ertain figures are
formed in the senses or imagination, according to some similitude
representing in part the divinity. So when Jacob says, "I have seen
God face to face," this does not mean the Divine essence, but some
figure representing God. And this is to be referred to some high mode
of prophecy, so that God seems to speak, though in an imaginary
vision; as will later be explained (II-II, Q. 174) in treating of the
degrees of prophecy. We may also say that Jacob spoke thus to
designate some exalted intellectual contemplation, above the ordinary
state.

Reply Obj. 2: As God works miracles in corporeal things, so also He
does supernatural wonders above the common order, raising the minds
of some living in the flesh beyond the use of sense, even up to the
vision of His own essence; as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 26,
27, 28) of Moses, the teacher of the Jews; and of Paul, the teacher
of the Gentiles. This will be treated more fully in the question of
rapture (II-II, Q. 175).

Reply Obj. 3: All things are said to be seen in God and all things
are judged in Him, because by the participation of His light, we know
and judge all things; for the light of natural reason itself is a
participation of the divine light; as likewise we are said to see and
judge of sensible things in the sun, i.e., by the sun's light. Hence
Augustine says (Soliloq. i, 8), "The lessons of instruction can only
be seen as it were by their own sun," namely God. As therefore in
order to see a sensible object, it is not necessary to see the
substance of the sun, so in like manner to see any intelligible
object, it is not necessary to see the essence of God.

Reply Obj. 4: Intellectual vision is of the things which are in the
soul by their essence, as intelligible things are in the intellect.
And thus God is in the souls of the blessed; not thus is He in our
soul, but by presence, essence and power.
_______________________

TWELFTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 12, Art. 12]

Whether God Can Be Known in This Life by Natural Reason?

Objection 1: It seems that by natural reason we cannot know God in
this life. For Boethius says (De Consol. v) that "reason does not
grasp simple form." But God is a supremely simple form, as was shown
above (Q. 3, A. 7). Therefore natural reason cannot attain to know
Him.

Obj. 2: Further, the soul understands nothing by natural reason
without the use of the imagination. But we cannot have an imagination
of God, Who is incor