ARTICLE II

In the Second Article We Ask: ARE THERE MANY IDEAS?

Difficulties:

It seems not, for

1. The things which are predicated essentially of God are not less true of Him than those which are predicated personally of Him. Now, a plurality of personal properties involves a plurality of persons, and for this reason God is said to be triune. Consequently, since ideas are essential perfections because common to all three Persons, if the number of ideas is determined by the number of things that there are, it follows that there are not only three Persons but an infinite number of them.

2. It was said, however, that ideas are not essential properties, since they are the essence itself.--On the contrary, God's goodness, wisdom, and power are His essence, yet they are said to be essential attributes. Therefore, even though they are His essence, ideas can be called His essential properties.

3. Whatever is attributed to God should be attributed to Him as existing in the most noble manner possible. Now, God is the principle of all things; hence, whatever pertains to the nobility of a principle should be said to exist in Him in the highest possible degree. However, unity is a perfection of this sort, because, as is said in The Causes: "Every power is more infinite when it has unity than when it is multiplied." Hence, the highest unity is in God. He is, therefore, not only one in reality, but also one in concept, because that which is one in both respects is more one than that which is one merely in one respect. Consequently, many intelligible characters or ideas do not exist in God.

4. The Philosopher says: "What is entirely one cannot be separated either by intellect, time, place, or concept--especially with regard to its substance." Consequently, if God is one in the highest degree because He is being in the highest degree, conceptual distinctions are not applicable to Him; so, our original position stands.

5. If there are many ideas, they must be unequal, because one idea will contain only the act of existence, another, both existence and life, a third, both of these and intellection besides--according as the thing, whose idea it is, resembles God in one or many respects. But, since it is inconsistent to say that there is any inequality in God, it seems that there cannot be many ideas in Him.

6. Material causes can be reduced to one first matter, and efficient and final causes can be reduced in a similar manner. Consequently, formal causes can also be reduced to one first form. The end-term of this reduction, however, will be ideas, because, as Augustine says: "these are the principal forms or intelligible characters of things." Hence, there is only one idea in God.

7. But it was said that, although there is only one first form, ideas are nevertheless said to be many because of the different relations this form has.--On the contrary, it cannot be said that ideas are multiplied because of their relation to God in whom they exist, for He is one; nor can they be multiplied because of their relation to what is made according to them and as these creatures exist in the first cause, since, as Dionysius says, in the first cause creatures exist as one. Finally, ideas cannot be multiplied because of their relation to what is made according to them and as these things exist in their own natures, because creatures are temporal and ideas are eternal. Hence, there is no possible way of saying that the ideas are many because of their relation to the first form.

8. The relation between God and creature does not exist in God; it exists only in the creature. But an idea or exemplar implies a relation of God to a creature. Therefore, that relation is not in God but only in the creature. Now, since the idea is in God, ideas cannot be multiplied by relations of this sort.

9. An intellect that knows by means of many species is composite and moves from one to another. But this way of knowing is far from God's way. Therefore, since ideas are the intelligible characters of things by which God understands, it seems that there are not many ideas in Him.

To the Contrary:

1'. The same thing under the same aspect can, of its very nature, produce only one and the same reality. But God produces many and different things. Hence, God causes things, not according to one concept, but according to many concepts. But the concepts by which God produces things are ideas. Therefore, there are many ideas in God.

2'. Augustine says: "It remains, therefore, that all things are created by plan, but a man not by the same plan as a horse. So to think would be absurd." Each thing is therefore created according to its own plan; hence, there are many ideas.

3'. Augustine says that it is just as wrong to say that the plan which God has of man in general is the same as that of this man in particular as it is to say that the idea of an angle is the same as that of a square. It seems, therefore, that there are many plans in God's ideas.

4'. The Epistle to the Hebrews (11:3) states: "By faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God; that from invisible things visible things might be made." Note that he refers to the ideal species as invisible things (plural). Hence, there are many ideas.

5'. The saints call ideas art and the world, as is clear from the authorities cited. But art implies plurality, for art is a collection of precepts converging toward one end. World has a similar connotation, since it implies the collection of all creatures. Hence, we should affirm the existence of many ideas in God.

REPLY:

While admitting that God acts through His intellect and not under the compulsion of His nature, some have said that He intends only one thing, namely, creature in general, and the distinction between creatures is brought about by secondary causes. They declare that God first established one intelligence that produced three things: a soul, the world, and another intelligence; and by means of this procession a plurality of things issued forth from the one first principle. According to this position, there would, indeed, be an idea in God, but only one common to all creation. The proper idea of each individual thing would exist only in secondary causes. This opinion, Dionysius says, was held by a certain philosopher named Clement, who maintained that higher beings were the archetypes of lower.

This opinion, however, cannot stand, because if the intention of an agent is directed toward one thing only, whatever else that follows is apart from his intention and, as it were, a chance happening, which happens accidentally in conjunction with that which he principally intended. This would make the agent like someone who wants to produce something that is triangular, and whether it is small or large is a matter of indifference to him. Now, to whatever is general something special is indirectly connected. Hence, if an agent intends merely something general, in whatever way it is determined by something special it is entirely apart from his intention. For example, if nature intends to generate only an animal, it is apart from nature's intention that what is generated be a man or a horse. Consequently, if God's intention when He acts regards only creatures in general, then all distinction between creatures happens by chance. But it is hardly correct to say that this difference between creatures is related only accidentally to the first cause and essentially to second causes, since what is essential is previous to what is accidental, and the relation of a thing to the first cause is previous to its relation to a second cause, as is clear from The Causes. Consequently, it is impossible for the distinction between creatures to be related only accidentally to the first cause and essentially to a second cause. The opposite, however, can happen; for we see that those things that happen by chance as far as we are concerned are foreknown by God and ordained by Him. Hence, we must say that all the distinction between things is predefined by God. Consequently, we must affirm that intelligible characters proper to individual things exist in God and that for this reason there are in Him many ideas.

From this the plurality of ideas can be understood. A form can exist in the intellect in two ways. First, it can exist there so as to be a principle of the act of understanding, as is the form had by a knower in so far as he understands. This is the likeness of what is understood, existing in him. Second, the form can exist in the intellect so as to be the end-term of the act of understanding. For example, by understanding an architect thinks out the form of a house; and since that form has been thought out by means of an act of understanding and is, as it were, effected by that act, it cannot be a principle of the act of understanding and thus the first means by which the understanding takes place. It is, instead, the understood, by which the knower makes something. Nevertheless, it is the second means by which understanding takes place, because it is by means of the excogitated form that the architect understands what he is to make. Similarly, with respect to the speculative intellect, we see that the species by which the intellect is informed so that it can actually understand is the first means by which understanding takes place; and because the intellect is brought into act by means of this form, it can now operate and form quiddities of things, as well as compose and divide. Consequently, the quiddities formed in the intellect, or even the affirmative and negative propositions, are, in a sense, products of the intellect, but products of such a kind that through them the intellect arrives at the knowledge of an exterior thing. Hence, this product is, in a fashion, a second means by which understanding takes place. If, however, the intellect of an artist were to produce a work that resembled itself, then, indeed, the very intellect of the artist would be an idea, not in so far as it is an intellect, but in so far as it is understood.

Now, with respect to those things made in imitation of something else, we sometimes find that they imitate their archetype perfectly. In such a case, the operative intellect when preconceiving the form of what was made, possesses as an idea the very form of the thing imitated precisely as the form of the thing imitated. At other times, however, we find that that which is made in imitation of another is not a perfect imitation. In this case, the operative intellect would not take as its idea or archetype the form of the archetype itself, absolutely and exactly as it is, but it takes it with a definite proportion varying according to the degree of closeness with which the copy imitates the original.

I say, therefore, that God, who makes all things by means of His intellect, produces them all in the likeness of His own essence. Hence, His essence is the idea of things--not, indeed, His essence considered as an essence, but considered as it is known. Created things, however, do not perfectly imitate the divine essence. Consequently, His essence as the idea of things is not understood by the divine intellect unqualifiedly, but with the proportion to the divine essence had by the creature to be produced, that is, according as the creature falls short of, or imitates, the divine essence. Now, different things imitate the divine essence in different ways, each one according to its own proper manner, since each has its own act of existence, distinct from that of another. We can say, therefore, that the divine essence is the idea of each and every thing, understanding, of course, the different proportions that things have to it. Hence, since there are in things different proportions to the divine essence, there must necessarily be many ideas. If we consider the essence alone, however, there is but one idea for all things; but if we consider the different proportions of creatures to the divine essence, then there can be said to be a plurality of ideas.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Personal properties introduce a distinction of persons in God because they are opposed to each other by relative opposition. But properties that are not opposed, such as common spiration and paternity, do not distinguish one person from another. Moreover, neither the ideas nor other essential attributes are opposed by relative opposition. Hence, there is no similarity.

2. The same thing is not true of ideas and essential attributes. In their principal meaning, the essential attributes do not signify anything more than the essence of the Creator. Hence, strictly speaking, they are not plural, although God is compared to creatures with reference to them. For example, with reference to His goodness, we say that creatures are good; with reference to His wisdom, we say that they are wise. An idea, however, in its principal meaning signifies something other than God's essence, namely, the proportion a creature has to His essence; and this completes the formal notion of an idea. Because of this there are said to be many ideas. Nevertheless, the ideas may be called essential attributes inasmuch as they are related to the essence.

3. A plurality of concepts is sometimes reduced to a diversity in the thing. For example, there is a rational distinction between Socrates and Socrates sitting, and this is reduced to the difference that there is between substance and accident. Similarly, man and animal differ rationally; and this difference is reduced to the difference between form and matter, because genus is taken from matter but the specific difference from form. Consequently, such a conceptual difference is repugnant to the highest unity or simplicity. On the other hand, a conceptual difference sometimes is reduced not to any diversity in the thing, but to its truth, which can be understood in different ways. It is in this sense that we say that there is a plurality of intelligible characters in God. Hence, this plurality is not repugnant to His highest unity or simplicity.

4. In this passage, the Philosopher speaks of intelligible characters as definitions. But we cannot talk of there being many intelligible characters in God as though these were definitions, for none of these comprehends the divine essence. Hence, this passage is not to the point.

5. The form in the intellect has a double relationship. It is related not only to the thing whose form it is, but also to the intellect in which it exists. On the basis of its first relation, the form is not said to be of a certain kind but rather of a certain thing, for the intellectual form of material things is not a material form, nor is the intellectual form of sensible things sensible. It is on the basis of its second relationship that the intellectual form is said to be "of a certain kind," because its kind is determined by that in which it exists. Hence, from the fact that some of the things of which ideas are had imitate the divine essence more perfectly than others, it does not follow that the ideas are unequal, but that they are ideas of unequal things.

6. The one first form to which all things are reduced is the divine essence, considered in itself. Reflecting upon this essence, the divine intellect devises--if I may use such an expression--different ways in which it can be imitated. The plurality of ideas comes from these different ways.

7. The ideas are multiplied according to the different relations they have to things existing in their own natures. It is not necessary that these relations be temporal even if the things are temporal, because the action of the intellect--even of the human intellect--can extend to something even when it does not exist, as, for example, when we know the past. Moreover, as is said in the Metaphysics, a relation follows upon action; hence, even relations to temporal things are eternal in the divine intellect.

8. The relation existing between God and creature is not a real relation in God. However, it is in God according to our manner of understanding Him; similarly, it can be in Him according to His own manner of understanding Himself, that is, in so far as He understands the relation things have to His essence. Thus, these relations exist in God as known by Him.

9. An idea does not have the character of that by which a thing is first understood, but, rather, of that which is understood and is existing in the intellect. Moreover, whether or not there is to be but one form in the understanding is determined by the unity of that by which a thing is first understood, just as the unity of an action is determined by the unity of the form of the agent which is its principle. Hence, although the relations understood by God are many (and it is in these relations that the plurality of ideas consists), nevertheless, because He understands all things by means of His essence, His understanding is not multiple but one.