The Franciscan minister general composed a letter on the occasion of the 30 year anniversary of the confirmation of the cult of Scotus, available here.
The Franciscan minister general composed a letter on the occasion of the 30 year anniversary of the confirmation of the cult of Scotus, available here.
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@Garrett So this is my follow up comment to our recent convo on God knowing things directly, posted here for visibility. Hope you don't mind.
1) Couldn't one propose an externalist theory of knowledge in God's knowledge of creation? Where for God to know created beings directly doesn't imply an intrinsic modification in God; rather, God's knowledge is constituted by being in a relation to the created, which is extrinsic to God, yet also at the same time truly vivid & complete?
For example, on an unmediated theory of vision, our seeing a red object in front of us doesn't modify our minds or eyes in any way, rather it's just us being in a relation to the red object - our minds truly go out / are in contact with the external world. This model of sight is unmediated intrinsically and direct, but also doesn't imply there being any intrinsic modifications corresponding to or being caused by the red thing, like a belief that the red thing is in front of us.
Some call this type of direct unmediated knowledge, knowledge-by-acquaintance as well, and it's also considered non-propositional.
Some Thomists, such as Norris Clarke, have also written that the relation of God to creation is an intentional one - where the intentionality terminates God's actions towards creation by the intentional act to sustain their existence, without this implying any change in God's being, or an acquiring of an accident. Similar to how our own free will is self-moving and produces acts of willing without this changing our substance. This could then also apply to God's intentional knowledge of created beings.
I think the unmediated externalist view of knowledge could allow for God directly knowing creatures in principle - is there anything in Scotism though similar to such a view? Could one combine it with a Scotist view of divine knowledge?
2) One last question, unrelated to unmediated or externalist knowledge - how does Scotism generally view God's knowledge of created beings AS EXISTING beings?
Because from what you said, God doesn't just know the essence or formality of creatures independent of them having being, but also knows that they exist, IF they also truly happen to exist.
Is it just God knowing His act of bringing creatures into being along with it being efficacious because God's omnipotence can't fail to produce effects, or is it something more? And even if God knows existing creatures only by knowing Himself, couldn't this still leave open the possibility God truly knows the existing BEING of creatures as it actually is, just through knowing Himself as the medium, but still knowing the SUSTAINED BEING of the object of His knowledge as separate from Himself, and the finite being itself of the creature in its reality?
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