Sect. 81The Divine Wisdom in Relation to Its External Activity—the Divine IdeasThe Divine Wisdom in Relation to Its External Activity—the Divine Ideas

I. Idea, ἰδεά, commonly signifies the mental representation which the artist has of his work (ratio rei faciendæ). The ideal is the highest conception of a thing. In the language of the Church, the expressions idea, exemplar, forma, species, εἶδος, are often used synonymously.

1. All the works of God are produced with perfect knowledge of what they ought to be, and all are intended to represent and manifest the Supreme Being, Beauty, and Goodness. Hence all the works of God are works of wisdom, or rather works of His wise art. “Thou hast made all things in wisdom” (Ps. 103:24). “Wisdom is the worker of all things” (Wisd. 7:21). Philosophically and theologically this doctrine is expressed as follows: God operates ad extra by artistic ideas, and all that is outside God is essentially a product and an expression of a Divine Idea.

2. The Ideas of the Divine Wisdom are, however, very different from the ideas which guide the human artist. The former are truly creative ideas, modelling not only the external appearance of things, but setting up and informing their very essence; and, being identical with God, they have in themselves the power of actuating themselves. They are absolutely original ideas, drawn from, and identical with, the Divine Substance, essentially proper to God and eternal (λόγοι οὐσιώδεις, rationes æternæ). The ideas of the created artist, on the other hand, are only relatively original; even his noblest inspirations are mostly determined by external circumstances.

3. The foundation of the Divine ideas is the infinitely perfect Divine Essence, containing in itself the perfections of all things, imitable ad extra in finite things, and comprehended as so imitable by the infinite Intellect of God. All beings outside God are, by their essence, a participation, i.e. an imperfect copy or imitation, of the Divine Being: hence their types or ideas must exist in the Divine Essence, and must be the object of the contemplation of the Divine Mind. Moreover, because of the simplicity of the Divine Substance, the ideas, their foundation and the mind contemplating them, are all one; and therefore created things are contained in God, not only as in an abstract mental representation, but as in their real model and type.

4. How many ideas are there in God? Materially there is only one idea in Him, as there is only one ideal for all things together as well as for each in particular. In His absolutely simple and infinitely rich Essence, God contemplates in one idea the type of all possible imitations ad extra. Formally speaking, however, He has as many ideas as He knows to be possible representations of His Essence.

5. Although God knows evil, still there is no ideal of evil in the Divine Mind. For evil is not a positive formation, but a difformity or deformation of things; it is not a work of the Divine Wisdom nor a work of God at all.

6. The creative power of the Divine ideas enters into action only when God decrees so by an act of His Will.

II. 1. It is essentially a work of the Divine Wisdom to give order, harmony, and organization to the things representing the Divine Ideas; to unite them in one harmonic whole, in which each holds its proper place, and each and all tend to the end proposed by the Creator. Holy Scripture calls this ordaining operation a measuring, numbering, and weighing: “Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight” (Wisd. 11:21).

2. A further attribute of the Divine Wisdom is to determine the ideal perfection to which creatures should tend as to their ultimate object, and to establish the laws by which this object is to be aimed at and attained. The laws that regulate the movements of creatures are implanted in their nature, and are, as it were, identified with their substance, thus offering an image of the eternal law in God. To rational creatures especially, the Divine Wisdom prescribes laws for the right direction of their actions towards their end. These laws are “written in the heart” (Rom. 2:14, 15), and read there by means of the light of reason. The Divine Wisdom appears here as “doctrix disciplinæ Dei,” as a guide and educator, leading man on to the participation of the All-Wise life in God.

On the relation between the eternal law in God and the natural law, see St. Thomas, 1 2, q. 91, a. 2.

III. The infinite perfection of the Divine Wisdom involves the knowledge of all the ways and means of realizing the ultimate object of creation. God knows which acts and operations should be produced or prevented, and He knows how to direct every action and operation to its end, so that nothing upsets His plans, but everything is made subservient to them. In this sense the spirit of eternal wisdom is called πανεπίσκοπον and ἀκώλυτον, overseeing all things, unimpeded (Wisd. 7:23), and of Wisdom itself it is said: “She reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisd. 8:1). The perfection of the Divine Providence is best seen in its dealings with the free will of man. Freedom of action, including freedom to commit sin, would undermine the stability of any but an infinite Providence. God, however, Who foreknows the future and its contingencies, Who has the power to bring about or to prevent even the free actions of His creatures, and to Whose Will all things are subservient—God is able to direct evil actions to good ends, and thus to attain His own wise objects.