The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas - El Camino ...

The Person of the Son 215
creates and recreates them. It is once again the analogy of the mental word
which enables this to be shown:
The word interiorly conceived is a kind of notion and likeness of the thing known.
And the likeness of one thing in another has the character of an exemplar, ifitisits
principle, or, instead, it is an image if the likeness is drawn from another, who is its
principle. And one can Wnd examples of both aspects in our intellect. On the one
hand, the likeness of a work of art existing in the mind of the artist is the principle of
the operation by which the work of art is produced: it is thus related to the work of art
as a model or exemplar is related to the thing which issues from the exemplar. On the
other hand, the likeness of a natural reality conceived in our intellect is related to that
reality, whose likeness it is, as to its principle, for our act of understanding takes its
principle from the senses which are aVected by natural things. And God knows both
himself and he knows things, as we have seen, and his understanding is the principle
of the things which he knows, since they are caused by his intellect and his will: these
things are related to that Intelligible which is God himself, as to their principle. And
this Intelligible which is God is identical to the [divine] intellect which knows, and of
which the Word conceived is, as it were, an emanation. The Word of God is therefore
related to the other things God knows as their exemplar, and he is related to God [the
Father], whose Word he is, as Image. This is why Colossians 1.15 says that the Word is
the Image of the Invisible God.153
These considerations give us a synthesis of Thomas’ thought and of his
method. The end in view is to give an account of the name Image, which
Scripture gives to the Son (in this case Col. 1.15). This requires one to make
use of analogy. By starting from that which is proportioned to our understanding,
one can grasp that which transcends our reason. This analogy is in
fact the mental word, which for St Thomas constitutes the best way of thinking
about the mystery of the Son. Within this analogy, he examines the relations
which the word has: the relation to the principle which forms the word, and
the relations to the things conceived and made through the word. Transposed
into God, and taking account of what belongs to God alone, the analogy
enables one to unfold the relation of the Son to the Father: the Son is the
Image of the Father, as a personal, intra-Trinitarian property. But it also allows
one to disclose the relation of the Son in respect of creatures: being the Image
of the Father, he is, therefore, the Model for creatures. This is why the Son is
the First-born of all creation. Thomas writes that,
God knows himself, and he does not know creatures through someone else: he knows
all things in his essence, as being the Wrst cause which produces them. And the Son
is the Father’s intellectual conception, through which God knows himself, and,
153 SCG IV, ch. 11 (no. 3474).