MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOGMA TREATISE I.17. THE IDEAS OF GOD.
ANGELICO, Fra
Crucifixion and Saints (detail)
1441-42
I. By the ideas of God theologians mean those models,
as it were, in the mind of God, according to which creatures
were made. There is nothing outside God which He can
copy or reproduce in creation ; but He made all things as
manifestations or expressions of His perfections. Each
thing, therefore, is in some sense a likeness of something
in God. The divine ideas, then, are the Divine Essence
considered as the infinite reality which is shadowed forth
imperfectly in finite creatures. St. Paul indicates this when
he writes : " The world was framed by the Word of God,
that from invisible things visible things might be made "
(Heb. xi. 3). Some beings imitate God simply in that they
exist ; others in that they have life ; others as having
sense ; and others again as being intelligent, spiritual,
free, immortal, supernatural. Creatures represent variously
God s wisdom, strength, ingenuity, providence, fatherly-love,
beauty. Everything proceeding from the hand of God is
good ; everything should remind us of God, teach us some
thing about Him, and lead us to love Him. Strive to
recognize the hand of God in all that happens, and believe
that all is good for you though it seem to be evil ; even if
it be really evil God will bring forth good from it.
II. We may also understand by the ideas of God the
reflection,, as it were, of each thing separately in the divine
mind ; comparing God s knowledge of things to the images
or impressions formed in our senses by outward substances,
and then conveyed to our brain. Every creature of God
is, in a sense, reflected in God as in a mirror. As God
is immutable, and acquires nothing anew but has always
possessed it, these ideas or reflections have been in Him
from all eternity. Not only did God see in Himself what
we and all things were to be, but He saw all as if actually
existing. When we are admitted to the sight of God we
shall, in seeing His divine mind and participating in His
ideas, see these reflections of all things in Him ; and thus,
without investigation or study, but by a mere glance, we
shall possess our knowledge in God. Your image too has
been impressed on the consciousness of God from all
eternity, as an object of His Providence and His love.
Therefore He says by the prophet : " Behold I have graven
thee in My hands " (Isa. xlix. 16) : and again, " I have loved
thee with an everlasting love " (Jer. xxxi. 3). In return
keep the reflection of God s image always vivid in your
mind.
III. There is one thing that has no counterpart idea
in the mind of God, which derives nothing from Him, and
reflects nothing from out of the great total of reality and
good which exists in Him. That thing is the state of sin.
In sin, therefore, there is no particle of good ; it is the
privation of good and the contradictory of God, as nothingness is the contradiction and the destruction of existence.
It is essentially evil of its own nature ; it is the supreme
evil as being the opposite of supreme good ; and it is the
only real evil, since everything else is from God. God in
deed sees, and knows, and has for ever known our acts
of sin ; after sin He still bears with the sinner patiently,
is mindful of him, loves him, and invites him to penance.
But the state of the sinner is an abomination to God, and
destructive of God in its tendency, and actually exterminates
God from that soul ; and this, of course, cannot become an
idea, i.e. an actuality, in God Himself. Thus the sinner s
state and the supernatural state, i.e. heaven, i .e, God, are
absolutely incompatible. Keep sin, therefore, out of your
mind and your heart. Remember it only for contrition and
atonement. No consequences but evil ones can follow from
essential evil, however plausible its appearance.
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