Nicomachean Ethics

...according to the two powers of the intellectual soul, namely the active or speculative mind. For two operations are usually attributed to God: one active, in a certain manner, by which He produces and governs this universe; the other contemplative, by which He understands Himself and all things that are said to reflect in Him. But then men seem to become like God especially in operation when they act according to that power which is supreme and the most excellent of all those that are in us. Moreover, the Philosopher says in the tenth book of the Ethics that the operation of God, surpassing in blessedness, is without controversy contemplative. And therefore, among human operations, that man is undoubtedly supremely happy whose operation is most akin to it. And a little lower, he says: “For God, the whole of life is blessed; for men, however, there is some such likeness of this operation as far as they are concerned.” Nevertheless, our operations and cognitions differ from the divine in a marvelous way: for God, by understanding Himself, understands all things that are said to reflect in Him, and thus always understands in a sort of circle. We, however, first know things as if by a straight line; then, step by step, the soul knows that it knows, and understands that it understands, and in this way gradually turns toward itself and comes to the knowledge of itself and its essence. God, however, perpetually and most perfectly understands Himself and all things that are said to reflect in Him. Therefore, on account of the greatest difference by which our cognition differs from that supreme and most perfect divine cognition, there is added in the cited definition: “as far as is possible.” Philosophy is, therefore, a likeness through which man, by contemplating and acting, becomes similar to God—similar, I say, as far as is possible. The fourth is the definition of Plato, which is also taken from the perspective of the end, when he says: “Philosophy is the meditation on death.” And Plato says this happens most of all when we recall the mind from the senses and withdraw the soul as much as possible from the body. Where