Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes

1. Ideas as Exemplar Causes

1 one IDEAS AS ExEMPLAR CAUSES “[I]n the divine mind,” Thomas Aquinas tells us, “there are exemplar forms of all creatures, which are called ideas, as there are forms of artifacts in the mind of an artisan.”1 Time and again throughout his career, Thomas affirms the existence of such forms in the mind of God, and time and again he presents these ideas as the exemplars of created things.2 The type of causality that the divine ideas exercise can thus be described as exemplar causality, or exemplarism . Exemplarism, however, is not limited to the divine ideas. As the above quotation suggests, the ideas of a human artisan can also be considered exemplars. In fact, Thomas holds that exemplars need not even be ideas at all. In order to begin to understand the causality of the divine ideas, therefore, we must first consider what exemplar causality is in general and in what way an idea, whether human or divine, can be said to be an exemplar. ^ 1. Quod. 8, a. 2 (Leonine ed., vol. 25.1.54:23–26): “In mente diuina sint omnium creaturarum forme exemplares,quae ideae dicuntur, sicut in mente artificis formae artificiatorum.” 2. See, e.g., In I Sent., d. 36, q. 2, a. 1 (Mandonnet ed. [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929], vol. 1.839–40); De ver., q. 3, a. 3 (Leonine ed., vol. 22.1.107–8:85–174); In V De div. nom., lect. 3, n. 665 (C. Pera, ed. [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1950], 249); ST, I, q. 15, a. 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 4.199). 2 WhaT IS an exemPlar? Central to exemplarism is the characteristic of similitude or likeness (similitudo). Likeness, however, is not a trait that is unique to exemplars—indeed, likeness implies that there is another that shares in the similitude. As Thomas explains, a likeness can exist in something in one of two ways: either as in a principle or as in something that shares a likeness to a principle. only the former such likeness, however, has the character (ratio) of an exemplar; the latter has, instead, the character of an image (imago). Thomas notes that an image is called such because it is produced in imitation of something else, that is, in imitation of an exemplar.3 Hence, he commonly describes an exemplar as “that in the likeness of which something is made.”4 Consequently, Thomas sees a dependence of an image upon its exemplar for the likeness that is present in it. The notion of “image ” adds something to that of “likeness,” namely, that the image is the expression of another (ex alio expressum). Thus, for example, no matter how much one egg is similar and equal to another, Thomas explains that we would not call the first egg the image of the second because the likeness of that second egg is not expressed by the first.5 Conversely, we might add that neither, therefore, is that second egg the first one’s exemplar. Here we begin to get a better sense of the philosophical notion of exemplarism. It is true that in common parlance we often refer to the finest example of something as an exemplar. In this sense, a perfect egg might well be described as an exemplar for other eggs, or a perfect student as an exemplar 3. SCG Iv, c. 49 (Leonine ed., vol. 15.34.51–56); ST I, q. 35, a. 1, ad 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 4.372); q. 93, a. 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 5.401). 4. In Lib. de caus., prop. 14 (Saffrey ed. [Fribourg and Louvain: Société philosophique de Fribourg, 1954], 85.12–13): “exemplar est id ad cuius similitudinem fit aliud.” Cf. De ver., q. 3, a. 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 22.1.99:177–82); Quod. 8, q. 1, a. 2 (Leonine ed., vol. 25.1.54:42–3); In V De div. nom., lect. 3, n. 665 (Marietti ed., 249); ST I, q. 35, a. 1, ad 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 4.372). 5. ST I, q. 93, a. 1 (Leonine ed., vol. 5.401). IDEAS AS ExEMPLAR CAUSES 3 for other students. But as Marie-Charles Perret observes, “when they [philosophers] speak of a thing’s exemplar, it is not for them a given member of a series; it is not simply the first member, the ‘first edition,’ the prototype of which all of the other members in...