Term
| How can we say that God has the highest form of knowledge? |
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Definition
| The more immaterial a thing is, the higher its form of knowledge. Since God is the highest degree of immateriality, he has the highest form of knowledge (see Q14: Art: “I answer that”). |
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Term
| Why do we say that the act of God’s intellect is His substance? |
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Definition
| If God’s act of understanding were something other than His substance, then something else would be the act and perfection of the divine substance. Since in God there is no form, His essence is also His intelligible species. Therefore His act of understanding is also His essence and thus His existence. If His act of understanding and His essence (intelligible species) are the same, the act of God’s intellect is His substance (see Q14: Art: 4 “I answer that”). |
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Term
| Aristotle said that God did not know or love things other than Himself because this would imply and imperfection in God. How does Thomas refute this? |
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Definition
| God necessarily knows things other than Himself because it is manifest that He perfectly understands Himself (or His existence would not be perfect). God sees Himself in Himself through His essence and sees other things not in themselves, but in Himself; inasmuch as His essence contains the similitude of things other than Himself (see Q14: Art. 5 “I answer that”). The object understood is a perfection of the one understanding by its image and not by its substance as its form and perfection. Things other than God that are understood by Him, therefore it does not follow that there is any perfection in the divine intellect other than the divine essence (see Q14: Art. 5: Reply to Obj. 2). |
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Term
| Is the knowledge of God discursive? How does God know things? |
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Definition
| o (see Q14: Art. 7 “I answer that” and Reply to Obj. 3). // God knows things through the effects in the cause (see Q14: Art. 7 Reply to Obj. 2). God knows all things all at once (not step by step like we know) |
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Term
| What are the two “books” that God wrote? |
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Definition
| The two “books” books that God wrote are Nature and Scripture (Sister’s notes Q14: Art: 8). |
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Term
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Definition
| God knows evil as a privation of good (see Q14: Art. 10) |
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Term
| What is speculative knowledge? What are the three kinds of speculative knowledge in God? |
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Definition
| speculative knowledge is the highest (most excellent) form of knowledge (Sister’s notes Q14: Art. 16). It is knowing things through their cause (God). // 1) On the part of the thing known 2) As regards the manner (or mode) of knowing (to consider operable things in a speculative manner) and 3) As regards the end (Sister’s notes Q14: Art. 16). |
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Term
| Does God have ideas of all things known to Him? |
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Definition
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Term
| What are the two kinds of ideas? |
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Definition
| (1) Exemplar – the idea that is the principle of the making of things, as it exists in the mind of God, and this is practical knowledge (2) Type – the idea that is a principle of knowledge, this may be speculative as well as practical. Exemplar has respect to all things made by God in any period of time, type has respect to all things known by God in any way (from Sister’s notes Q15: Art. 3). |
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Term
| How does God have an idea of evil? |
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Definition
| God has an idea of evil through a type of (defective) good. Evil is not an idea of itself. There is no exemplar or type of idea of evil in God (from Sister’s notes Q15: Art. 3). |
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Term
| What is the purpose of having knowledge? |
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Definition
| The purpose of having knowledge is having knowledge of things that are true. |
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Term
| When does a person have truth in the intellect? |
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Definition
| A person has truth in the intellect when there is a correspondence between the intellect and the thing as it really is (Sister’s notes Q16: Art. 1). |
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Term
| How can the human intellect know the truth that is in God’s mind concerning things about God? |
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Definition
| The human intellect can know the truth that is in God’s mind concerning things about God through Revelation. |
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Term
| How can the human intellect know the truth that is in God’s mind concerning created things? |
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Definition
| The human intellect can know the truth that is in God’s mind concerning created things through observation. (and also through revelation) |
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Term
| In what way is true prior to good? |
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Definition
| True is logically prior to the good, because the thing must be known in order to be desired (Sister’s notes Q16 Art. 4). |
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Term
| In what way is good prior to the true? |
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Definition
| Good is prior to true ONLY in the order of things desirable (Sister’s notes Q16 Art. 4). And from the point of view of universality: that is, true can be said to be the good for the intellect, so true would (in this way of viewing things) be a “subset” of good – or, we could say, true is a particular good, while good is the universal. |
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Term
| If the human intellect is “always changing,” how can it have (unchanging) truth in it? |
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Definition
| Truth in our intellect is changeable, not because the truth itself is subject to change, but because our intellect can change from truth to falsity, and vice versa (Sister’s notes Q16 Art. 8). |
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Term
| How can we have falsity in the intellect? |
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Definition
| Falsity can occur accidentally in that operation of the intellect whereby it knows the essence of a thing, in so far as composition of the intellect (judgment) is mixed up in it. This can take place in two ways: (1) by the intellect applying to one thing the definition proper to another (making the definition false of the thing) and (2) by composing a definition of parts which are mutually exclusive – the definition is not only false of the thing, but false in itself (Sister’s notes Q17 Art. 3). |
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Term
| When is the intellect always correct (having truth)? |
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Definition
| The intellect is always right regarding first principles (Sister’s notes Q17 Art. 3). |
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Term
| Does God have an opposite? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| Life is manifested through its operations |
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Term
| Why do we say that to understand is a kind of life? |
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Definition
| We say that to understand is a kind of life because when we understand it adds being and perfection to ourselves. Knowing is a new kind of life that affects a pre-existing life. To understand a concept is like “giving birth” to that concept in the intellect. |
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Term
| Does “living” refer more to the essence or the operation? |
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Definition
| “Living” refers more to the essence than to operation (see Q18: Art. 2 “I answer that). |
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