An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 4
CHAP. IV. Of GOD's Knowledge.
§. 1. AS we must not think of God's Will as having various and mutable internal acts as Man's hath; but as One Essential Act, only variously denominated from the relation of extrinsick Objects; even so must we think also of his Knowledg.
§. 2. God knoweth not by Reception of any Light or Species or Idea from the Object without him, but as beseemeth the perfection of the Infinite Intellect and first cause; even partly by a productive act of Intellection, and partly by termination on the Objects known. (N. B.) I am fai… all along to use the name of [Extrinsick Objects] to signifie that the Creature is not God: though it is improper to say that any thing is extra Denm: but we want better words.
§. 3. Many of the Church-troubling Disputes about God's Knowledg, are raised from that prophane supposition, That God knoweth cogitand…, by many distinct Cogitations, as Man doth, and by Idea's or received Species of the Creatures. And on the false Supposition that Man can comprehend God's way of Knowing, or at least hath formal conceptions of it, and must speak accordingly. From whence there are such rash Disputes which Act is first, and which cometh after.
§. 4. Most of these Controversies are ended by the right applying the foresaid distinctions to God's Understanding, which I before applied to his Will. As, e. g.
Qu. Hath Gods Knowledg any Cause?
Ans. 1. Not as it is his Essence. 2. The Objects of it have their Causes. 3. The denomination of his Knowledg as such, from the Objects respectively, hath its cause, such as a Terminus may be called. And as in Man the Object is really the quasi materiale and constitutive cause of the Act, not as an Act, but as this Act in specie vel individuo thus terminated; so as to the meer connotation and relation and denomination, though not as to …ny real reception, we may speak of God.
§. 5. So if the question be, Whether God's Knowledge …ave many Acts? and whether one be before or after …thers?
Ans. 1. God's Essential Knowledge is simply one. 2. The Objects of it are many. 3. Therefore as denominated ab extra, from respect to the Objects, we may distinguish his simple Knowledge, and mention priority and posteriority, but such only …s resulteth from the Order of Objects: And these being but Conceptions and Denominations necessitated by our weakness, without any real diversity …n God, we must fear and abhorr presumptuous boldness, and contentiousness hereabout.
§. 6. So if the question be, Whether God's Knowledge be mutable?
Ans. 1. His Knowledge essential it self is not. 2. The Objects are. 3. And therefore the Denominations of his Knowledge ab extrae oft are: As we may say, That God knew from Eternity that the World would be created, and Christ incarnate, as future. But now he knoweth that they were so, ut praeterita. God doth not now know, that Christ will be born, that Christ just now is crucified, that Paul is preaching on Earth: but once he knew all these. Yet here all the Change is in the object, and none in God's Knowledge, as there is on mans.
§. 7. If the question be, How God knoweth future contingents?
Ans. 1. God's Essence is Knowledge, and is Infinite, and therefore extendeth to all that is intelligible: And if they be not objects intelligible, it belongeth not to a perfect Intellect to know them. But if they are, it is rashness to ask any other reason of God's knowing them, besides his Perfection and their Intelligibility: But all Contingents that are future, are Certainties to God as well as Contingencies, in several respects, and accordingly known: But the shallow Brain of Worms doth little know what Futurity signifieth in Eternity to God. 2. But we know what future Contingents are to us. 3. And thence we know that God's Intellect may be denominated by imperfect Man, as in its perfection comprehending our Futurities and Contingencies, and human Measures, tho' not as Measures to God.
§. 8. If the question be, Whether God know things as future, because he willeth them to be future; or because they are future from the free Agent's Will▪
Ans. 1. God's Knowledge, ex parte sui, is his Essence, and hath no Cause, for it is no Effect. God's Understanding, Will and Power are essentially One, but as various, inadequate conceptions, they only make up▪ perfect Unity, and are not Causes and Effects to one another; much less caused by any Creature. 2. But Futurity is caused by that which causeth the thing future: And therefore the futurity of Sin is caused by Man that causeth Sin, so far as it is capable of a Cause; of which more in due place: But as Futurity is not Existence, so it needeth not an existent, but sometimes only a future cause. 3. And God's Intellect is terminated on things as Intelligible, and that is as they are: And so on things that are future by his own will, as such; and on things future by Man's Will, as such; as far as Futurity is an object of an eternal mind.
§. 9. The many Disputes de scientia simplicis intelligentiae, purae visionis & mediae, I think best abbreviated according to the forementioned Principles. God's essential Understanding is but One: Things intelligible are many; God's simple Intellect may be variously denominated as related to and terminated on various intelligible Objects, and so according to their Order: But this signifieth no real diversity at all in God, but in the things known: Nor must we dream, that Scientia simplicis intelligentiae, is like man's, a knowledge of certain Logical Notions or Propositions by way of Thinking, as to know that [This is possible, and the other is possible, and that is convenient,] as if God needed such second notions to know by; but it is infinitely above Man's mode of knowing: His Knowledge is first effective and then intuitive, and this without diversity or change in God.
§. 10. It is a great aggravation of the Presumption and Prophaneness of many voluminous School-Disputes, about the unsearchable nature of divine Intellection, that the certain Knowledge of our own great ignorance (even about every silly Creature) and of God's incomprehensibleness and infinite distance, do not prevail to repress such audaciousness, and bring men to more Modesty and Reverence of God: And how much more learned…y and wisely doth he answer abundance of their Questions, who saith [I know not] than they that by presumptuous conclusions take on them to know what they do not, nor ever will do, in this World?