  When we arrive at the threshold of intellectual cognition, we are entering the next step along the Bonaventurian journey. This level of creaturely being points to the Divine Source, but in ways that are more direct than those in which sensible creatures do. In exercising their powers of intellect and will, intellectual creatures discover the highest and most perfect object of their powers in the Divine Source of their being, since God is the First or Highest Truth and the First or Chief Good. Accordingly, intellectual creatures have God as their ultimate object, whereas all creatures have God as their Cause. Consequently, intellectual creatures show themselves to be “images” and “likenesses” of God, while they show that all creatures are “shadows” and “vestiges” of God.