Cognitio Dei Communis et Confusa: Aquinas on Common & Confused Knowledge of God

With Oskari Juurikkala, DCL, DTheol, Assistant Professor of Fundamental Theology, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.

In the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas speaks of “a common and confused knowledge of God which is found in practically all men” (SCG III.38). This knowledge or cognition is evidence that “man can immediately reach some sort of knowledge of God by natural reason.” Unlike in the Five Ways, this cognition of God neither discursive now demonstrative. Rather, “when men see that things in nature run according to a definite order, and that ordering does not occur without an orderer, they perceive in most cases that there is some orderer of the things that we see.” This statement is rarely mentioned in studies of natural theology. Thomas himself says that this cognition of God does not enable us to grasp “who or what kind of being” this orderer of nature is, nor “whether there is but one” or more of them. Still, Aquinas’ account of the common and confused cognition of God is both insightful as a psychological theory and a potentially helpful tool for analyzing some 19th and 20th century debates in natural theology. It provides a plausible account of why most people, past and present, have believed in God or gods but often in a confused manner that is open to polytheism. Moreover, it may be that many so-called design arguments are ultimately attempts to elaborate on this intuitive sense that God exists, rather than proper demonstrations.