od immediately," as the Master of the Sentences asserts (Sent.
iv, D, i). He also saw without an enigma, for an enigma implies
obscurity, as Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 9). Now, obscurity
resulted from sin. Therefore man in the primitive state saw God
through His Essence.

_On the contrary,_ The Apostle says (1 Cor. 15:46): "That was not
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." But to see God
through His Essence is most spiritual. Therefore the first man in the
primitive state of his natural life did not see God through His
Essence.

_I answer that,_ The first man did not see God through His Essence if
we consider the ordinary state of that life; unless, perhaps, it be
said that he saw God in a vision, when "God cast a deep sleep upon
Adam" (Gen. 2:21). The reason is because, since in the Divine Essence
is beatitude itself, the intellect of a man who sees the Divine
Essence has the same relation to God as a man has to beatitude. Now
it is clear that man cannot willingly be turned away from beatitude,
since naturally and necessarily he desires it, and shuns unhappiness.
Wherefore no one who sees the Essence of God can willingly turn away
from God, which means to sin. Hence all who see God through His
Essence are so firmly established in the love of God, that for
eternity they can never sin. Therefore, as Adam did sin, it is clear
that he did not see God through His Essence.

Nevertheless he knew God with a more perfect knowledge than we do now.
Thus in a sense his knowledge was midway between our knowledge in the
present state, and the knowledge we shall have in heaven, when we see
God through His Essence. To make this clear, we must consider that the
vision of God through His Essence is contradistinguished from the
vision of God through His creatures. Now the higher the creature is,
and the more like it is to God, the more clearly is God seen in it;
for instance, a man is seen more clearly through a mirror in which his
image is the more clearly expressed. Thus God is seen in a much more
perfect manner through His intelligible effects than through those
which are only sensible or corporeal. But in his present state man is
impeded as regards the full and clear consideration of intelligible
creatures, because he is distracted by and occupied with sensible
things. Now, it is written (Eccles. 7:30): "God made man right." And
man was made right by God in this sense, that in him the lower powers
were subjecte