DIVINE SCIENCE. — Here the term "science" is to be understood as simple intellectual cognition, even if in an eminent degree, such as befits God. This is one of the most complex and difficult problems of Catholic theology, especially because of the mysterious relationship between divine science and human freedom, which has given rise to lively and long-standing controversies.
I. CERTAIN DOCTRINE
The Vatican Council (Session III, chap. 1) has defined: «The holy Catholic... Church believes... that God is infinite in intellect, will, and every perfection (...) Moreover, God protects and governs all things He has created by His providence... For all things are naked and open to His eyes (Heb. 4:13), even those things which will come to pass through the free action of creatures» (Denz-U, 1782, 1784). It is therefore a matter of faith that God is an intelligent, conscious being and thus capable of knowing not only Himself but all things, both possible and real, even the free actions of rational creatures: in short, God is omniscient.This doctrine of faith is explicitly revealed; indeed, Holy Scripture continually extols not only God’s knowledge but His infinite wisdom. A rich harvest of texts is found in the Psalms: «Understand, you senseless among the people... shall he who formed the eye not see?»... «He teaches man knowledge» (Ps. 93:8–11); «O Lord, You have searched me and known me... You discern my thoughts from afar... Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it... My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret» (Ps. 138:1–3; cf. also Pss. 7, 43, 103, 146, etc.; and further: Prov. 3:19; Wis. 9:2; 14:2; Jer. 11:20; 23:24; 32:19). From the New Testament it suffices to recall Rom. 11:33: «O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!»
The same truth is frequently attested in the writings of the Fathers. Thus Irenaeus (Adv. haer., II, 3), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., 6, 17; 156, 5); St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., 4, 5); and St. Augustine (Ad Orosium, 8, 9): «In the wisdom of God there could be the reasons for all things to be made... Therefore God knew all things He made before He made them. For we cannot say that He made them in ignorance and learned them only after they were made»; St. Cyril of Alexandria (Thesaur., 15); St. Gregory the Great (Moralia, 20, 32, 63): «And because He sees what is future to us... He is called foreknowing.»
Yet human reason itself can demonstrate that God is intelligent and infinitely wise from the fact that in the world there are rational creatures and the whole cosmic order is governed by order and finality. St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 1) finds the ground of cognitive capacity in the immateriality proper to spirit, which, without losing its own form, can receive within itself the intentional forms of indefinitely many things (Aristotle in De anima, III, 8, expresses this profoundly: «ἡ φύσις τὰ ὄντα πῶς ἐστι πάντα»; the soul knows its own being, and thus the more spiritual a being is, the more endowed it is with knowledge).
The object of God’s knowledge is first of all God Himself (primary object): in Him, pure act, the subject, the act of knowing, and the object are identical, and thus He is essentially His own thought: «God, however, is like pure act both in the order of existing and in the order of intelligibles: and therefore He understands Himself through Himself» (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 2, ad 3). This self-knowledge of God, identical with His essence, constitutes the first immanent procession, which has two distinct relative terms: the Father and the Son, that is, God as thinking and God as thought (v. TRINITY).
The secondary object of God’s cognition consists of things considered as creatable (possible) and as created (real in past, present, and future). This truth already follows from the documentation cited above and is confirmed by arguments of reason. Given that God is the first, absolute, intelligent Being, the supreme Principle of all reality, on the line of efficient, exemplary, and final causality, it is evident that no creature can escape His knowledge. God, intelligent and free, creates as such according to His ideas, which are nothing other than His own essence insofar as it is contemplated as a model imitable outside of God in infinitely many ways. Since He has perfect understanding of Himself, He knows perfectly all that proceeds or can proceed from Him by way of creation, that is, all possible or real beings.
II. CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS
Regarding the cognition of creatures, theologians debate the manner. Some (of a nominalist tendency) think that God knows creatures in themselves, immediately; others (generally Thomists) do not admit that God’s act of knowing attains anything outside Himself; still others (generally Molinists) accept both opinions. According to the interpreters of St. Thomas, the solution is as follows: if the intelligible object is determined by the knowing subject, it is repugnant to the divine nature—which attains its term intrinsically—that it should attain an extrinsic term. Therefore it must be said with St. Thomas (ibid., a. 5): «God sees Himself in Himself, because He sees Himself through His own essence. But He sees other things not in them, but in Himself, insofar as His essence contains the likeness of other things»: by knowing His essence thoroughly, God knows perfectly the external things that are imperfect imitations of that essence. The cognition is therefore mediate but eminent, because things are seen as effects in their cause: «It is clear that through a perfect act (= divine essence) imperfect acts (= creatures) can be known, not only in general but also with proper cognition» (ibid., a. 6).There is also debate over the relationship between divine science and its secondary object (creatures). In man the intelligible object is the cause (in the formal line) of cognition, and thus it is rightly said that our intellect is «measured» by its object; but this is impossible in God, the first and absolute Being, the supreme cause of all reality. It must therefore be admitted that the true relationship between divine science and created nature is that of cause and effect. Hence God’s thought is the cause of things not by any intrinsic necessity, but by free determination, that is, in union with the will (ibid., a. 8). Consistently with this principle it must be said rather that «things are because God thinks them» than that «God thinks things because they are» (Conf., XIII, 38): «We do not see things as existing because they are made; but You see them as existing because You make them.»
So far there is no difficulty if we speak of inanimate, unconscious, irrational things subject to necessity; but a grave problem arises regarding future contingents, such as human acts. It is a matter of faith, as has been said, that God knows with certainty even future free acts, and this is not in dispute. Yet theologians, in seeking to account for this exclusive prerogative of God, have investigated the intimate mode of divine foreknowledge, arriving at different conclusions. The disagreement, already present among the Fathers, has grown sharper through the centuries and culminates in the Thomist–Molinist antithesis (v.), which flared up in the 16th century between Luis de Molina, S.J. (v.), on one side and Domingo Báñez, O.P. (v.), on the other. The controversy is exceedingly complex because, beyond the question of divine science, it implicates several other problems, such as that of divine concurrence in the activity of creatures, the relationship between knowledge and will in God, the nature of human freedom, Providence, and predestination. Restricting ourselves to the question of science, the two opposing positions can be reduced to the following outlines:
a) Thomism: Once the general principle is established that it is not God’s knowledge that depends on creatures, but rather creatures that depend on Him, it is necessary to distinguish (logically, not really) two kinds of knowledge in the divine mind, according to two distinct ways of considering creatures as the object of that knowledge. Indeed, creatures can be considered either as merely possible or as real (in the past, present, or future). God knows the former by knowing His own essence as infinitely imitable outside Himself, remaining thus within the sphere of theoretical knowledge; but since the realization of that imitability depends on His will, God knows real things (past, present, future) in His essence insofar as it reflects the decrees of His free creative will. The knowledge of the possible is called *scientia simplicis intelligentiae*, while the knowledge of the real is usually termed *scientia visionis*: the former is necessary, like the act by which God knows Himself, the latter is free, like the act by which God decides to create. Future things, whether absolute, contingent, or free (such as human acts), are the object of *scientia visionis*, because all are realized according to the absolute decrees of the divine will. Conditional futures—even those dependent on a condition that will in fact not be realized (*futuribles* [v.])—are likewise subject to the decrees of the divine will, which in such cases would be subjectively absolute but objectively conditional. Thus, such futures fall within the sphere of *scientia visionis*.
b) Molinism: To explain the foreknowledge of free futures, the two kinds of knowledge mentioned above are insufficient, for *scientia simplicis intelligentiae* grasps human acts as possible, while *scientia visionis* grasps them as real. Yet such acts must also be considered as conditional, that is, dependent on a concatenation of causes, effects, and circumstances that constitute a creatable order distinct from innumerable other possible orders. In a first moment, the divine mind contemplates the divine essence as the exemplary cause of indefinite possible beings (*scientia simplicis intelligentiae*); in a second moment, it sees these possible beings arranged in various orders of mutual subordination and foresees in each of them how the free will of this or that person would act according to the various situations; in a third moment, God intervenes with His free will and decides to bring about one of the many creatable orders, and by virtue of this decision He sees the free act in an absolute manner (*scientia visionis*). This second moment constitutes the *scientia media*, which is in one sense natural and necessary, since it precedes every act of the will, but in another sense is free, because the exact foreknowledge of a particular future free act is contingent upon the hypothesis that the will realizes this rather than another order of things (cf. L. Molina, *Concordia*, Paris 1876, p. 317).
c) Observations. — Thomism is more concerned with the dominion of the First Cause than with human freedom, and starting from *premotio physica* (v.), especially if determining to one, it easily explains the foreknowledge of future free acts, even conditional ones, on the basis of the divine will’s decree that predefines the realization of the act in its singularity. Yet in this way the mystery of reconciling human freedom and divine causality (knowledge and will) is sharpened. Molinism, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with human freedom, denying its immediate determination by God; yet despite the laborious effort of *scientia media*, it intensifies the mystery on God’s part, who would see in His essence particular determinations of creatable things independent of His will. Moreover, the simultaneous concurrence proposed by Molina as a substitute for the Thomists’ *premotio physica* does not hold up metaphysically. In any case, in these two systems, as in others, fundamental difficulties are shifted rather than entirely eliminated, for the relationship between creature and Creator—that is, between a contingent being and the Absolute Being—remains necessarily mysterious.