Divine Science

SCIENZA DIVINA. – The term science is here to be understood as simple intellectual cognition, albeit at the eminent degree proper to God; this is one of the most complex and arduous 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

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 a matter of faith that God is an intelligent, conscious being and consequently 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: indeed, Sacred Scripture continually exalts not only the knowledge but also the infinite wisdom of God. The Psalms offer a rich harvest of texts: «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, scrutaria 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 also: Prov. 3, 19; Sap. 9, 2; 14, 2; Jer. 11, 20; 23, 24; 32, 19). From the New Testament, it is enough to recall Rom. 11, 33: «O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei». The same truth is frequently found in the testimony of the Fathers. Thus Irenaeus (Adv. haer., II, 3), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., 6, 17; 156, 3); S. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., 4, 5); and S. 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»; S. Cyril of Alexandria (Thesaur., 15); S. Gregory the Great (Moralia, 20, 32, 63): «Et quia ea quae nobis futura sunt videt... praecius dicitur».

But human reason itself can demonstrate that God is intelligent and infinitely wise from the fact that rational creatures exist in the world and that the entire cosmic reality is governed by order and finality. S. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 14, a. 1) finds the reason for the knowing 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, has, in this sense, a profound expression: ἡ ψυχή τὰ ὄντα πῶς ἐστι πάντα; the soul, in knowing, becomes all things); therefore, the more spiritual a being is, the more it is endowed with knowledge.

The primary object of God’s knowledge is God himself: in him, the pure act, the subject, the cognitive act, and the object are identical, 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» (S. 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. TRINITARI).

The secondary object of God’s cognition consists of 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. Granted that God is the first Being, absolute, intelligent, and the supreme Principle of all reality, along the lines 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 capable of being imitated outside God in infinite ways. Since he has a perfect understanding of himself, he perfectly knows everything that proceeds or can proceed from him by way of creation, that is, all possible or real beings.

II. CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS

some (of nominalist tendency) think that God knows creatures in themselves, immediately; others (the Thomists generally) do not admit that God’s act of knowing reaches anything outside him; finally, others (the Molinists generally) accept both opinions. According to the interpreters of s. Tommaso, the solution is as follows: if the intelligible object determines the knowing subject, it is contrary to the divine nature for God, through his action, to reach an extrinsic term. Therefore, one must say with s. Tommaso (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 in depth, knows perfectly external things, which are an imperfect imitation of that essence. It is therefore mediated knowledge, 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 cognizione» (ibid. a. 6).

The relation between divine science and its secondary object (creatures) is also debated. In man, the intelligible object is the cause (in the formal order) 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; it must therefore be admitted that the true relation between s. d. and created nature is that of cause and effect. Accordingly, God’s thought is the cause of things, not as though by intrinsic necessity, but through free determination, that is, in union with the will (ibid., a. 8). Consistently with this principle, one should say rather, “things exist because God thinks them,” than, “God thinks things because they exist.” S. Agostino (Conf., XIII, 38): «Nos inque ista quae fecisti videmus quia sunt. Tu autem quia vides ea, sunt». Up to this point there is no difficulty when dealing with inanimate, unconscious, irrational things, and hence things subject to necessity; but a serious problem arises with regard to future free events, 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 disputed; but theologians, in order to account for this exclusively divine privilege, have investigated the inner manner of divine foreknowledge, arriving at differing conclusions. The disagreement, which had already begun among the Fathers, became more pronounced over the centuries and culminated in the Thomist-Molinist antithesis (v.), which arose in the 16th century between Ludovico Molina S. J. (v.), on the one hand, and Domenico Battez O. P. (v.), on the other. The controversy is highly complex because, in addition to the question of s. d., it involves several other problems, such as that of divine concurrence in the activity of creatures, the relation between science and will in God, the nature of human freedom, Providence, and Predestination. Remaining on the ground of science, the two opposing positions may be reduced synthetically to the following outlines:

a) Thomism: once the general principle has been established that it is not God’s science that depends on creatures, but creatures on God’s science, 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. For creatures may be considered simply as possible or as real (in the past, present, or future): God knows the former by knowing his essence as indefinitely imitable outside himself, that is, while remaining in the theoretical sphere; but since the realization of that imitability depends on his will, God knows real things (past, present, and future) in his essence, insofar as it bears the decrees of his free creative will. The science of possibles is called simplicis intelligentiae, whereas the science of real things 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 events, whether absolute, contingent, or free (such as a human act), are objects of the scientia visionis, because all are realized according to the absolute decrees of the divine will. Conditional future events, including those dependent on a condition that in fact will not occur (futuribles)(v.), are likewise subordinate to the decrees of the divine will, which in the case would be subjectively absolute but objectively conditional. Such future events therefore fall within the sphere of the scientia visionis.

b) Molinism: the two sciences mentioned above are insufficient to explain the foreknowledge of future free acts, because the scientia simplicis intelligentiae apprehends the human act as possible, while the scientia visionis apprehends it as real; but that act must also be considered as conditioned, that is, as dependent on a concatenation of causes, effects, and circumstances, which constitute a creatable order distinct from innumerable other possible orders. At a first moment, the divine mind contemplates the divine essence as the exemplary cause of indefinite possible beings (scientia simplicis intelligentiae); at 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 person would determine itself to act according to the various situations; at a third moment, God intervenes with his free will and decides upon the realization of one of the many creatable orders, and by virtue of this decision sees the free act absolutely (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 particular future free act is subordinated to the hypothesis that the will will realize 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, physical premotion (v.), especially when it determines ad unum, easily explains the foreknowledge of the future free act, even when conditioned, on the basis of the decree of the divine will, which predefines the realization of the act in its singularity. In this way, however, the mystery of reconciling human freedom with divine causality (science and will) is intensified. Molinism, by contrast, is concerned above all with human freedom, denying its immediate determination by God; but, despite the laborious effort represented by scientia media, it deepens the mystery on God’s side, since God 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 physical premotion of the Thomists cannot stand metaphysically. In any case, in these two systems, as in the others, the fundamental difficulties are displaced but not entirely eliminated, because the relation between creature and Creator, that is, between contingent being and absolute Being, necessarily remains mysterious.