e identity of the thing by the composition
itself.

God, however, as considered in Himself, is altogether one and simple,
yet our intellect knows Him by different conceptions because it cannot
see Him as He is in Himself. Nevertheless, although it understands Him
under different conceptions, it knows that one and the same simple
object corresponds to its conceptions. Therefore the plurality of
predicate and subject represents the plurality of idea; and the
intellect represents the unity by composition.

Reply Obj. 1: Dionysius says that the affirmations about God
are vague or, according to another translation, "incongruous,"
inasmuch as no name can be applied to God according to its mode of
signification.

Reply Obj. 2: Our intellect cannot comprehend simple subsisting
forms, as they really are in themselves; but it apprehends them as
compound things in which there is something taken as subject and
something that is inherent. Therefore it apprehends the simple form
as a subject, and attributes something else to it.

Reply Obj. 3: This proposition, "The intellect understanding anything
otherwise than it is, is false," can be taken in two senses,
accordingly as this adverb "otherwise" determines the word
"understanding" on the part of the thing understood, or on the part
of the one who understands. Taken as referring to the thing
understood, the proposition is true, and the meaning is: Any
intellect which understands that the thing is otherwise than it is,
is false. But this does not hold in the present case; because our
intellect, when forming a proposition about God, does not affirm that
He is composite, but that He is simple. But taken as referring to the
one who understands, the proposition is false. For the mode of the
intellect in understanding is different from the mode of the thing in
its essence. Since it is clear that our intellect understands
material things below itself in an immaterial manner; not that it
understands them to be immaterial things; but its manner of
understanding is immaterial. Likewise, when it understands simple
things above itself, it understands them according to its own mode,
which is in a composite manner; yet not so as to understand them to
be composite things. And thus our intellect is not false in forming
composition in its ideas concerning God.
_______________________

QUESTION 14

OF GOD'S KNOWLEDGE
(In Sixteen Articles)

Having considered what belongs to the divine subst