Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…

And his Intellect as an object of it self is not before his Intellect as an Actual Knowledge of himself, nor the cause of it: All the ⟨p. 12⟩sense he can make of it is, that this proposition [Deus est, & est Aeternus, &c.] if it had had an eternal being, would in order of nature have been conceivable to us before this [Deus scit se esse] or before his knowledge it self: or that if man had been the Knower, it had been first a true proposition that He is, before he knoweth that he is. But God knoweth not himself by propositions. Words (in mente vel ore) are but artificial organs for blind creatures to know by. And doth God need such to know himself? Doth he know by Thinking and by Artificial means, as we do? Hath he Entia rationis in his Intellect, as man? (as Propositions are). And had he an Intellect and these Entia rationis or propositions in his Intellect (Deus est, &c.) before he knew them? yea, and his self-knowledge (which in Act is his pure, eternal, necessary Essence) caused by these? All that you can say is, that poor creatures know by Propositions, and phantasms, and diverse thoughts; and that God knoweth man, and therefore knoweth all our propositions and thoughts as ours: but not that he had the like eternally in himself, and knoweth them in himself; and that Himself as a proposition, is the Cause of himself (or self-intellection) as in Act. He can know that you see by Spectacles, and yet not eternally use Spectacles himself as the Cause of his sight.

But Bradwardine saith, that God knoweth illa vera complexa quae voluntatem divinam praecedunt, per solam suam essentiam, sicut alia vera incomplexa; Illa vero quae voluntatem ejus sequuntur, non scit Deus per illa complexa neque per aliquid aliud à voluntate ejus semota, sed per suam voluntatem, vel per suam substantiam cum voluntate, &c. More presumption still! He saith God knoweth complexa sed non complexe; And who knoweth what sense those words have? What meaneth he by complexa but Notions, that is, names and propositions, as distinct from the Things? And what is it to know propositions complex, but to know them as they are? And what is it to know them incomplexe, unless it be to know quid physicum a proposition is, or to know that it is no proposition, that is, to err? If God know a Complexum or a proposition, that Proposition is in being: And where was it in being before God knew it? If in God (or no where) 1. God then is a proposition; 2. And God is before he knoweth himself; 3. And a proposition being in intellectu an act of knowledge, it is to say, that [God knoweth that he is, before he knoweth that he is: and his knowing that he is, causeth him to know that he is].