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029 - Xxix Of The Likeness Of Creatures · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty nine of Summa Contragentilees, First Book on God,
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  Speaker 1: by Saint Thomas aquinas translated by the Fathers of the
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  Speaker 1: English Dominican Province. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty nine of The Likeness of Creatures. In sequence
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  Speaker 1: to the above, we may consider in what way it
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  Speaker 1: is possible to find in things a likeness to God,
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  Speaker 1: and in what way it is impossible for effects that
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  Speaker 1: fall short of their causes do not agree with them
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  Speaker 1: in name and ratio. And yet there must needs be
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  Speaker 1: some likeness between them, because it is of the nature
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  Speaker 1: of action that a like agent should produce a like action.
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  Speaker 1: Since everything acts according as it is in act, wherefore
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  Speaker 1: the form of the effect is found in its transcendent
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  Speaker 1: cause somewhat, but in another way and another ratio, for
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  Speaker 1: which reason that cause is called equivocal. For the Sun
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  Speaker 1: causes heat in lower bodies by acting according as it
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  Speaker 1: is in act. Wherefore the heat generated by the Sun
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  Speaker 1: must needs bear some likeness to the Sun's act of power,
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  Speaker 1: by which heat is caused in those lower bodies, and
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  Speaker 1: by reason of which the Sun is said to be hot,
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  Speaker 1: albeit in a different ratio. And thus it is said
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  Speaker 1: to be somewhat like all those things on which it
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  Speaker 1: efficaciously produces its effects, and yet again it is unlike
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  Speaker 1: them all in so far as these effects do not
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  Speaker 1: possess heat and so forth, in the same way as
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  Speaker 1: they are found in the sun. Thus, also God bestows
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  Speaker 1: all perfections on things, and in consequence he is both
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  Speaker 1: like and unlike all. Hence it is that Holy writ
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  Speaker 1: sometimes recalls the likeness between Him and his creatures, as
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  Speaker 1: when it is said in Genesis one twenty six, let
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  Speaker 1: us make man to our image and likeness, while sometimes
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  Speaker 1: this likeness is denied, according to the words of Isaiah
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  Speaker 1: forty eighteen, to whom then have you likened God? Or
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  Speaker 1: what image will you make for him? And of the
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  Speaker 1: Psalm O God, who shall be like to thee Dionysius
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  Speaker 1: is in agreement with this argument, for he says in
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  Speaker 1: on the Divine Names nine, the same things are like
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  Speaker 1: and unlike to God, like according as they imitate Him
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  Speaker 1: as far as they can, who is not perfectly imitable,
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  Speaker 1: unlike according as effects fall short of their causes. However,
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  Speaker 1: according to this likeness, it is more fitting to say
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  Speaker 1: that the creature is like God than vice versa. For
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  Speaker 1: one thing is like another when it possesses a quality
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  Speaker 1: or form thereof, Since then what is in God perfectly
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  Speaker 1: is found in other things by way of an imperfect participation,
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  Speaker 1: that in which likeness is observed in God's simply, but
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  Speaker 1: not in creatures. And thus the creature has what is God's,
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  Speaker 1: and therefore is rightly said to be like God. But
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  Speaker 1: it cannot be said in this way that God has
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  Speaker 1: what belongs to his creature. Wherefore, neither is it fitting
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  Speaker 1: to say that God is like his creature, as neither
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  Speaker 1: do we say that a man is like his portrait,
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  Speaker 1: although we declare that his portrait is like him. And
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  Speaker 1: much less properly can it be said that God is
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  Speaker 1: assimilated to the creature. For assimilation denotes movement towards similarity,
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  Speaker 1: and consequently applies to one that receives its similarity from another.
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  Speaker 1: But the creature receives from God its similarity to him,
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  Speaker 1: and not vice versa. Therefore God is not assimilated to
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  Speaker 1: his creature, but rather vice versa. End of Chapter twenty nine,
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  Speaker 1: read by Michael Shane, Craig, Lambert Elsie