he soul, from that
which it holds, is able to foreknow the future, and thus Augustine
says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 13): "Some have deemed the human soul to
contain a certain power of divination." This seems to be in accord
with the opinion of Plato [*Phaed. xxvii; Civit. vi], who held that
our souls have knowledge of all things by participating in the ideas;
but that this knowledge is obscured in them by union with the body;
yet in some more, in others less, according to a difference in bodily
purity. According to this it might be said that men, whose souls are
not much obscured through union with the body, are able to foreknow
such like future things by their own knowledge. Against this opinion
Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 13): "How is it that the soul
cannot always have this power of divination, since it always wishes
to have it?"

Since, however, it seems truer, according to the opinion of
Aristotle, that the soul acquires knowledge from sensibles, as stated
in the First Part (Q. 84, A. 6), it is better to have recourse to
another explanation, and to hold that men have no such foreknowledge
of the future, but that they can acquire it by means of experience,
wherein they are helped by their natural disposition, which depends
on the perfection of a man's imaginative power, and the clarity of
his understanding.

Nevertheless this latter foreknowledge of the future differs in two
ways from the former, which comes through Divine revelation. First,
because the former can be about any events whatever, and this
infallibly; whereas the latter foreknowledge, which can be had
naturally, is about certain effects, to which human experience may
extend. Secondly, because the former prophecy is "according to the
unchangeable truth" [*Q. 171, A. 3, Obj. 1], while the latter is not,
and can cover a falsehood. Now the former foreknowledge, and not the
latter, properly belongs to prophecy, because, as stated above (Q.
171, A. 3), prophetic knowledge is of things which naturally surpass
human knowledge. Consequently we must say that prophecy strictly so
called cannot be from nature, but only from Divine revelation.

Reply Obj. 1: When the soul is withdrawn from corporeal things, it
becomes more adapted to receive the influence of spiritual substances
[*Cf. I, Q. 88, A. 4, ad 2], and also is more inclined to receive the
subtle motions which take place in the human imagination through the
impression of natural causes, whereas it is hin