EXEMPLARITY OF GOD

The doctrine that God, besides being the efficient and final cause of creation, is also its exemplar. An exemplary cause is the model according to which something is made or done. The extramental model, if there be one, responds to an idea in the mind of the maker or doer. The exemplary cause is necessarily and intimately united with the final and efficient causes in producing an effect. However, it is properly called an extrinsic formal cause because of its affinity to the intrinsic formal cause, which intrinsically actualizes and specifies the effect. Thus, in educing the form (intrinsic formal cause) out of the clay, the potter (efficient cause) is guided by his idea (exemplary cause) of a vessel which must hold two quarts of water (final cause).

The doctrine of exemplarism began to be formulated when man first questioned how "the many" could come from "the one," or how one exemplar could be multiplied in many individuals. The scholastics solve the difficulty by saying: it is true that no creature can perfectly represent or imitate the divine perfection, which is infinite; but God, who is a voluntary agent, produces many creatures so that what is lacking to one creature's representational capacity is supplied by another's (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1a, 47.1). The degrees of imitation of the divine essence range from the pure potentiality of prime matter to the superior beings which, while they approach God, can never be equal to Him because of His infinity (Summa contra Gentiles 2.45, 46). The uncreated ideas are many, and yet do not destroy the divine simplicity because they are identified with the divine essence. They are said to be "many"—even infinite in number—inasmuch as God knows His essence as imitable by creatures in an infinite number of ways (Summa theologiae 1a, 15.1–3; 44.3; In Dion. de div. nom. 4.2; 5.3).

The uncreated exemplars can be said to be the total idea that God has of Himself as imitable by creatures. Indeed, the Word is this total idea because He is the perfect expression, always actual, of the infinite number of ways that creatures can imitate God; and, in fact, "all things were made through him [the Word]" (Jn 1.3). Hence it is that the Word is the exemplar of creation, and that Christ is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn f every creature" (Col 1.15, 16; cf. Prv 8.30; St. Thomas, In Ioann. 1.2; In Col. 1.4).

See Also: causality, divine; exemplary causality; image of god; logos; similarity.

Bibliography: a. ampe, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire, ed. m. viller et al. (Paris 1932—) 4.2:1870–78. l. van der kerken, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 3:1294–95. p. beillevert, Catholicisme 3:276–288. h. volk, Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, ed. h. fries (Munich 1962–63) 2:494–517. t. m. sparks, De divisione causae exemplaris apud S. Thomam (River Forest, Ill. 1936).

[c. j. chereso]