SOURCE: An introduction in Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings, edited and translated by Simon Tugwell, Paulist Press, 1988, pp. 3-129.

In the following excerpt, Tugwell investigates Albert's theological writings on epistemology, especially those that concern human knowledge of God.

In 1241 William of Auvergne, by now bishop of Paris, together with the Masters of the University, issued a formal condemnation of several propositions, of which the first is that "the divine essence will not be seen in itself either by any human being or by any angel." The ninth proposition is that "whoever has better natural endowments will of necessity have more grace and glory," which almost certainly reflects a Neoplatonist doctrine of hierarchy, apportioning divine illumination strictly according to ontological status. The other condemned propositions do not directly concern us here but, as M. D. Chenu has shown [in Melanges Auguste Pelzer, 1947], they all seem to derive from an...