ds from principles to
conclusions does not consider both at once; secondly, because to
discourse thus is to proceed from the known to the unknown. Hence it
is manifest that when the first is known, the second is still
unknown; and thus the second is known not in the first, but from the
first. Now the term of discursive reasoning is attained when the
second is seen in the first, by resolving the effects into their
causes; and then the discursion ceases. Hence as God sees His effects
in Himself as their cause, His knowledge is not discursive.

Reply Obj. 1: Although there is only one act of understanding in
itself, nevertheless many things may be understood in one (medium),
as shown above.

Reply Obj. 2: God does not know by their cause, known, as it were
previously, effects unknown; but He knows the effects in the cause;
and hence His knowledge is not discursive, as was shown above.

Reply Obj. 3: God sees the effects of created causes in the causes
themselves, much better than we can; but still not in such a manner
that the knowledge of the effects is caused in Him by the knowledge
of the created causes, as is the case with us; and hence His
knowledge is not discursive.
_______________________

EIGHTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 14, Art. 8]

Whether the Knowledge of God Is the Cause of Things?

Objection 1: It seems that the knowledge of God is not the cause of
things. For Origen says, on Rom. 8:30, "Whom He called, them He also
justified," etc.: "A thing will happen not because God knows it as
future; but because it is future, it is on that account known by God,
before it exists."

Obj. 2: Further, given the cause, the effect follows. But the
knowledge of God is eternal. Therefore if the knowledge of God is
the cause of things created, it seems that creatures are eternal.

Obj. 3: Further, "The thing known is prior to knowledge, and is
its measure," as the Philosopher says (Metaph. x). But what is
posterior and measured cannot be a cause. Therefore the knowledge
of God is not the cause of things.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. xv), "Not because they are,
does God know all creatures spiritual and temporal, but because He
knows them, therefore they are."

_I answer that,_ The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the
knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the
artificer is to things made by his art. Now the knowledge of the
artificer is the cause of the things made by his art from