A Response to Professor Feser
For when we call the builder the principle of the house, in the idea of such a principle is included that of his art; and it would be included in the idea of the first principle were the builder the first principle of the house. God, Who is the first principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed.
- Summa Theologica, Vol. I, q. 27, article 1, reply to objection 3.
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, for as much as they represent the divine idea, as a material house is like to the house in the architect’s mind.
- Summa Theologica, Vol. I, q. 44, article 3, reply to objection 1.
For just as an architect, without injustice, places stones of the same kind in different parts of a building, not on account of any antecedent difference in the stones, but with a view to securing that perfection of the entire building, which could not be obtained except by the different positions of the stones; even so, God from the beginning, to secure perfection in the universe, has set therein creatures of various and unequal natures, according to His wisdom, and without injustice, since no diversity of merit is presupposed.
- Summa Theologica, Vol. I, q. 65, article 2, reply to objection 3.
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