Abstract
Abstract We can understand the multiple roles that the divine ideas tradition played in the history of Christian thought by beginning with an analogy: as a great author draws upon her own consciousness and self-understanding to give life to all the realities within the world of her novels, in an analogous way, the divine ideas teaching holds, God’s eternal and infinite knowing and loving of Godself is the creative exemplar or archetype for the existence of every creature in time, and also the intelligible form or idea by which the truth of every creature may be known. Intensifying the transformation of Plato’s forms by the Middle Platonists, Augustine grounds the divine ideas firmly within Trinitarian theology. We can trace the role of the divine ideas across the full range of Christian doctrines as well as in its influence upon the mystical or contemplative dimension of Christian theology.
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