we
both see that what you say is true, and we both see that what I say
is true; where, I ask, do we see this? neither I in thee, nor thou in
me; but both of us in the very incommutable truth itself above our
minds." He also says (De Vera Relig. xxx) that, "We judge of all
things according to the divine truth"; and (De Trin. xii) that, "it
is the duty of reason to judge of these corporeal things according to
the incorporeal and eternal ideas; which unless they were above the
mind could not be incommutable." Therefore even in this life we see
God Himself.

Obj. 4: Further, according to Augustine (Gen. ad lit. xii, 24, 25),
those things that are in the soul by their essence are seen by
intellectual vision. But intellectual vision is of intelligible
things, not by similitudes, but by their very essences, as he also
says (Gen. ad lit. xiii, 24, 25). Therefore since God is in our soul
by His essence, it follows that He is seen by us in His essence.

_On the contrary,_ It is written, "Man shall not see Me, and live" (Ex.
32:20), and a gloss upon this says, "In this mortal life God can be
seen by certain images, but not by the likeness itself of His own
nature."

_I answer that,_ God cannot be seen in His essence by a mere human
being, except he be separated from this mortal life. The reason is
because, as was said above (A. 4), the mode of knowledge follows
the mode of the nature of the knower. But our soul, as long as we live
in this life, has its being in corporeal matter; hence naturally it
knows only what has a form in matter, or what can be known by such a
form. Now it is evident that the Divine essence cannot be known
through the nature of material things. For it was shown above
(AA. 2, 9) that the knowledge of God by means of any created
similitude is not the vision of His essence. Hence it is impossible
for the soul of man in this life to see the essence of God. This can
be seen in the fact that the more our soul is abstracted from
corporeal things, the more it is capable of receiving abstract
intelligible things. Hence in dreams and alienations of the bodily
senses divine revelations and foresight of future events are perceived
the more clearly. It is not possible, therefore, that the soul in this
mortal life should be raised up to the supreme of intelligible
objects, i.e. to the divine essence.

Reply Obj. 1: According to Dionysius (Coel. Hier. iv) a man is said
in the Scriptures to see God in the sense that c