m in
matter by reason of the exemplar before him, whether it is the
exemplar beheld externally, or the exemplar interiorily conceived in
the mind. Now it is manifest that things made by nature receive
determinate forms. This determination of forms must be reduced to the
divine wisdom as its first principle, for divine wisdom devised the
order of the universe, which order consists in the variety of things.
And therefore we must say that in the divine wisdom are the types of
all things, which types we have called ideas--i.e. exemplar forms
existing in the divine mind (Q. 15, A. 1). And these ideas, though
multiplied by their relations to things, in reality are not apart
from the divine essence, according as the likeness to that essence
can be shared diversely by different things. In this manner therefore
God Himself is the first exemplar of all things. Moreover, in things
created one may be called the exemplar of another by the reason of
its likeness thereto, either in species, or by the analogy of some
kind of imitation.

Reply Obj. 1: Although creatures do not attain to a natural likeness
to God according to similitude of species, as a man begotten is like
to the man begetting, still they do attain to likeness to Him,
forasmuch as they represent the divine idea, as a material house is
like to the house in the architect's mind.

Reply Obj. 2: It is of a man's nature to be in matter, and so a man
without matter is impossible. Therefore although this particular man
is a man by participation of the species, he cannot be reduced to
anything self-existing in the same species, but to a superior
species, such as separate substances. The same applies to other
sensible things.

Reply Obj. 3: Although every science and definition is concerned only
with beings, still it is not necessary that a thing should have the
same mode in reality as the thought of it has in our understanding.
For we abstract universal ideas by force of the active intellect from
the particular conditions; but it is not necessary that the
universals should exist outside the particulars in order to be their
exemplars.

Reply Obj. 4: As Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv), by "self-existing
life and self-existing wisdom" he sometimes denotes God Himself,
sometimes the powers given to things themselves; but not any
self-subsisting things, as the ancients asserted.
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FOURTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 44, Art. 4]

Whether God Is the Final Cause of All