Ordinatio

As concerns the second article, then [n.285], I concede that every respect of a creature to God belongs to the third mode of relatives [n.296]. And not in relations alone does the vestige consist, but in some absolutes [n.295], and perhaps in some respect as in the third part of itself, according to what Augustine assigns as part of the vestige in On the Trinity 6.10 n.12, where he says of creatures, “All these things that are made by divine art also display a certain unity in themselves and species and order.” Now unity is an absolute perfection, as is plain from his examples there, “one thing is something, as the natures of bodies etc.” Species too, or form, is something absolute, as is plain from his examples in the same place, “just as of bodies there are qualities, so also of souls there are teachings.” Now order states a respect, but not to the ultimate end but to operation; hence he says, “it holds an ordering, as are weights, arrangements of bodies, and loves or delights of souls.” These three [sc. unity, species, order], thus taken, represent, under the idea of likeness, three things corresponding to them in God, because unity represents the supreme unity of the first principle, whence is the origin; and as to this Augustine says there, “In the Trinity is the supreme origin of all things.” Species in the creature represents supreme beauty, hence he adds it is “the supreme beauty.” Order or operation in the creature represents the most perfect operation in God, and as to this he adds, “and most blessed delight.”

Many other things too can be assigned in creatures which, as being alike, represent something in divine reality appropriated to the persons, as one, true, and good. One in creatures represents the unity appropriated to the Father; true the truth appropriated to the Son; good the goodness appropriated to the Holy Spirit. And all these perfections are disposed in an absolute way, and represent absolute perfections of God appropriated to the Persons.

In another way is the vestige multiply assigned, either in things that represent through the idea of likeness what is appropriated to the Persons, or that do so through the idea of what is proportional. Now I say that they ‘represent proportionally’ when the idea of the representing thing is not formally in God but something proportional to that idea is, as in the case of the assignment ‘mode and species and order’, which the assignment in Wisdom 11.21, “in number, weight, and measure,”¹ seems to be the same as. For mode is taken for limitation, and for the same thing is measure taken in Wisdom 11.21, and weight is there taken for order and number for species. Number or species, and weight or order, are expounded as they were in the first exposition or assignment [nn.298-299]. But measure (which here is the same as mode) does not represent anything under the idea of the like but of the proportional, because the limitation of what has been produced represents the un-limitation of the producer. And thus is plain in what the vestige in creatures consists, and in respect of what in divine reality, because in respect of things appropriated to the Divine Persons [nn.293-300].

But how then is the idea of vestige, which is a likeness of a part [n.293], now taken in divine reality, since in divine reality there are no parts? Response. The Trinity is, as it were, a certain numerical whole, at least in concept of the intellect, and a Person there is, as it were, a part of this whole; thus too what is appropriated to a Person, insofar as it is appropriated, is there as it were a part of the same, because it is taken for that to which it is appropriated. And not only this, but what can be appropriated, though it is not taken as appropriated, is still there a part, as it were, of the same; for the idea of it, as it is and as it is taken, is completely preserved in one Person, and consequently its idea does not posit the Trinity but does posit concomitantly the unity of any Person in whom it is. Although, therefore, the creature commonly represents neither a Person as a Person (who in our intellect is as it were a part of the Trinity), nor what is appropriated as appropriated (for thus it is not known unless what it is appropriated to be known), yet it does represent what can be appropriated, in which the idea of a part is as it were preserved (in the way already stated [here supra]) with respect to the Trinity.