7. God’s Knowledge (SCG 1, 44–71)
God’s Knowledge (SCG 1, 44–71)
I HAVE NOTED that Aquinas regards the words that we use when speaking about God as inevitably borrowed from their everyday nontheological employment (see chapter 5, section 1 here). And he does so when turning to the topic of God’s knowledge. Though Aquinas ascribes knowledge to God, therefore, we should not assume in advance that we have grasped what he means by doing so. We need to read him on his own terms.
From what I have already shown of SCG 1, we might expect Aquinas to think that knowledge is different as it exists in God from what it amounts to in people or other things in the world. Yet, from what I have also shown of SCG 1, we might equally expect him not to think “knowledge” or “knows” as purely equivocal when ascribed to or said of God and of what is not divine. And we shall find both of these expectations to be fulfilled as we read SCG 1,44–71. Aquinas certainly does think that God’s knowledge is not exactly like what knowledge is in anything other than God. He does, however, find connections between knowledge in God and in what is not divine. So, turning to what Aquinas says about God’s knowledge, I am first going to note how, in general, Aquinas thinks of knowledge as had by things that he takes to be made by God. Then I shall try to explain why and how he takes knowledge to be ascribable to God. Finally, I shall offer some comments on what Aquinas says of knowledge in general (without reference to God) and on what he says as he speaks in the SCG about knowledge in God.