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God Is an Artificer:A Response to Edward Feser Simon Francis Gaine, O.P. Professor Feser's contribution to the philosophical conversation he presents is particularly congenial to any theologian working in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, where Aristotelian notions of causality and teleology serve extensively, and so it is from the perspective of Aquinas's theology that I am going to reply to one of Professor Feser's points about the theological implications of his philosophical position. Taking an Aristotelian rather than Paleyite position, Professor Feser emphasizes the difference between organisms and artifacts. His problem with Paleyism is that natural objects are treated as artifacts, as without substantial form and intrinsic teleology, and with their teleology imposed on them from without, such that any forms are merely accidental. Having confused natural objects with artifacts, Paleyism approaches God through the wrong sort of teleology, extrinsic rather than intrinsic. But where his Aristotelianism leads Feser in regard to God is an example of a seemingly apophatic, rather than analogical, theology: God cannot be called an "artificer." Feser says, "Natural objects are not a kind of artifact, and hence God's relationship to them is not that of an artificer."1 I reply, however, that the Christian theologian has reason to speak by way of analogy of the Trinitarian God as an artificer and creatures as divine artifacts, and that theological reflection on this analogy can suggest to Professor Feser reasons, [End Page 495] even philosophical reasons, to modify, or rather clarify, his seemingly apophatic conclusion. I suggest that we ordinarily think of an artificer as one who devises and produces some object, doing so through his skill or art. The artificer is a skilled or wise craftsman, and the artifact is the product of this art of his. And when the Christian theologian as such looks to the authority of the Scriptures, he finds the Creator God portrayed in just this kind of way. The Letter to the Hebrews 11:10 names God as a "τεχνίτης"—in this case, the artificer of the city for which Abraham hoped. But God is portrayed in the Bible not only as eschatological artificer, but as the protological artificer of creation, for example, in the opening chapters of Genesis, where in 2:7 God forms a man of dust from the ground, and so on. Scripture, moreover, speaks not only of God creating by his word—John 1:3 says that through the Word was everything made that was made—but speaks also in this connection of divine wisdom. "By wisdom the Lord founded the earth," says Proverbs 3:19. Then in 8:30, "Wisdom" is presented as a figure alongside God at the creation, putting things together, harmonizing them, so to speak. Then in the Wisdom of Solomon 7:22, Wisdom is named a "τεχνίτης," where the author confesses: "Wisdom, the artificer of all things, taught me." And in 8:5–6, we find: "What is richer than Wisdom who effects all things? And if understanding is effective, who more than she is artificer of what exists?" So, at least for those theologians for whom the Wisdom of Solomon is canonical Scripture, Catholics and others, there is biblical authority for reflecting theologically on the Creator in terms of wise artifice. Not that these passages have been without their difficulties in interpretation. For example, it is not easy to see on which side of the Creator-creature divide the biblical figure of Wisdom belongs. When the early Church was full of debate over whether the Word of God was true God or perfect creature, where God's Word and Wisdom were both identified with God the Son on the basis of 1 Corinthians 1:24 and other texts, varied positions were adopted on the Old Testament passages concerning Wisdom. The triumph of Christian orthodoxy in the wider debate is, of course, represented by the Creed of Nicaea, where the Son is confessed in relation to the Father as "true God from true God, begotten not made." This placed God's Word and Wisdom firmly on the divine side of the Creator-creature divide, and by use of the familiar distinction between the natural begetting of...
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