 As a matter of fact, faith is not science (knowledge)—fides non est scientia (De aetern., 366)—and no comprehensive science of the divine is possible. Metaphysics might be a candidate, for all sciences are subordinated to metaphysics, and qua metaphysician a philosopher will know that there is a First Cause (like all of his contemporaries, Boethius held that causal chains cannot be infinite). However, knowing that there is a First Cause does not imply knowing it to a degree that one can capture it in a definition that delimits its possible effects and can be used as a premise in an Aristotelian demonstration—that would require it to have causes through which it could be known. No such knowledge is possible, it would amount to knowing the divine will, which is not accessible to rational investigation. Hence, as the First Cause is fundamentally inscrutable, it is not possible to simply deduce the axioms of lower sciences as theorems of metaphysics.