 He begins by diverging from Scotus’s account of cognition. Scotus suggests that cognition of God, and cognition generally, can occur in one of two ways: either abstractively or intuitively. Intuitive cognition is meant to include a human’s more-or-less direct sensory experience of the external world. Abstractive cognition, on the other hand, is knowledge from a distance; it abstracts from the presence and existence of the thing, as when we remember a deceased acquaintance or perform astronomical calculations in a windowless room.