The Continuity between the Prima pars and the Secunda pars of the Summa theologiae

Therefore, because the principle intention of this sacra doctrina is to pass on the knowledge of God [Dei cognitionem tradere], and not only insofar as he is in himself, but also as he is the principle of things and their end—and especially of the rational creature, which is clear from what has been said [in STh I, q. 1]; intending the exposition of this doctrina, first we will treat God [de Deo]; second the motion of the rational creature to God [in Deum]; third, Christ who, insofar as he is human, is our way of tending to God [via est nobis tendendi in Deum]. The consideration of God [de Deo] will be tripartite. First, we will consider those things which pertain to the divine essence; second, those things which pertain to the distinction of Persons; third, those things which pertain to the procession of creatures from him. (Prologue to STh I, q. 2)

Because, as Damascene states, man is said to be made to the image of God, insofar as through image is signified [a being] intellectual and free in judgement [arbitrio liberum] and powerful in itself; after what has been said before about the exemplar, i.e., God, and about those things which proceeded from divine power according to his will; it remains that we ought to consider his image, i.e., man, insofar as he is also the principle of his works, as [quasi] having freedom in decision and power of his works. (Prologue to the Secunda pars of the STh)

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In reference to a previous essay, we recall that the divine free decision to create comes in the third section of the Prima pars. The breakdown of the Prima pars’ de Deo investigation, as outlined in the prologue to STh I, q. 2 (P-I-Q2), comprises three parts: those things which pertain to the divine essence (STh I, qq. 2–26), those things which pertain to the distinction of Divine Persons (STh I, qq. 27–43), and finally those things which pertain to the procession of creatures from God who is One and Three (STh I, qq. 27–43). Additionally, when we look at the relation between the different parts of P-I-Q2, we see that this final section of the Prima pars (which considers those things which pertain to the procession of creatures from God) links the themes of the Prima pars to the opening of the Secunda pars. As Aquinas explains in the middle part of P-I-Q2: “Intending the exposition of this [sacra] doctrina… [we will secondly consider] the motion of the rational creature to God [in Deum].” This motion, obviously, corresponds to what Aquinas covers in the Secunda pars.

If we consult, again, Aquinas’s resumé of STh I, q. 1 in the first part of the P-I-Q2, we recall that he divides the “knowledge of God” proper to this sacra doctrina between (1) the knowledge of God “as he is in himself,” and (2) the knowledge of God “as he is the principle of things and their end.” The first part, evidently, matches his analysis in the first two sections of the Prima pars (i.e., the divine essence and the distinction of Divine Persons). The second part aligns with (1) his analysis in the final sections of the Prima pars (i.e., the procession of creatures from God), as well as with (2) the Secunda pars and the Tertia pars (which share a movement in Deum). If we were to attempt a more precise division, we could say that the knowledge of God “as he is the principle of things” (i.e., God as he is in himself and as he is the cause of creatures) corresponds to the final section of the Prima pars, while the knowledge of God as he is “their end” corresponds to the Secunda pars and to the Tertia pars. Once again, the threefold division found in the P-I-Q2 reminds us that the Secunda pars and the Tertia pars sharing the same formality (i.e., God as the end of creatures “and especially of the rational creature”).

Aquinas does not divide the entelechy of the Secunda pars from that of the Tertia pars. They both share the same formality (in Deum). Moreover, Aquinas does not envision the Prima pars (i.e., as discussing not only God in se but also God ut principium) as separated from the Secunda pars or the Tertia pars. Of course, the P-I-Q2 establishes a distinction between the three parts of the Summa theologiae. Aquinas’s litterae, however, suggest that these three parts constitute pedagogical steps according to the integrated ordo disciplinae Aquinas invoked in the Summa theologiae’s general prologue. The Secunda pars and the Tertia pars—like the Prima pars—form part of the unified sacra doctrina that Aquinas wishes to exposit for incipientes. And the subjects covered in the Secunda pars and in the Tertia pars all emerge from—and are deeply linked to—God’s free decision to create and to redeem. Both the Secunda pars and the Tertia pars proceed from divine freedom and in reference to the human creatures who are also free as God’s imagines.

The “motion of the rational creature to God [in Deum]” in the Secunda pars, and the consideration of Christ who is “our way of tending to God [via… in Deum]” in the Tertia pars, both depend upon the third section of the Prima pars—which considers “those things which pertain to the procession of creatures” from God. And it is exactly this final section of the Prima pars (STh I, qq. 27–43) that enjoys considerable significance in light of what follows in the Secunda pars (and in the Tertia pars). And this final section of the Prima pars depends upon the free decision of God to create.¹

Neither the creative nor the redemptive acts of God enjoy absolute necessity. God could have not created without in any way contradicting his being and nature. Moreover, God could have created without also redeeming his creation. Neither creation nor redemption can claim a share in the infinite necessity proper to God himself. Additionally, creation and redemption do not possess a mutual necessity. The fact of God’s creative act did not necessitate the following act of redemption. Finally, neither creation nor redemption change the simplicity proper to the divine necessity. God did not have to create. He did not have to redeem. And having created and having redeemed, God remains as he would have been had he decided not to create or not to redeem.

Obviously, however, God did create; and Aquinas did write the Secunda pars. Moreover, God did redeem; and Aquinas did write the Tertia pars. With the implicit content of divine freedom indicated in the final section of the P-I-Q2 (and exposited in the third part of the Prima pars), we now return to Aquinas’s prologue to the Secunda pars (P-II). We note that P-II contains three integrated parts. The first part introduces the nature of image. The second part summarizes what had preceded (in the Prima pars) under the aspect of exemplarity. The third part establishes the specific image-qualities in man that reflect the exemplarity of God. As we noted earlier, Aquinas introduces the Secunda pars with reference to John Damascene and man created in the image of God. Aquinas then explains “through ‘image’ is signified [a being] intellectual and free in judgment and powerful in itself.” The characteristics that will guide Aquinas’s Secunda pars analysis are contained in the nature of the imago. The imago itself encompasses the intellect, free rational judgment, and a per se power to execute one’s decision.² These imago-elements, however, do not subsist in abstraction from Aquinas’s previous considerations in the Prima pars. This imago is the imago Dei. Therefore, the metaphysical exemplarity of God himself—considered in the Prima pars—carries over to the second part of the Summa theologiae. Aquinas’s litterae in P-II underscore this continuity: “After what has been said before [praedictum est] about the exemplar [de exemplari], i.e., God, and about those things which proceed from divine power according to his will; it remains that we ought to consider his image, i.e., man, insofar as he is also the principle of his works, [quasi] having free judgment and power of his works.”³

Several key items in this terse transitional summary attract attention. First, Aquinas frames the preceding analysis located in the Prima pars as a consideration of God as exemplar. This summary of the Prima pars under the aspect of exemplarity clarifies the purpose of the Prima pars itself. This illumines what Aquinas outlined in the P-I-Q2. Aquinas constructed the Prima pars with an eye towards what would follow in the Secunda pars. Indeed, the objects of their respective interests overlap. Additionally, we note that STh I, q. 1 also shares in this overlap of interests. the P-I-Q2 expresses what STh I, q. 1 contains (“which is clear from what has been said [i.e., in STh I, q. 1]”). Any overlap shared with the P-I-Q2 is also shared with STh I, q. 1.

The intention of the sacra doctrina, as summarized in the P-I-Q2—and as analyzed in STh I, q. 1—is “to pass on the knowledge of God.” This knowledge, however, touches on God “not only insofar as he is in himself, but also as he is the principle of things and their end—and especially of the rational creature.” P-II contributes the formality of exemplarity to the ordo disciplinae progression of the Summa theologiae. Exemplarity enables readers to comprehend Aquinas’s emphasis on the rational creature in the P-I-Q2. The rational creature, of course, resembles God insofar as the rational creature not only has actual existence (something in common with all of created reality) but intellection and volition (something not shared by all of created reality). Exemplarity frames the whole of the Prima pars in light of the concerns to be treated in the Secunda pars. Indeed, according to this summary of the Prima pars in P-II, we could characterize the Prima pars as a study of God the exemplar and of those things that proceed according to his exemplarity. The Prima pars considers the exemplar (i.e., God) and the exemplification (i.e., the procession of creature from God). The Secunda pars studies the “exemplated” under the aspect of the divine exemplar.⁴ Both the Prima pars and the Secunda pars, however, fall within the formality of exemplarity. And the inherent connection between God as exemplar and man as imago stands as the foundation of Aquinas’s moral considerations in the ordo disciplinae.

In order to avoid misunderstandings, we note here that this point does not render the material covered in the Prima pars moral in nature. The nature and existence of God are not subject to human creation or even to human influence. God is per se necessary. Creatures are per se contingent. And the per se contingent cannot change the per se necessary. Exemplarity is not a quality found in God per se. God is not an exemplar cause essentially, because he is not a cause necessarily. God’s exemplarity is a formality that is only predicated of God in light (and on condition) of his free decision to create. Had God determined not to create, he would not be an exemplar cause. Having determined to create, God’s infinite and necessary being remains unchanged in se, ontologically; but considered from the side of creatures the formality of exemplarity follows the act of creation (STh I, q. 13, a. 7). In other words, exemplarity secundum obiectum is not a formality found in God. Secundum rem, however, the eternal being of God is the ontological reality according to which creatures are created. The formality of exemplarity—as a causal formality—only follows upon the relative objectivity God assumes when he is considered as cause.⁵

Nevertheless, the “exemplificative” act of creation establishes creatures in relation to God. And this real relation of creatures to God is grounded in the divine exemplarity (STh I, q. 44, a. 3). By characterizing the Prima pars under the aspect of exemplarity, Aquinas establishes the scientific link between his consideration of the being of God (Prima pars—the divine exemplar from which rational creatures proceed) and his consideration of the being of creatures in relation to God (Secunda pars—the imago Dei and its in Deum movement). From the side of creatures, exemplarity passively received is expressed as image (STh I, q. 35, a. 1, ad 1). Therefore, exemplarity expresses the relation of creatures to God in light of God, while the dynamics of the image express the relation of creatures to God in light of the creature. This explains why—in Aquinas’s execution of an ordo disciplinae presentation of the sacra doctrina—the exemplar-formality is insufficient. Exemplarity is ordered to image.

If Aquinas had decided not to include in the Prima pars an examination of the creatures’ procession from God, then the notion of exemplarity would not have emerged in the Summa theologiae. Given that he did include this within the Prima pars, however, exemplarity not only emerges but encompasses the whole of the analysis. Moreover, exemplarity plays a key role in the ordo disciplinae formality that unifies the Summa theologiae as a whole. And the overarching importance of the exemplar in the Prima pars results in the ordo disciplinae necessity of the Secunda pars. As Aquinas says: “After what has been said before about the exemplar, i.e., God… it remains that we ought to consider his image, i.e., man.”

The Secunda pars naturally follows upon the Prima pars in Aquinas’s ordo disciplinae—because of the latter’s exemplar formality and the former’s concentration on the imago Dei. And the Prima pars anticipates what the Secunda pars will explicate at length: the moral dynamics of an “imago-being” that is “intellectual and free in judgment and powerful in itself.”

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1. STh I, q. 46, a. 1. For more on creation according to Aquinas, see Mark F. Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle,” The New Scholasticism 63 (1989):129–55; Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “St. Thomas, Norman Kretzmann, and Divine Freedom in Creating,” Nova et Vetera 4, no. 3 (2006): 495–14; Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “Theology and the Metaphysics of Creation,” in Theology Needs Philosophy: Acting Against Reason is Contrary to the Nature of God, ed. Matthew L. Lamb (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 43–53.↩︎

2. See William J. Hill, O.P., Proper Relations to the Divine Indwelling of Persons (Washington: The Thomist Press, nd.) 1–8; D. Juvenal Merriell, To the Image of the Trinity: A Study in the Development of Aquinas’ Teaching (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990); J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, “Imago Dei–Imago Christi: The Theological Foundations of Christian Humanism,” Nova et Vetera 2, no. 2 (2004): 267–78; Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Sonship, Sacrifice, and Satisfaction: The Divine Friendship in Aquinas and the Renewal of Christian Anthropology,” in Theology and Sanctity, ed. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P. (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2014), 69–98.↩︎

3. See STh I, q. 93, a. 2, ad 4; STh I, q. 106, a. 1, ad 3.↩︎

4. The notion of “exemplarity” is essentially linked to the “making” of things (STh I, q. 15, a. 3). See Hill, Proper Relations to the Divine Indwelling, 88–92.↩︎

5. For recent considerations of divine exemplarity in Aquinas’s writings, see Vivian Boland, O.P., Ideas in God According to Saint Thomas Aquinas: Sources and Synthesis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008).↩︎