Chapter XV. Question 15 or ideas

Tuis question determines what must be retained of the exemplarism of Plato, as St. Augustine understood it, in that the exemplary ideas of things are not outside God as Aristotle interpreted it,t but are in Him.?

St. Thomas shows in this question that Augustinian exemplarism cannot be admitted on God’s part without rejecting the principles of Aristotelianism.

FIRST ARTICLE WHETHER THERE ARE IDEAS

The answer is: “As then the world was not made by chance, but by God acting by His intellect, there must exist in the divine mind a form to the likeness of which the world was made, And in this the notion of an idea consists.”¹

Reply to first objection. “God does not understand things according to an idea existing outside Himself.” In fact, the idea, for instance, of man or dog cannot exist outside God and individuals of these species, for their nature implies a common matter (bones and flesh), and these cannot exist apart from individualized matter (these bones, this flesh). But matter in common can be abstracted, or it can be conceived apart from individualized matter, but it cannot exist apart from such matter.*

Reply to second objection. The divine essence, as being representative of creatable and created things, is of the nature of an idea or exemplar. Similarly, in accordance with the reply to the third objection, it must be said that the divine idea is identical with God’s essence, as known, and as it is capable of participation and imitation in various ways ad extra.

SECOND ARTICLE WHETHER THERE ARE MANY IDEAS IN GOD

There are many ideas in God, inasmuch as there can be no idea of the whole world unless there are proper ideas of those things which constitute the world. But this plurality of ideas is not repugnant to God’s simplicity, because the divine ideas are identical with God’s essence as known and capable of imitation in various ways ad extra.

“Now it is not repugnant to the simplicity of the divine mind that it understand many things; though it would be repugnant to its simplicity were His understanding to be formed by a plurality of images,” or determined by these in understanding them, as St. Thomas says in this article.

It must be remarked that God, by understanding His essence, inasmuch as it is the principle of variously possible creatural imitation, and as it is the terminus of this relation of imitability, which declares a real relation of the creature to it, is in no real relation to creatures.

St. Thomas likewise says in another of his works: “And therefore the divine essence, which implies a knowledge of the various

‘degrees in which things are related to it, is the idca of each par- ticular thing. Hence, since there is a diversity in the degrees of relationship of things to it, there must be a plurality of ideas owing to the various degrees in which creatures are related to it.” 5 He also says: “God understands the relation of things to His essence, and so these relations are in God as understood by Him.” ®

THIRD ARTICLE WHETHER THERE ARE IDEAS OF ALL THINGS THAT GOD KNOWS

The difficulty is whether God has ideas of evil, primary matter, and not only of created natures, but also of singulars and accidents.

These questions were already raised by Plato in the elaboration ë De veritate, q.3, a.2. 6 Ibid., ad 8um.

of his exemplarism, a system which was perfected by St. Augustine.

The answer is that the idea, as an exemplar, refers to everything made by God in any period of time, and the idea as the principle of knowledge refers to all possible things. Hence, as stated in the reply to the first objection, “there is no idea of evil in God, neither in so far as an idea is an exemplar (because God is not the cause of evil) nor as a type (because evil is known by God not through its own type, but through the type of good).”

The reply to the third objection posits another corollary: “Since we hold matter to be created by God, though not apart from form, matter has its idea in God; but not apart from the idea of the composite; for matter in itself can neither exist nor be known.

Reply to fourth objection. Accidents that are properties of some created nature do not have a special idea that is distinct from the idea of this nature. But accidents which supervene to the subject have their special idea. And providence extends to individuals, as will be shown later.’

Hence, as the Thomists say, God has actually practical ideas of. those things which He does or will do, because they are determined for realization by a decree of His will.§ But God has virtually practical ideas of possible things, because they are not meant for realization by a decree of His will. St. Thomas stated this clearly in the following passage: “The (divine) idea is determined by a decree of the divine will as regards those things that either are or will be or were produced; but it is not so determined as regards those things that neither are nor were nor will be produced; and so the ideas of things of this kind (possible things) are to some extent undetermined.” ®

The causality of the divine idea is an exemplary causality, or one of extrinsic form, just as the idea of a house is in the mind of the architect. Therefore the divine ideas are the exemplars of things, but they are produced only “according to the determination of the divine will and intellect.” 1 .

In this we see what St. Thomas retains of Platonism. Exemplary ideas are not outside God but in God, and the divine ideas are the supreme causes of things, but in so far as the determination of the divine liberty is joined to them, which is not what Plato said. But as regards our intellectual knowledge, the divine ideas are not immediately known by our intellect, as the ontologists said,

7 De veritate, q-22, a.3. 8 Summa theol., la, q-19, a.4. 9 De veritate, q.3, a.6.

10 Summa theol., Ia, q.19, a.4; see also q.14, a.8, in which there is already a veiled reference to this exemplarism.

OF IDEAS 479 nor can they be immediately seen without our seeing God’s essence; but they are known mediately in the mirror of sensible things, as being the supreme norms and eternal types of things.

On this point St. Thomas says: “One thing is said to be known in another in two ways. First, as in an object itself known; as one may see in a mirror the images of things reflected in it. Thus the soul, in the present state of life, cannot see all things in the eternal types; but it is in this way that the blessed know all things in the eternal types, for they see God and all things in Him.

“Secondly, one thing is said to be known in another as in a principle of knowledge: thus we might say that we see in the sun what we see by the sun. And thus we must say that the human soul knows all things in the eternal types, since by participation of these types we know all things. For the intellectual light itself which is in us is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternal types.” 11

Thus the divine ideas are the eternal exemplary forms of beings and created intellection. This means that the created being and created intellection have the same ultimate foundation. In other words, if there is harmony between being and intellect, between the laws of the mind and the laws of being, it is because created intellect and created being proceed from the same supreme cause.

This constitutes the ultimate metaphysical foundation for the ontological validity of our knowledge which by way of investigation begins with facts of experience and first principles of reason and being, and ascends to God. As St. Thomas says: “By way of investigation we come through knowledge of temporal things to that of things eternal. . . . By way of judgment, from eternal things already known, we judge of temporal things, and according to laws of things eternal we dispose of temporal things.” 12

Thus the holy Doctor retains what must be retained of Plato’s exemplarism as St. Augustine conceived it; yet he does not depart from the moderate realism of Aristotle, and he avoids all the excesses of idealism.

Footnotes

1. End of argumentative part of this article. ↩