Whether Ideas Are Many?
Objection 1: It seems that ideas are not many. For an idea in God is
His essence. But God's essence is one only. Therefore there is only
one idea.
Obj. 2: Further, as the idea is the principle of knowing and
operating, so are art and wisdom. But in God there are not several
arts or wisdoms. Therefore in Him there is no plurality of ideas.
Obj. 3: Further, if it be said that ideas are multiplied according to
their relations to different creatures, it may be argued on the
contrary that the plurality of ideas is eternal. If, then, ideas are
many, but creatures temporal, then the temporal must be the cause of
the eternal.
Obj. 4: Further, these relations are either real in creatures only,
or in God also. If in creatures only, since creatures are not from
eternity, the plurality of ideas cannot be from eternity, if ideas
are multiplied only according to these relations. But if they are
real in God, it follows that there is a real plurality in God other
than the plurality of Persons: and this is against the teaching of
Damascene (De Fide Orth. i, 10), who says, in God all things are one,
except "ingenerability, generation, and procession." Ideas therefore
are not many.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi),
"Ideas are certain principal forms, or permanent and immutable types
of things, they themselves not being formed. Thus they are eternal,
and existing always in the same manner, as being contained in the
divine intelligence. Whilst, however, they themselves neither come
into being nor decay, yet we say that in accordance with them
everything is formed that can rise or decay, and all that actually
does so."
_I answer that,_ It must necessarily be held that ideas are many. In
proof of which it is to be considered that in every effect the
ultimate end is the proper intention of the principal agent, as the
order of an army (is the proper intention) of the general. Now the
highest good existing in things is the good of the order of the
universe, as the Philosopher clearly teaches in _Metaph._ xii.
Therefore the order of the universe is properly intended by God, and
is not the accidental result of a succession of agents, as has been
supposed by those who have taught that God created only the first
creature, and that this creature created the second creature, and so
on, until this great multitude of beings was produced. According to
this opinion God would have the idea of the first created thing
alone; whereas, if the order itself of the universe was created by
Him immediately, and intended by Him, He must have the idea of the
order of the universe. Now there cannot be an idea of any whole,
unless particular ideas are had of those parts of which the whole is
made; just as a builder cannot conceive the idea of a house unless he
has the idea of each of its parts. So, then, it must needs be that in
the divine mind there are the proper ideas of all things. Hence
Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi), "that each thing was
created by God according to the idea proper to it," from which it
follows that in the divine mind ideas are many. Now it can easily be
seen how this is not repugnant to the simplicity of God, if we
consider that the idea of a work is in the mind of the operator as
that which is understood, and not as the image whereby he
understands, which is a form that makes the intellect in act. For the
form of the house in the mind of the builder, is something understood
by him, to the likeness of which he forms the house in matter. 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. Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things
understood by it; as can be proved thus. Inasmuch as He knows His own
essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it
can be known. Now it can be known not only as it is in itself, but as
it can be participated in by creatures according to some degree of
likeness. But every creature has its own proper species, according to
which it participates in some degree in likeness to the divine
essence. So far, therefore, as God knows His essence as capable of
such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular type
and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other
creatures. So it is clear that God understands many particular types
of things and these are many ideas.
Reply Obj. 1: The divine essence is not called an idea in so far as
it is that essence, but only in so far as it is the likeness or type
of this or that thing. Hence ideas are said to be many, inasmuch as
many types are understood through the self-same essence.
Reply Obj. 2: By wisdom and art we signify that by which God
understands; but an idea, that which God understands. For God by one
understands many things, and that not only according to what they are
in themselves, but also according as they are understood, and this is
to understand the several types of things. In the same way, an
architect is said to understand a house, when he understands the form
of the house in matter. But if he understands the form of a house, as
devised by himself, from the fact that he understands that he
understands it, he thereby understands the type or idea of the house.
Now not only does God understand many things by His essence, but He
also understands that He understands many things by His essence. And
this means that He understands the several types of things; or that
many ideas are in His intellect as understood by Him.
Reply Obj. 3: Such relations, whereby ideas are multiplied, are
caused not by the things themselves, but by the divine intellect
comparing its own essence with these things.
Reply Obj. 4: Relations multiplying ideas do not exist in created
things, but in God. Yet they are not real relations, such as those
whereby the Persons are distinguished, but relations understood by
God.
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