ON THE DIVINE IDEA.
The Divine Idea, the Exemplar or Pattern, in conformity with which the intellect and free will of man, and whatever is their combined work, finds its perfection.
All persons are familiar with the expression “beau ideal,” and in judging of matters of taste nothing is more common than to appeal to the standard of an “ideal”; as, for instance, the statue of the “Apollo Belvedere” would be, and is commonly said to realize, the “ideal” of the human form. Of course the ideal thus appealed to, as existing generally in the minds of persons of education, is nothing in itself absolutely certain or determinate. But, as far as it goes, it is a natural indication that the standard and measure of all perfection is an “ideal.” For we see that an ideal which is generally recognized and acknowledged by persons of taste and refinement does, in point of fact, come to be a standard, the authority of which is accepted to a great extent by others.
What is, then, in a measure true of an “ideal” subsisting in the mind of persons of education, as a standard of perfection, must be infinitely true of the idea of creation subsisting in the mind of God from all eternity. But as this leads to a speculative portion of Christian philosophy which can scarcely be deemed popular, and might perhaps give rise in some minds to the feeling “parturiunt montes,” if they found that an abstruse foundation had been formally laid only for the superstructure of a discussion upon plain chant, the few remarks that have seemed necessary to explain and justify the ground on which the ensuing essay proceeds have been collected together, and are here given in the form of an introduction, for the sake of burdening the discussion as little as possible with reasoning that does not properly belong to it.
All creation, according to Catholic theology, is the work of the ever-blessed Trinity. For only inasmuch as the Godhead subsisting in a Trinity of persons is for itself a perfect and undivided whole (κοσμος τελειος) can God bring into being a creation external to himself, without becoming himself the world which he creates.
To God the Father theologians assign the eternal idea, or the conception from all eternity of the idea or form of creation;
To God the Son, the realization of the idea of the Father, or the act of bringing created things into being out of nothing, in conformity with the idea of the Father;
To God the Holy Ghost, the bringing creation to its perfection through the period of its development or growth.
S. Basil speaks to this effect in the following passage: “In the creation I regard the Father as the first cause of created being, the Son as the creating cause, and the Holy Ghost as the perfecting cause. So that spirits, through the will of the Father, are called into actual being through the operation of the Son, and are brought to perfection by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let no one, however, think either that I assume the existence of three original substances or that I call the operation of the Son imperfect. For there is but one first principle (αρχη), which creates through the Son and brings to perfection through the Holy Ghost” (De Spiritu Sancto, c. 16).
The work, then, of God the Father was the eternal idea of all creation; in the language of S. Gregory Nazianzen, εννοει ὁ πατηρ—και το εννοημα (idea) ἐργον ην, λογῳ συμπληρουμενον και πνευματι τελειουμενον (Orat. xxxviii. n. 9); and this thought or idea was a work brought into reality by the Word, and brought to perfection by the Spirit.