  In this way, Henry creates a unique blend of Aristotle's theory of abstraction and Augustine's doctrine of divine illumination. Truth is the result of the comparison between two exemplars: the Aristotelian universal obtained by abstraction from sensible data, and the archetype present in the divine mind, which is not only the cause of the existence of things, but also their epistemic guarantee, so to speak. The action of divine illumination is therefore neither a direct donation of intelligible contents, independent of the conditions of sensible knowledge, nor is it a simple purification, preparation or refinement of the mind in order to predispose it to intellectual knowledge. Rather, it is the certification of our created exemplar by the uncreated one; in other words, by divine art (ars).