to create, for, if he created all that he understands, he would,
according to this showing, exhaust his omnipotence, and render
himself imperfect. Wherefore, in order to establish that God is
perfect, we should be reduced to establishing at the same time,
that he cannot bring to pass everything over which his power
extends ; this seems to be a hypothesis most absurd, and most
repugnant to God's omnipotence.
Further (to say a word here concerning the intellect and the
will which we attribute to God), if intellect and will appertain
to the eternal essence of God, we must take these words in some
significance quite different from those they usually bear. For
intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God,
would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human
intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with
them but the name ; there would be about as much correspondence
between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly
constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. This I will
prove as follows. If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it
cannot be in nature, as ours is generally thought to be,
posterior to, or simultaneous with the things understood,
inasmuch as God is prior to all things by reason of his causality
(Prop. xvi., Coroll. i.). On the contrary, the truth and formal
essence of things is as it is, because it exists by
representation as such in the intellect of God. Wherefore the
intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute
God's essence, is, in reality, the cause of things, both of their
essence and of their existence. This seems to have been
recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect,
God's will, and God's power, are one and the same. As,
therefore, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, namely,