Knowing Oneself in Another

Rosemann ( Omne ens est aliquid. Introduction a la lecture du ‘systeme’ philosophique de saint Thomas d’Aquin , 200-1) argues that the presence of God to Himself is a presence “sans ombre et sans absence,” that is, total presence without shadow or a dialectical relation to absence.

That does not mean, however, that God’s presence to Himself is un-mediated. On the contrary, Rosemann argues, the ontological lesson of Trinitarian theology is that “all presence is representation” (“toute presence est representation”). He quotes Thomas to the effect that God Himself knows Himself fully through the Wisdom of God, which is the Word of God, and glosses: “Dieu Lui-meme doit s’exterioriser pour se connaitre, voire pour etre Lui-meme, pour etre Dieu,” but this exteriorization is not exterior to God. The Wisdom or Word by which God knows Himself is Himself God: “Dieu . . . s’est toujours deja trouve dans sa Parole, parce que l’autre qui Le represent a Lui-meme ne saurait etre different de Lui” (202).

God knows Himself in this “autodifferenciation” that overcomes the difference between “exterior” and “interior,” in which “le et moi coincident; l’exteriorisation es interiorisation; dan l’acte meme de devenir ‘autre’ que soi, Dieu a toujours deja fait retour sur soi” (204).