Choose a topic from Part 1:
1. An idea or concept is the mind's grasp of an essence. It is the understanding of what a definition means. Thus the idea human being is the mind's grasp of human being as such. It is the mind's grasp in one act of understanding of an essence that may be found in many individuals, and indeed is found in every man, woman, and child. Thus an idea or concept represents in universal an essence that may exist really in individuals. The idea or concept is called the species (or, more completely, the expressed intelligible species) in which things are understood. Now, since God perfectly understands all essences, we say that the ideas of all things are in God.
2. Yet the ideas of all things in God are not separate species in him; they do not bring complexity into the absolute simplicity of God. God's knowledge is not manifold in itself, but only in the creatural objects known. In knowing himself, God knows all things knowable, and hence God's essence is the single species in which he knows all things. This is what we must ever keep in mind as we use the imperfect human expression, "In God are the ideas of all things".
3. In so far as the divine ideas are concepts of things that can be created, they are called exemplars. In so far as these ideas are concepts of things simply knowable rather than creatable, they are called types or archetypes. Thus we say: in God are the exemplar-ideas and archetypal-ideas of all things.
"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director."
St Philip Neri
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"A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se."
St Philip Neri
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