Divine Science

DIVINE SCIENCE. - The term science is to be understood here as simple intellectual cognition, albeit in an eminent degree, such as befits God; a problem among the most complex and most arduous of Catholic theology, especially because of the mysterious relationship between divine science and human freedom, which has given rise to lively and age-old controversies.

I. CERTAIN DOCTRINE

The Vatican Council (sess. III, chap. 1) defined: «Sancta catholica... Ecclesia credit... Deum intellectu ac voluntate omnique perfectione infinitum (...). Universa vero, quae condidit, Deus providentia sua tuetur atque gubernat... Omnia enim nuda et aperta sunt oculis eius (Hebr. 4:13), ea etiam quae libera creaturarum actione futura sunt» (Denz-U, 1782, 1784). It is therefore of faith that God is an intelligent, conscious being and thus capable of knowing not only himself but all things, possible and real, even the free actions of rational creatures: God, in short, is omniscient.

This doctrine of faith is explicitly revealed: in fact, in Sacred Scripture not only the knowledge but the infinite wisdom of God is continually extolled. A rich harvest of texts in the Psalms: «Intelligite, stulti in populo..., qui finxit oculum non videbit?... qui docet homines scientiam. Dominus novit cogitationes hominum: sunt enim inanes»; Ps. 93:8-11; Ps. 138:1 ff.: «Domine, scrutatus es me et novisti, tu novisti me... Intelligis cogitationes meas e longinquo... Nimis mirabilis est mihi scientia haec, sublimis, non capis eam... Actus meos viderunt oculi tui» (cf. also Pss. 7, 43, 103, 146 etc.; and furthermore: 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 altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei». The same truth is frequently found in the testimonies of the Fathers. Thus Irenaeus (Adv. haer., II, 3), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., 6, 17; 156, 3); St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., 4, 5); and St. Augustine (Ad Orosium, 8, 9): «In Dei sapientia omnium faciendarum rerum rationes esse potuerunt... Noverat ergo Deus omnia quae fecit antequam faceret. Non enim possumus eum dicere ignorata fecisse et ea non nisi facta didicisse»; St. Cyril of Alexandria (Thesaur., 15); St. Gregory the Great (Moralia, 20, 32, 63): «Et quia ea quae nobis futura sunt videt... praescius dicitur».

But 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 reality is governed by order and finality. St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 14, a. 1) finds the reason for the cognitive capacity in the immateriality proper to spirit, which, without losing its own form, can receive within itself the intentional forms of indefinite things (Aristotle in De anima, III, 8 has, in this sense, a profound expression: ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα; the soul, in knowing, becomes all things); the more, therefore, a being is spiritual, the more it is endowed with knowledge.

The object of God's knowledge is first of all God himself (primary object): in him, pure act, the subject, the cognitive act and the object are identified, and therefore he is essentially his own thought: «Deus autem est sicut actus purus tam in ordine existentium quam in ordine intelligibilium: et ideo per seipsum seipsum intelligit» (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a, 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. TRINITÀ).

The secondary object of God's cognition is constituted by things considered as creatable (possible) and as created (real in the past, present and future). This truth already follows from the documentation cited above and is confirmed by arguments of reason. Supposing that God is the first Being, absolute, intelligent, supreme Principle of all reality, along 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 God in infinite ways. Since he has a perfect comprehension of himself, he knows perfectly all that proceeds or can proceed from him by way of creation, that is, all possible or real entities.

II. CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS

Regarding the cognition of creatures, theologians dispute about the manner; some (of nominalist tendency) think that God knows creatures in themselves, immediately; others (Thomists in general) do not admit that God's cognitive act draws anything from outside himself; others finally (Molinists in general) accept both opinions. According to the interpreters of St. Thomas, the solution is as follows: if the intelligible object is determinative of the knowing subject, it is repugnant to the divine nature that it should draw an extrinsic term by its action. Therefore one must say with St. Thomas (ibid., a. 5): «Deus seipsum videt in seipso, quia seipsum videt per essentiam suam. Alia autem a se videt non in ipsis, sed in seipso, inquantum essentia sua continet similitudinem aliorum ab ipso»: God, knowing his essence thoroughly, knows perfectly the external things that are an imperfect imitation of that essence. Cognition therefore is mediated, but eminent because things are seen as effects in their own cause: «Manifestum est autem quod per actum perfectum (= essentia divina) cognosci possunt actus imperfecti (= creaturae) non solum in communi, sed etiam propria cognitione» (ibid. a. 6).

There is also discussion about 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 therefore it is rightly said that our intellect «mensuratur a rebus»; but this is impossible in God, the first and absolute Being, the supreme cause of all reality; one must therefore admit that the true relationship between divine science and created nature is that of cause and effect. Accordingly, God's thought is the cause of things not as it were by intrinsic necessity, but by free determination, that is, in union with the will (ibid., a. 8). Consistently with this principle one must say rather «things are because God thinks them» than «God thinks things because they are». St. Augustine (Conf., XIII, 38): «Nos inque ista quae fecisti videmus quia sunt. Tu autem quia vides ea, sunt». No difficulty thus far if the matter concerns inanimate, unconscious, irrational things and therefore subject to necessity; but a grave problem arises regarding future free things, such as human acts. It is of faith, as has been said, that God knows with certainty even future free acts, and about this there is no dispute; but theologians, in order to give an account of this exclusive privilege of God, have investigated the intimate manner of divine foreknowledge, arriving at different conclusions. The disagreement, which had already begun among the Fathers, becomes more pronounced through the centuries and culminates in the Thomism-Molinism antithesis (v.), which flared up in the 16th century between Ludovico Molina S. J. (v.) on one side and Domenico Báñez O. P. (v.) on the other. The controversy is very complex, because, besides the question of divine science, it implies several other problems, such as that of the divine concurrence in the activity of creatures, of the relationship between science and will in God, of the nature of human freedom, of Providence, of Predestination. Remaining on the ground of science, the two opposing positions can be reduced synthetically to these schemes: a) Thomism: once the general principle is established that it is not God's science that depends on creatures, but creatures on it, one must distinguish (logically, not really) two kinds of science in the divine mind, according to two distinct ways of considering creatures as the object of that science. In fact creatures can be considered simply as possible or as real (in the past, in the present, in the future): God knows the former by knowing his essence as indefinitely imitable outside himself, that is, remaining within the theoretical sphere; but since the realization of that imitability depends on his will, God knows real things (past, present, future) in his essence insofar, however, as it bears the decrees of his free creative will. The science of possibles is called simplicis intelligentiae, the science of reals, on the other hand, is usually called 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, or contingent, or free (such as the human act) are the object of the scientia visionis, because all of them are realized according to the absolute decrees of the divine will. Conditioned future things, even those that depend on a condition that in fact will not be fulfilled (futuribles) (v.), are likewise subordinate to the decrees of the divine will, which in that case would be subjectively absolute, but objectively conditioned. Such future things therefore fall within the sphere of the scientia visionis.

b) Molinism: to explain the foreknowledge of future free acts the two aforementioned sciences are not enough, because the scientia simplicis intelligentiae grasps the human act as possible, the scientia visionis as real; but that act must also be considered as conditioned, that is, as depending on a concatenation of causes, effects and circumstances that constitute a creatable order distinct from innumerable other possible orders. The divine mind, in a first moment, 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 sees in each of them how the free will of this or that man would determine itself to act according to the various situations; in a third moment God intervenes with his free will and decides the realization of one of the many creatable orders and by virtue of this decision sees the free act in an absolute manner (scientia visionis). The second moment constitutes the scientia media, which in one respect is natural and necessary, because it precedes every intervention of the will, and in another respect is free, because the exact foreknowledge of a determinate future free act is subordinate to 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 man's freedom, and starting from physical premotion (v.), especially if it is determining to one thing, it easily explains the foreknowledge of the future free act, even a conditioned one, on the basis of the decree of the divine will that predefines the realization of the act in its singularity. But in this way the mystery of the reconciliation between human freedom and divine causability (science and will) is sharpened. Molinism, on the other hand, is concerned first of all with human freedom, denying its immediate determination by God, but, despite the laborious effort of the scientia media, it thickens the mystery on God's side, since he would see in his essence particular determinations of creatable things independent of his will. Moreover, the simultaneous concurrence proposed by Molina in place of the Thomists' physical premotion does not hold up metaphysically. Besides, in these two systems, as in the others, the fundamental difficulties are shifted, but not entirely eliminated, because the relationship between creature and Creator, that is, between contingent being and absolute Being, necessarily remains mysterious.

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