I. Reply to the question
Ordinatio I, d. 38, q. un.
"Is God's knowledge with respect to created things practical?"
1 Concerning distinction 38 I ask whether God's knowledge with respect to creatable things is practical.
Argument for the negative:
Metaphysics II [993b20–1]: "Activity is the end of practical [knowledge]"; but nothing outside God is his end.
2 On the contrary:
On the Trinity VI, in the last chapter: "The art of the wise God," etc.1 Art is a practical habit. Therefore, etc.
3 Similarly, 83 Diverse Questions, q. 46 [n. 2]: "The ideas are reasons according to which every formable thing is formed."
I. Reply to the question 4 Quite a lot was said about practical and speculative cognition above, in the question on whether theology is practical.2 Briefly applying some of that discussion to the question at hand, it can be said that there are two defining features of a practical habit: conformity to praxis (which conformity it has in virtue of the object of the cognition) and its natural priority to that same praxis, because praxis—in the sense in which an activity is called "practical" from praxis—is an activity that is distinguished from speculation. Now no activity distinct from speculation is in the power of the one speculating unless it is, or can be, naturally posterior to speculation; and only cognition that concerns praxis that is in someone's power is identified as practical cognition in that person.
1 Augustine, De Trin. VI.10.11, "the perfect Word and a certain Art of the almighty and wise God, full of all the living, unchangeable reasons."
2 Ordinatio prol. pars 5 qq. 1–2 nn. 217–366.
ORDINATIO I, D. , Q. UN.
On this basis one should realize further that practical cognition—meaning practical cognition that is most fully actual and proximate to praxis—is a verdict about some praxis to be elicited (that is, the judgment of a conclusion of a practical syllogism); such cognition is the end of a movement of the intelligence, but activity begins from it. Practical cognition encompasses not only cognition that is proximately practical in this way, but also cognition of practical principles that virtually include it, and even quidditative cognition of the terms that include practical principles, as I said there.3
Because this is what practical cognition is, any intellect that cannot have any such cognition that (a) gives a dictate concerning activity and (b) is naturally prior to the praxis that such cognition is about—and cannot have cognition of principles from which it might infer such cognition that gives dictates concerning activities, and cannot have quidditative cognition of the terms in which such principles are included—evidently cannot have practical cognition understood in the most proper sense, in accordance with the two conditions stated earlier: that is, conformity to the object and priority. Now given how God's cognition is related to the act of his will, the divine intellect does not have beforehand any cognition dictating that anything should be done, or any cognition of a principle, or any quidditative cognition of a term that includes a practical principle; therefore, the divine intellect has no cognition that is in conformity with, and prior to, such praxis.
Proof of the minor premise: if, before any act of the divine will, the divine intellect could have some such cognition, it would have it purely naturally and necessarily, because all cognition in the divine intellect that precedes an act of will is purely natural and is had through the divine essence as a purely natural ground of understanding; therefore, the divine intellect would know of necessity that such-and-such is to be done, and then God's will, to which his intellect would present such cognition, could not fail to will it; for if it could, it would be able not to be correct, being able to deviate from correct practical reason and thus not to be correct. Therefore, the divine will would will every act of necessity, because the same reasoning applies to any given act.
To this one might object, first, that by this argument the divine intellect would not have any speculative cognition: for either the divine will would necessarily will that the intellect speculate, in which case there would not be primary freedom on the part of the will, or else the will would be able not to will that the intellect speculate, in which case the will could fail to be correct.
And furthermore, if some universal law—for example, "Whoever is to be glorified is to be given grace"—is first presented by the divine intellect, and the divine will accepts it and thereby establishes it as a law of wisdom, and the intellect then presents to the will "Peter is to be beatified," if the will accepts this, then evidently the intellect
3 Ibid., nn. 260–3, 276–7, 314.