Chapter VWhat Ectypal Theology Is, and How Many Kinds There Are

The offspring of that primary theology, which, as we said before, we must adore and not investigate, is the secondary theology that we call ectypal (ἔκτυπον). We shall run over its very broad and fertile field as briefly as possible, within fixed bounds set round it. We judge that its definition can fittingly be delivered thus: Thesis VIII. Ectypal theology, whether considered simply (as they say) or in a certain respect, is the wisdom of divine things formed by God from his archetype through the communication of grace, for his own glory. For in this definition are set forth both the preceding genus and difference and the causes themselves that pertain to the just constitution of theology. The genus is wisdom, by which we embrace together all principles, natural and supernatural, reasoning itself as it composes and divides, the conclusions and determinations proceeding from it, the knowledge of all these things, and their use tempered by judgment and ordering. The difference and species, too, are constituted, as before, by the name of divine things. Under the name of divine things we embrace both the truth of what is and must be known and the right of what must be done and shunned. For since this knowledge is in itself perfect in every respect, and since for the just perfection and goodness of this divine image both are needed, the true and the just, both had to be posited in this wisdom, the contemplative and the practical (τὸ θεωρητικόν, καὶ τὸ πρακτικόν): the one consisting in the contemplation of the true, the other in a useful knowledge of the just and unjust, which has and can have nothing in common with the false and the unjust. And all these things, as they are explained in theology, we acknowledge to be divine, not only in object and mode, the respects in which men's contemplative sciences seem to creep along, but also in their end and use, the two things that the wise usually observe in the active kind of sciences, as we showed above in chapter 2. So much for the genus and common difference of theology. Now let us come to the causes expressed in the definition. The chief place among the causes in our definition is held by our declaring that this theology is formed by God. [p. 54] For God himself alone, and not any created thing, is the efficient cause of the habit we call theology. Since God alone is the true light, subsisting of himself, and in him is no darkness, as St. John says most aptly (1 John 1:5); since, finally, God himself is light-in-himself (αὐτοφώς), as the orthodox Fathers among the Greeks elegantly put it, it would be ridiculous for anyone to believe that light comes to created things from anywhere else than from him who is himself light-in-himself (αὐτοφώς). As the sun, therefore, lends the moon its light, so we firmly hold, from the words of his Apostles, that God, in whom is light, and that the true light [col. 1380] which lighteth every man that cometh into this world (John 1:9), is the light of created things, shares his light with them, and makes known in heaven and on earth his manifold (πολυποίκιλον) wisdom (Eph. 3:10; Jas. 1:18). With this efficient cause must be joined another, which we commonly call the final cause. This we expressed in that definition by saying that it is done by God for his own glory. For as God himself is the principle and most powerful efficient cause, so also he is most self-sufficient (αὐταρκεστάτη). Hence he never sets the end of his counsels and actions, in the nature of things or in the dispensation of his grace, outside himself, since he needs nothing outside himself; but all things are ordered to him, as needing him. "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things," says the Apostle: "to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. 11:36). The matter of this wisdom we declared sufficiently for our purpose a little earlier, when we spoke of the divine, or divine things, with which theology is concerned. There remains, then, the weightiest topic, its form and mode, which we touched briefly and distinctly in our definition by saying that theology is formed from that archetype through the communication of grace. For form, properly, whatever the artisan by whom it is made, is posited as twofold: one in the mind of the artisan, the other in the work. And so, as an internal and an external act are considered in our affairs, so also a twofold form, internal and external. We call internal that eternal conception, as it were, of the divine will and grace, considered in God himself; external, the influence of that eternal conception, so to speak, made in its own time upon other things. God forms this wisdom in both ways: inwardly by his most wise counsel, outwardly by his most powerful work. But since this form is twofold, subsisting in God as in a fountain, and drawn off into other things as into pools, it has followed that a twofold account of this wisdom has always rightly and fittingly been observed by the learned: one absolute, or as it is in the very fountain of wisdom, which the common run of the scholastics have named theology simply; the other relative, or as it resides in its pools and reservoirs, which they have named theology in a certain respect. This distinction must be observed most carefully in every discipline, but most of all in this one, in which to stray from the truth is most dangerous. In this inquiry, however, we shall take account not so much of theology simply so called as of theology in a certain respect, because this is above all our theology, by whose communication we all draw from the fullness of God in Christ Jesus (John 1:16). For if anyone should ask what that theology simply so called (which is indeed ectypal) is, I shall answer him altogether by following in the footsteps of the definition given above. Thesis IX. And this theology, simply so called, is the whole wisdom of divine things communicable to a created thing according to the mode of the one communicating. What man could grasp this theology with his mind or describe it in speech? For it corresponds in a manner most nearly to the archetypal theology we described in chapter 4, and is plainly nothing else than that whole internal form and conception which God has within himself of communicating his wisdom, not according to the mode of this or that creature, but according to the mode of God who communicates, and who by his gracious will prescribes out of his own fullness the form and mode of his communication. This is why, in defining this theology, we called it communicable rather than communicated: by this name we mean to [p. 55] comprehend not only whatever has in fact already been communicated to created things, but also whatever can ever be communicated to created things, in this age and in the age to come. In short: archetypal theology is the infinity of the whole divine wisdom, as much the communicable as the proper and incommunicable. This theology [simply so called] is like a storehouse, full to overflowing, laid up with God from his infinity, of all spiritual wisdom and understanding; from this storehouse and fullness are brought out the treasures to be communicated by God to creatures through grace. While these treasures are in the storehouse they are called communicable; while they are in creatures, communicated. Therefore we must also define theology in a certain respect in the same way. Thesis X. This theology is the wisdom of divine things communicated to creatures according to their own mode. It is communicated by union, vision, and revelation. In this definition, first, I do not add whole, because this theology is always partial (as they say), except in Christ our Savior. Further, [col. 1383] I do not say, as before, communicable, but, in act, communicated, because the determination of it in a certain respect takes place only when it has been communicated by the Lord. Lastly, I do not append according to the mode of the one communicating, but only according to the mode of the creatures themselves that receive its communication. And how small, I pray you, is this mode, if it is compared, I do not say with the infinity of the Deity itself and of that archetypal theology, but even with that divine storehouse we were just touching on? For clarity we shall henceforth designate these two kinds by fixed names, calling the former theology in itself, and the latter theology in the subject.

Common to all these is that we acknowledge it to be wisdom, either communicable or communicated, from God. In these words we contemplate its principle in God, its origin from God, and its drawing out in its subjects according to the communication of divine grace. For the nature of the subject neither pours out this wisdom actually (to speak in the manner of the scholastics), nor has it virtually (how much less formally?), nor grasps it potentially by its natural light; but God himself puts it in and breathes it in by his supernatural light, and by grace draws it out for his glory. Finally, he claims for himself its origin, progress, and entire completion, that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31). The attributes of this theology are very different from those we assigned above to the archetypal theology. For this one is created, habitual, and only after its own mode absolute; finite, discrete, communicated from God, as a true and sure image of that one which we taught to be uncreated, essential or formal, most absolute, infinite, whole at once, and incommunicable. It is created: for it is not the Creator's in himself, but is from the Creator in a subject which he himself created. It is habitual: for it can come to a whole subject by the grace of God and depart from the same by the absence of grace. Likewise it is absolute in itself and according to the mode of the subject in which it is, but not absolute according to that perfection of God which surpasses all things in all respects by far; since all wisdom, cognition, and knowledge is in any knower in no other way than according to the mode of that knower. It is finite: since it does not, like the divine wisdom, extend to all things and reach them all, but is quite definitely circumscribed by its own ends and limits. Nor is it whole at once, but both distinguished into parts, beset by successions of things passing to and fro as by turns, and subject to change and motion. And so (as we said in the last place) the whole is communicable by parts, and in fact is also communicated by parts, as God wills to kindle his gracious light in his created things piecemeal, successively, and changeably.

Having learned what this ectypal theology is in general, let us now see how many kinds of it there are. Before we set this out, however, we would have the reader keep well in mind the distinction [p. 56] we laid down a little before: that a twofold account must be used in contemplating this theology; for both theology in itself and theology in the subject are considered, the latter as determined, as it were, and modified according to the mode of the subject in which this wisdom is. Of theology in itself we shall add nothing more; what follows will pertain to theology in the subject. This theology, then, we distinguish into three kinds, according either to its subjects or to the common and singular mode by which God communicates it to its subjects. The first is the theology of Christ, the God-man (θεανθρώπου) and our Mediator; the second, the theology of spirits in heaven; the third, finally, the theology of men on earth. These three kinds, according to the mode used in communicating by the author of all wisdom, are also called by three other names of adequate signification: some have called the first the theology of union, the second the theology of vision, the third the theology of revelation. The first theology is the highest and fullest of all, of which we all draw (John 1:16), and it is in Christ according to his humanity. The second is full, by which the blessed spirits obtain the glorious vision of God in heaven, and by which we shall see God as he is (1 John 3:2). The third, finally, is not full in itself, but rather, through the revelation of faith, is so furnished with the principles of the same truth that it may fittingly be called full and perfect with respect to us; although imperfect if compared with the heavenly theology we hope for, as the Apostle taught the Corinthians (1 Cor. 13:12). And this, at last, is our theology. Of these, therefore, we shall now speak in order. [col. 1384]