Of God and His Creatures
That God understands by nothing else than by
His own Essence
UNDERSTANDING is brought actually to understand by an impression made
on the understanding, just as sense comes actually to feel by an
impression made on sense. The impression made on the understanding then
is to the understanding as actuality to potentiality. If therefore the
divine understanding came to understand by any impression made on the
understanding other than the understanding itself, the understanding
would be in potentiality towards that impression, which, it has been
shown, cannot be (Chap. XVI, XVII).
3. Any impression on the understanding that is in the understanding
over and above its essence, has an accidental being: by reason of which
fact our knowledge reckons as an accident. But there can be no accident
in God.
Therefore there is not in His understanding any impression besides the
divine essence itself.
1.45 : That in God the Act of Understanding is His very Essence
1.47 : That God perfectly understands Himself