Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. An idea is for knowing and causing things. But an accident is known by means of its substance, and is caused by the principles of the substance. Hence, it need not have an idea in God.

2. But it was stated that the existence, not the essence, of an accident is known by means of its subject.--On the contrary, the definition of a thing signifies what it is, especially by giving its genus. But, in the definitions of accidents, as is said in the Metaphysics, are placed substance and the subject, in the sense in which subject is used instead of the genus, as the Commentator notes. For example, we say: "Snub means a curved nose." Consequently, we know the essence of an accident by knowing the substance.

3. Whatever has an idea participates in it. But accidents do not participate in anything, because participation is proper only to substances since they alone can receive something. Accidents, therefore, do not have ideas.

4. In regard to those things that are predicated as prior and subsequent, in Plato's opinion an idea should not be taken as common, e.g., as applied to numbers and geometrical figures. This is clear from the Metaphysics and Ethics. The reason for this is that the first is, as it were, the exemplar of the second. Now, being is predicated of substance and accident as prior and subsequent. Therefore, an accident does not have an idea, but has substance in the place of an idea.

To the Contrary:

1'. Whatever is caused by God has its idea in God. Now, God causes not only substances but accidents as well. Therefore, accidents have an idea in God.

2'. Every inferior of a genus should be reduced to the first of that genus, just as everything that is hot is reduced to the heat of fire. Now, as Augustine says: "Ideas are principal forms." Consequently, since accidents are forms, it seems that they have ideas in God.

REPLY:

As the Philosopher says, Plato, who first introduced the notion of ideas, posited ideas, not for accidents, but only for substances. The reason for this was that Plato thought that the ideas were the proximate causes of things. Hence, when he found a proximate cause other than an idea for a thing, he held that the thing did not have an idea. This also is the reason why he said that there is no common idea for those things that are predicated as being prior and subsequent, but that the first is the idea of the second. Dionysius also mentions this opinion, attributing it to a certain Clement the Philosopher, who said that superior beings were the exemplars for inferior. Using this argument, namely, that accidents are caused directly by substances, Plato did not posit ideas of accidents.

On the other hand, since we affirm that God is the direct cause of each and every thing because He works in all secondary causes and since all secondary effects are results of His predefinition, we posit ideas in Him not only of first beings but also of second beings, and, consequently, both of substances and of accidents, but of different accidents in different ways.

First, there are proper accidents, which are caused by the principles of their subjects and never have existence apart from their subjects. These accidents are brought into existence together with their subject by one operation. Consequently, since an idea, properly speaking, is a form of something that can be made, considered precisely under this aspect, there will not be distinct ideas of such accidents. There will be only one idea, that of the subject with all its accidents--just as an architect has one form of a house and of all the accidents that pertain to a house as such, and by means of this one form brings into being the house and all its accidents, such as its square shape and the like.

There are other accidents, however, that are not inseparable from their subject and do not depend on its principles. These are brought into existence by an operation other than that by which the subject is produced. For example, it does not follow from the fact that a man is made a man that he is a grammarian; this is the result of another operation. Now, the ideas in God of such accidents are distinct from the idea of the subject, just as the form of a picture of a house, which an artist conceives, is distinct from the form he conceives of the house itself.

If we take idea in its broader sense, however, as meaning a likeness, then we can say that both types of accidents have distinct ideas in God, because He can know each one in itself distinctly. This is why the Philosopher says that, with respect to their manner of being known, accidents should, like substances, have ideas; but with respect to the other reasons why Plato posited exemplars, namely, to be the causes of generation and of being, it seems that only substances have ideas.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. As we said above,* there is in God an idea not only of first effects but also of second effects. Hence, even though accidents have their act of existence by means of substances, this does not prevent their having ideas.

2. An accident can be taken in two ways. First, it can be taken in the abstract. In this way, it is considered according to its proper nature, a genus and species are given it, and its subject is not placed in its definition as a genus but rather as a specific difference. In this sense we say: "Snubness is a curvature of the nose." On the other hand, an accident can be taken in the concrete. In this way, it is considered according as it has an accidental unity with its subject. Hence, neither a genus nor a species is assigned to it. Here it is true that the subject is put in the place of the genus in the definition of an accident.

3. Although an accident is not that which participates, it is, however, a participation. Hence, it is clear that in God there is an idea or likeness corresponding to it.

4. The response to this difficulty is clear from what has been said.