  Norris espouses a Cartesian theory of human thought, which he delineates in Theory II and Reason and Religion. Norris says that all thought exhibits a certain structure – formal thought, which is the act of thinking, and objective thought, which is the object of the thinking. Like Descartes, Norris claims all thought is about some thing. Formal thought is always the same, whether we are perceiving or “willing, desiring, loving, hating, hoping, fearing…even sensation it self” (Theory II 109). Thoughts differ based upon content. Like Malebranche and unlike Descartes, the object of thought is always God, and “'tis the diversity of this Ideal Object that makes all the diversity and distinction that is to be found in our Thought, whether Natural or Moral” (113). God's omniform essence is always the content of perception, intellection and passion. Indeed, all knowledge is always of God qua divine ideas. When perceiving the ideas, we are viewing “the very same Divine Nature it self, as ‘tis variously imitable or Participable ad extra, according to such or such intelligible Degrees of Being or Perfection” (Theory I 294). Hence, the sole object of our perceptions, both intellectual and sensory, is God. When humans think, we think and conduct proofs in mental propositions, but “ to Speak exactly ‘tis not the mental Proposition that it [our thought] demonstrates, but ‘tis the mental Proposition that demonstrates the real. The former belonging to the Act, as the latter does to the Object of Science” (311, brackets added). Our thoughts are always about the ideal propositions, constituted by the divine ideas as they are related to one another.