Chapter 29 — That in God there is understanding neither in potency nor in habit, but in act

Since in God nothing is in potency but all is in act, as has been shown, God cannot be intelligent either potentially or habitually but only actually. An evident consequence of this is that he undergoes no succession or change in understanding. For the intellect that understands many things successively must understand one thing actually while understanding another only potentially. So if God understands nothing in potency, his understanding is free from all succession. Accordingly, whatever he understands, he understands simultaneously, for among things that are simultaneous there is no succession. It also follows that he does not begin to understand anything. For the intellect that begins to understand something was previously in potency to understanding.

It is likewise evident that God’s intellect does not understand discursively, proceeding from one truth to the knowledge of another, as is the case with our intellect in reasoning. A discursive process of this sort takes place in our intellect when we advance from the known to a knowledge of the unknown, or of what we had not actually thought of before. Such processes cannot occur in the divine intellect.