On the Attributes Dependent upon the Divine Intellect
By Johann Friedrich Stapfer [Institutiones Theologiae Polemicae Universae, Ordine Scientifico dispositae. Tom. 1. Editio IV. 1757, pp. 78-90.]
[Translated using Claude AI Opus 4.5. The original Latin (transcribed and original) is linked below.] 1
Section III.
On the Attributes Dependent upon the Divine Intellect.
§. CCCXXI.
An intelligent being, by the very fact that it understands, is conscious of itself; but God is an intelligent being (§. 318.); therefore He knows Himself.
§. CCCXXII.
God, in knowing Himself, also knows whatever involves no contradiction, that is, what is possible in itself; for that is called possible which involves no contradiction.
§. CCCXXIII.
Things are therefore possible because God represents to Himself in His intellect that they involve no contradiction; consequently, something is possible because God represents it to Himself in His intellect as such.
§. CCCXXIV.
Hence it is evident that all possibility of things is from God, and that His intellect is the fountain or root of all possibility.
§. CCCXXV.
If therefore there were no God, nothing would be possible either.
See these things demonstrated in the illustrious WOLFF’s Theol. N. §. 192.
§. CCCXXVI.
That is possible which involves no contradiction (§. 322.); but this world is a contingent being, whose opposite involves no contradiction (§. 287.): therefore, besides this world, more things are possible.
§. CCCXXVII.
Since the divine intellect is the fountain of everything possible (§. 324.), God knows all possible things; but because more things are possible than actually exist (§. 326.) (for whatever actually exists we comprehend under the term of this world): therefore God also knows more things than actually exist.
§. CCCXXVIII.
There are therefore possibles which never exist, which are not comprehended in this world; and such as either actually exist, or are future in it.
§. CCCXXIX.
Possibles can be considered either as absolutely and in themselves regarded, and without relation to other things, or as reduced into systems, that is, connected among themselves both through coexistence and through succession.
§. CCCXXX.
If a being is regarded in itself without relation to other things, there are known concerning it all things which are possible through its essence, namely its essential determinations and attributes, and also the possibilities of modes and their various series.
See WOLFF’s Theol. N. §. 143.
§. CCCXXXI.
But if a possible is regarded as reduced into a system with others, then there are known all the relations which it has to other possibles, namely the whole series of causes through which existence is determined, the series of modes which successively inhere in it, and its dependence on coexisting things.
§. CCCXXXII.
Moreover, all things are known concerning a being if those things are known which belong to it both absolutely and in relation to other things, since there is no third mode of considering it.
§. CCCXXXIII.
If possibles which can be reduced into one system are considered as reduced into a system, then also the order of each one is perceived with respect to coexisting and successive things: therefore place and time.
§. CCCXXXIV.
All genera and species are known, as well as subordinations, with all predicates belonging to any genus and species, and all numbers of things which pertain to each series.
§. CCCXXXV.
No less all magnitudes which can be given, with all their ratios to one another. For all these things which we have now enumerated pertain to the constitution of a system.
§. CCCXXXVI.
Such a system, or series of finite things coexisting and successive, connected among themselves, is called a World.
§. CCCXXXVII.
God knows all possibles (§. 327.), but besides this world still other things are possible (§. 326.), and possibles can be considered not only absolutely, but also as reduced into systems (§. 329.), and such a system of possible things is called a world (§. 336.); hence other worlds besides this one are possible, and God, knowing all possibles, also knows all possible worlds besides this one which actually exists.
§. CCCXXXVIII.
God knows Himself (§. 321.), and all possible worlds (§. 337.): therefore He knows whatever things are knowable.
§. CCCXXXIX.
Since God knows possible beings not only absolutely, but also as reduced into systems (§. 337.), that is, all their relations and all distinguishable things: He also knows all things distinctly, and nothing confusedly.
§. CCCXL.
He who knows all possible beings, and indeed as reduced into systems, that is, all possible worlds, also knows every difference which obtains between them; but all distinguishable things in any given world, and every difference which obtains between all possible systems, cannot be perceived unless at the same time the whole system is known both with respect to the coexistence of beings and with respect to succession; but God has such knowledge (§. 337. 339.): therefore God is simultaneously conscious of all those things which are in each possible world, and thus knows them simultaneously.
§. CCCXLI.
A faculty denotes only the possibility of acting: but God knows all things simultaneously (§. 340.), and thus no knowledge is possible to Him which is not actually given, and in God the intellect is not a bare faculty, but an act.
§. CCCXLII.
Through the things demonstrated before, it is now evident that the divine intellect is a distinct and simultaneous representation both of Himself and of all possibles.
§. CCCXLIII.
An intellect is unlimited which extends itself to all possibles, simultaneous and successive: but such knowledge belongs to God (§. 342.); therefore His intellect is unlimited.
§. CCCXLIV.
A greater and more perfect intellect cannot be given than one which represents to itself all possibles, most distinctly, by a single act and simultaneously: the divine intellect is such (§. 327. 339. 340.): therefore the divine intellect is most perfect.
§. CCCXLV.
That is incomprehensible whose mode, by which it is and can come to be, we are not able to represent to ourselves: a finite intellect has only the idea of successive representation; but the divine intellect represents all things to itself distinctly and simultaneously (§. 339. 340.): whence a finite intellect is not able to represent to itself the mode by which this can come to be: therefore the divine intellect is incomprehensible to a finite intellect.
§. CCCXLVI.
He is called omniscient who knows all things, whatever are possible to be known, whether they be singular or universal; but God knows Himself (§. 321.), and all possibles both regarded in themselves and reduced into systems (§. 337.); and thus it is evident that God is omniscient.
§. CCCXLVII.
Moreover, the magnitude of the divine intellect is evident from this, that God knows not only the most vast bodies and spaces of this world, but also all the smallest things which are detected by the aid of the microscope, the greatest, the smallest, present things, past things, future things, all qualities of things, modes, relations, all genera and species, and whatever other things there are, indeed also all possibles never to be future and all the most abstruse things.
§. CCCXLVIII.
The essence of a being consists in its possibility, if namely it is considered only as a being: but because the divine intellect represents to itself all possibles (§. 327.), that is impossible which His intellect does not represent to itself: therefore the reason why something is possible is to be sought in the intellect of God (§. 324.): but since the essence of a being as a being consists in its possibility: hence, since the divine intellect is the fountain of possibility (§. 324.), it is also the fountain of essences.
§. CCCXLIX.
The divine intellect is not a bare faculty, but an act (§. 341.), therefore the representation of possibles or the essences of beings constantly inheres in Him; but whatever actually inheres in God always is essential to Him; but since through the things demonstrated the representation of possibles constantly inheres in God, for that reason ideas are essential to God, for in knowing Himself He simultaneously knows what is possible. As therefore God cannot be conceived without an intellect, so also He cannot be conceived without ideas of things.
§. CCCL.
More things are possible than actually exist (§. 326.): hence from the mere possibility of a thing its existence cannot yet be concluded; therefore even though the divine intellect is the fountain of essences, that is, of the mere possibility of things, it is not on that account the fountain of existence, but the root of existence must then be sought in another divine attribute. These things had to be noted, lest from what we say—that ideas of things are essential to God—it be concluded that also the existence of things is essential to Him, and thus necessary; for these differ from each other by the whole heaven, otherwise all possibles would also be future, which is against §. 326., and God would be necessitated to produce something outside Himself.
§. CCCLI.
God cannot be conceived without ideas of things, and they are essential to Him (§. 349.): hence they are also necessary.
§. CCCLII.
Because ideas of things are necessary (§. 351.), they are also immutable.
§. CCCLIII.
Since ideas of things are essential to God (§. 349.), other ideas also cannot inhere in Him, and therefore they are also not arbitrary.
§. CCCLIV.
A thing is possible because there is given an idea of it in the divine intellect (§. 324.), but the possibility of beings constitutes their essence (§. 348.): but since the necessity of the possibility of things depends on the divine intellect (§. 351.): also the necessity of essences is from God or the divine intellect. The celebrated BULFINGER, who at length proves that the origin of essences is to be derived uniquely from the divine intellect, and is not to be sought in the free will and decree of God, in his Dilucidationes p. 17 speaks thus: “That is called necessary whose opposite involves a contradiction (for whatever does not involve a contradiction is possible), therefore possibles are necessary. What is necessary springs forth from a necessary source, not an arbitrary one; for there ought not to be more in what is principiated than in the principle”: thus far the celebrated man. The reason, moreover, why philosophers are more prolix in establishing this is chiefly this, that they might in this way best vanquish Manichaeism, and resolve all the difficulties which are wont to be raised concerning the origin of evil. Nor is it to be feared that if the necessity of essences is established in this way, something is derogated from God, who by this reasoning would not remain the only necessary being; for it is to be understood of the existence of God when He is called a necessary being; but when it is said of an essence that it is necessary, this is to be understood only of possibility, which is founded in the divine intellect; yet from the fact that something is necessarily possible, it does not follow that it necessarily exists. See the illustrious W. Th. N. paragraph 194.
§. CCCLV.
Ideas of things actually inhere in the divine intellect always (§. 349.), and are therefore necessary (§. 351.); it is clear that they are also eternal. But we have demonstrated that ideas of things, their possibility, and their essence represented in the divine intellect are one and the same thing (§. 354.). Since therefore ideas of things are eternal, also the essences of things have been from eternity in the divine intellect; and since the divine intellect is eternal, also the essences of things are eternal.
§. CCCLVI.
Since the essences of things are therefore eternal because they have been from eternity in the divine intellect: also their eternity is from God. The essences of things therefore are not something outside God, as if the divine intellect represented to itself something outside itself and depended thereon in its knowledge: but they are the divine intellect itself, which represents to itself what is possible or non-contradictory; far be it therefore that in this way something is posited as coeternal with God, and therefore no beings existing outside God are imagined, which God might know and on which He might depend in creating; but God Himself is considered as the fountain of all essence, not only of existence; indeed if no God existed, also no essences would be given (§. 325.).
§. CCCLVII.
Reason also agrees with Sacred Scripture, which attests that God represented the world to Himself from eternity, Acts XV: 18, and that His intellect is incomprehensible to us, for it extends to the greatest things, Psalm CXLVII: 4, and the smallest, Matthew X: 3, and is immense, Psalm CXLVII: 5, and is infinite since it extends to all things, and beyond His knowledge nothing else can be given, Acts XV: 18, Hebrews IV: 13; it is also most perfect, Isaiah XLVI: 9, 10, from which saying it is also evident that God knows Himself.
§. CCCLVIII.
The knowledge of simple intelligence is that by which God knows what is possible and what can actually exist, but it does not extend to what will actually exist, for this is known only from the decree. Namely, antecedently to the divine decree all things are merely possible, so that there is not yet any difference between those things which will exist and those which will not exist.
§. CCCLIX.
According to the definition, the knowledge of simple intelligence extends only to possibles and to those things which can actually exist: hence by it, it is not yet understood that something will be future.
§. CCCLX.
By the knowledge of vision is understood that by which God knows from eternity what things will actually exist in the system of this world, both coexisting and successive. It is also called foreknowledge.
§. CCCLXI.
God knows all possibles, both regarded in themselves and reduced into systems (§. 337.): hence He necessarily also knows all things which are possible through that system; He therefore knows all effects of material things considered in their connection.
§. CCCLXII.
And since God knows all things in the system of the world distinctly (§. 339.), He also foreknows what is possible through the souls of men, and the entire series of their perceptions and appetitions, and no less knows all their decrees and thoughts. For all these things pertain to the connection of the universe.
§. CCCLXIII.
And because He represents all things to Himself simultaneously and by a single act (§. 340.), He also knows past and future things simultaneously; therefore He not only foreknows all things, but also remembers all past things.
§. CCCLXIV.
The system of the world contains in itself the whole connection of things and whatever is possible through it (§. 334.), therefore also all universal truths: but because God represents to Himself beings reduced into systems (§. 327. 329.): He also knows all universal truths.
§. CCCLXV.
And because God is the author of all possible things (§. 351.), and consequently also of all essences (§. 354.), and under these universal truths are also comprehended (§. 364.), He is also the author of all universal truths, or all truth is from God. We have proved this here so that below in its proper place we may infer from it that revealed truths and those which become known by the light of reason do not contradict each other; although the former transcend human reason, yet they have God as their author no more than the latter; whence theologians draw arguments to prove truths equally from the principles of reason as from revelation.
§. CCCLXVI.
Since ideas and essences of all things are eternal (§. 355.), but universal truths are contained in the system of possible things (§. 364.): hence also universal truths are eternal, or they are in the divine intellect from eternity.
§. CCCLXVII.
And there are no new truths, but those which exist are only discovered by their discoverers.
§. CCCLXVIII.
God knows all universal truths (§. 364.), under which necessarily also all particular truths are comprehended, and indeed simultaneously (§. 340.): therefore it can in no way happen that God could err.
§. CCCLXIX.
Because God knows all possibles (§. 327.), He also knows what things are impossible, or what things are not contained in His ideas as possibles.
§. CCCLXX.
Ideas of things are essential to God (§. 349.): but whatever is essential to God is absolutely necessary, because God is a necessary being (§. 296.): therefore also the knowledge of things is necessary to Him: or God necessarily knows all things.
