ARTICLE IV

In the Fourth Article We Ask: DOES THE FATHER UTTER ALL CREATURES IN THE WORD BY WHICH HE UTTERS HIMSELF?

Difficulties:

It seems not, for

1. When we say that the Father utters Himself, all that is signified is one uttering and something uttered, and the Father alone is signified by both. Now, since the Father does not produce the Word from Himself except as He utters Himself, it seems that creatures are not uttered by the Word which proceeds from the Father.

2. The word by which each thing is expressed is its likeness. "The Word cannot be called a likeness of creatures," as Anselm proves, because either it would resemble creatures perfectly--and then it would be changeable and without its sublime immutability--or it would not resemble them perfectly--and then it would lose its sublime truth, because the truth of a likeness is in direct proportion to its conformity with that whose likeness it is. Hence, the Son is not the Word by which creatures are uttered.

3. The word of creatures is said to be in God as the word of his products is in a craftsman. Now, the word of his products in a craftsman is merely the plan he has with respect to them. Therefore, the word of creatures in God is merely the plan He has made with respect to creatures. But God's plans for His creatures are predicated of the essence, not of a person. Hence, the word by which creatures are uttered is not the Word that is a personal predicate.

4. Every word is related as an archetype or image to that which is uttered by it. When a word causes a thing, as happens in the practical intellect, then that word is an archetype. When, however, a thing causes a word, as happens in our speculative intellect, then that word is an image. Now, in God there cannot be the word of a creature that is the image of a creature. Hence, the word of creatures that is in God must be an archetype of creatures. But the divine archetype of creatures is an idea. Therefore, the divine word of creatures is simply an idea. An idea, however, is predicated of God, not personally, but essentially. Consequently, the Word which is predicated personally of God, and by which the Father utters Himself, is not the word by which creatures are uttered.

5. The distance separating creatures from God is greater than that which separates them from other creatures. Now, in God there are many ideas of different creatures; hence, the Father does not utter Himself and creatures in the same word.

6. According to Augustine: "The Son is called the Word for the same reason that He is called an image." Now, the Son is not an image of creatures but only of the Father. Hence, He is not the word of creatures.

7. Every word proceeds from that whose word it is. But the Son does not proceed from creatures. Hence, He is not the word by which creatures are uttered.

To the Contrary:

1'. Anselm says that by uttering Himself the Father uttered all creatures. But the Word by which He uttered Himself is the Son. Therefore, by the Word, which is the Son, the Father utters all creatures.

2'. Augustine explains the expression, "He spoke and it was made," as meaning: "He begot the Word in which all things were in order to come into existence." Therefore, by the Word which is the Son the Father uttered all creatures.

3'. By the same act, the artist is turned toward his art and his work. But God Himself is the eternal art from which creatures are produced like works of art. Therefore, in the same act, the Father is turned toward Himself and to all creatures. Hence, by uttering Himself, He utters all creatures.

4'. Whatever is subsequent is reduced to what is first in that class as to its cause. Now, creatures are uttered by God. Therefore, they are reduced to the first which God utters. But God first utters Himself. Hence, by the fact that He utters Himself, He utters all creatures.

REPLY:

The Son proceeds from the Father in the manner of nature inasmuch as He proceeds as a Son, and in the manner of intellect inasmuch as He proceeds as the Word. We find both types of processions in ourselves, although not in the same respect. For in our case nothing proceeds from something else both in the manner of nature and in the manner of intellect, because with us the act of understanding and the act of existing are not the same--which they are in God.

Moreover, in both types of procession the difference between procession from God and procession from us is similar. For a human son, proceeding in the manner of nature from a human father, receives only a part of his father's substance, not all of it; but the Son of God, proceeding in the manner of nature from the Father, receives all of His Father's nature in such a way that both the Father and the Son have absolutely one and the same numerical nature.

This difference is also found with respect to the intellectual processions. The word expressed in us by actual consideration and arising, as it were, from a consideration of a thing known previously, or at least from habitual knowledge, does not receive into itself the whole of that from which it had its origin. For, in the conception of one word, the intellect expresses not all but only part of what it possesses in its habitual knowledge. Similarly, what is contained in one conclusion does not express all that was contained virtually in its principle. However, for the divine Word to be perfect, it must express whatever is contained in that from which it had its origin, especially since God sees all things, not in many intuitions, but in one. Consequently, whatever is contained in the Father's knowledge is necessarily and entirely expressed by His only Word and in the very same manner in which all things are contained in His knowledge. In this way it is a true word, whose intellectual content corresponds to that of its principle. Through His knowledge, moreover, the Father knows Himself, and, by knowing Himself, He knows all other things. Hence, His Word chiefly expresses the Father and, as a result, all other things which the Father knows by knowing Himself. Therefore, because the Son is a word that perfectly expresses the Father, the Son expresses all creatures. This sequence is outlined by the words of Anselm, who said that by uttering Himself the Father uttered all creatures.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. When we say that the Father utters Himself we signify that in this utterance every creature is included, since the Father's knowledge contains all creatures, being, as it were, their archetype.

2. Anselm is taking likeness in its strict sense, as Dionysius does when he says that, when things are ordered equally to each other, we receive a mutual likeness; that is, one thing can be said to be similar to the other and the other similar to it. But, properly speaking, no such mutual likeness is found between a cause and its effect. We say that a picture of Hercules resembles Hercules, but not that Hercules resembles the picture. Hence, since the divine Word is not, like our word, made in the likeness of a creature, but rather the opposite is true, Anselm means to say simply that the Word is not a likeness of creatures but creatures are a likeness of the Word.

However, if likeness is taken in its broader meaning, then we can say that the Word is a likeness of creatures, not, however, in the sense that it is an image of creatures, but in the sense that it is their archetype. Taking the term in this meaning, Augustine calls ideas likenesses of things.

Finally, it does not follow that the highest truth is not in the Word merely from the fact that the Word remains unchanged while existing creatures change; for the truth of a word does not demand that it be a likeness with the same nature as that of the thing declared by the word; it is enough if it is a true representation of the thing, as we have pointed out previously.

3. The divine plan for creatures is called a word, properly speaking, only if this plan proceeds from another--and is therefore a begotten plan. This, however, like begotten wisdom, is a personal predication. Taken simply, the divine plan is an essential predication.

4. A word differs from an idea, for the latter means an exemplary cause and nothing else, but the word in God of a creature means an exemplary form that is drawn from something else. Hence, a divine idea pertains to the essence, but a word, to a person.

5. Even though the greatest possible distance separates God from a creature because of what is proper to each, God is the model in whose likeness creatures are created. There is no creature that is a model for another creature. Hence, in that Word by which God is expressed every creature is expressed; but the idea by which one creature is expressed does not express another. Thus, this is another difference between the Word and an idea. The reason for this is that an idea is directly related to a creature; hence, for many creatures there are many ideas. On the other hand, the Word is directly related to God, whom the Word expresses first, and then, as a consequence, expresses creatures. Because all creatures are one as they exist in God there is only one Word for all of them.

6. When Augustine says that the Son "is called a Word for the same reason that He is called an Image," he is referring to the distinguishing personal characteristic of the Son, which remains the same whether He is called, because of it, the Son, the Word, or the Image of the Father. But in the manner of signifying, these three predicates are not of the same type, for word implies not only the notion of origin and imitation but also that of manifestation. Consequently, the Word is, in a fashion, the word of creatures, because creatures are manifested by means of the Word.

7. A word can belong to something in different ways. First, it can belong to one who is speaking. Taken in this sense, it proceeds from him whose word it is. Second, it can belong to that which is made manifest by the word. In this sense, the word does not necessarily proceed from that whose word it is, unless the knowledge from which the word proceeds has been caused by things. However, this is not true of God's knowledge. Hence, the conclusion does not follow.