Art of God

Emery points out that Thomas’ Trinitarian account of creation makes the Word the art of God: “The Word is . . . the reason of creatures from a double point of view, that of exemplar causality (the expression, the conception of creatures) and that of efficient causality (the accomplishment of results, the production of creatures in being). In this way, the name Verbum signifies first of all the divine person of the Son in his relation to the Father, but, in a secondary sense, this name equally includes an expressive and causal relationship with regard to creatures. It is by virtue of his property as Word , in all its extension, that the Son is the creative Art of the Father and the ratio of the production of creatures.”