hence to say that God is seen by some similitude, is to say that the divine essence is not seen at all; which is false.

Therefore it must be said that to see the essence of God, there is required some similitude in the visual faculty, namely, the light of glory strengthening the intellect to see God, which is spoken of in the Ps. 35:10, "In Thy light we shall see light." The essence of God, however, cannot be seen by any created similitude representing the divine essence itself as it really is.

Q12 A1: Whether any created intellect can see the essence of God?

Yes. The blessed see the essence of God because the ultimate perfection of the rational creature is thereby attained.

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:

1. Can any created intellect see the essence of God?
2. Is the essence of God seen by the intellect through any created image?
3. Can the essence of God be seen by the corporeal eye?
4. Is any created intellectual substance sufficient by its own natural powers to see the essence of God?
5. Does the created intellect need any created light in order to see the essence of God?
6. Of those who see God, does one see Him more perfectly than another?
7. Can any created intellect comprehend the essence of God?
8. Does the created intellect seeing the essence of God, know all things in it?
9. Is what is known there known by any similitudes?
10. Does the created intellect know at once what it sees in God?
11. In the state of this life can any man see the essence of God?
12. Can we know God by natural reason in this life?
13. Is there in this life any knowledge of God through grace above the knowledge of natural reason?

Q11 A4: Whether God is supremely one?

Yes. God is supremely one because He is supremely being (i.e., He is being itself, subsistent, absolutely undetermined) and supremely undivided (i.e., He is divided neither actually nor potentially, by any mode of division; He is altogether simple).

Q11 A3: Whether God is one?

Yes. God is one because of His simplicity (Q3 A3), infinite perfection (Q4 A2), and the ordered unity of the universe, of which universal order He is the first and sustaining cause.

Although in God there is no privation, He is known to us by way only of privation. Thus there is no reason why a certain kind of privation should not be predicated of God; for instance, that He is incorporeal and infinite; and in the same way it is said of God that He is one (i.e., undivided).

Q11 A2: Whether "one" and "many" are opposed to each other?

Yes. The transcendental "one" (which is convertible with "being") is opposed to "multitude" by way of privation, as the undivided is to the thing divided.

The mathematical "one", however, (which is the principle of number) is opposed to "multitude" (which is number) as the measure is to the thing measured.

Q11 A1: Whether "one" adds anything to "being"?

No. "One" does not express any reality added to "being" because it is manifest that the being of anything consists in undivision. For everything guards its unity as it guards its being.

To call a being "one" is not to express any extra reality about it. "One" is only a negation of division; for "one" means undivided "being".

By the way, Plato's mistake was to confuse the unity of being with the one of mathematics.

The unity of God

We continue with our study of what we can know of the essence of God.

Q11 has four articles on the unity of God:

1. Does "one" add anything to "being"?
2. Are "one" and "many" opposed to each other?
3. Is God one?
4. Is He in the highest degree one?

Q10 A5: The difference of aeviternity and time

Aeviternity differs from time, and from eternity, as the mean between them both, because time has "before" and "after"; aeviternity in itself has no "before" and "after" (which can, however, be annexed to it); while eternity has neither "before" nor "after," nor is it compatible with such at all.

Eternity is the measure of a permanent being, God. In so far as anything recedes from permanence of being, it recedes from eternity.

But the being that is measured by eternity (i.e., God) is not changeable, nor is it annexed to change.

Now some things (like us) recede from permanence of being, so that their being is subject to change, or consists in change; and these things are measured by time, as are all movements, and also the being of all things corruptible.

Angels recede less from permanence of being, inasmuch as their being neither consists in change, nor is the subject of change; nevertheless they have change annexed to them either actually or potentially.

That is, angels have an unchangeable being as regards their nature with changeableness as regards choice; moreover they have changeableness of intelligence, of affections and of places in their own degree.

Therefore angels are measured by aeviternity which is a mean between eternity and time.

Q10 A4: Whether eternity differs from time?

Yes. Time and eternity are not the same thing because eternity is simultaneously whole, whereas time (whether it goes on forever or not) has a "before" and an "after".

Eternity is the measure of a permanent being, while time is a measure of movement.

Q10 A3: Whether to be eternal belongs to God alone?

Yes. Eternity (in its proper meaning) is in God alone, because eternity follows on immutability and, properly speaking, God alone is altogether immutable.

Nevertheless, some receive immutability from Him, and they share in His eternity. Some receive immutability from God in the way of never ceasing to exist.

Moreover, the angels and saints are immutable in being and in operation: "no changing thoughts exist in the Saints" (Augustine, De Trin. xv).

Q10 A2: Whether God is eternal?

Yes. God is eternal because He is supremely immutable (and time only follows on motion).

Moreover, God is His own eternity, because He is His own uniform being (i.e., He exists as His own essence).

No other being can be its own duration, because no other being is its own being (i.e., existence belongs to the essence of no other being).

Q10 A1: What is eternity?

"The simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life"

aeternitas est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio (Boethius, De Consol. V)

Yes, this is a good definition of eternity, because eternity is known from two sources: first, because what is eternal is interminable--that is, has no beginning nor end (that is, no terminus either way); secondly, because eternity has no succession, being simultaneously whole.

Q9 A2: Whether to be immutable belongs to God alone?

Yes. God alone is altogether immutable because all creatures generally are mutable by the power of the Creator, in Whose power is their existence and non-existence (since He alone is the Pure Act that can be creating and sustaining existence).