b. The Relation of Creature to God is not the same formally as the Foundation nor is it precisely the same

272. As to the second article, namely that a relation is not formally the same as its foundation [n.260], I suppose this to be manifest from the understanding of what it is to be ‘formally the same’, because the per se idea of a respect does not formally include the idea of an absolute, nor conversely does the idea of an absolute per se include the formal idea of a respect; likewise, as to what is there added [n.260], that the foundation is not precisely the relation itself, this was proved against the first opinion [nn.243-52].

273. And then I understand how there can be a true and non-precise identity in the following way:

When, in the case of creatures, something contains another thing by identity, or is unitively many things, this is not because of the perfection of what is contained but of the perfection of what contains - just as, if the intellective soul (according to some) contains the vegetative soul and the form of substance, this is not because of the perfection of the form of substance (because it does not contain all the others), but because of the perfection of the intellective soul. Likewise, let it be that being contains any property at all of being (as truth, goodness, and unity), yet this containing is not from the perfection of what is contained but from the perfection of what contains - just as also in divine reality, the fact that relation is the same as the foundation is not from the perfection of the relation (as if it contains the essence by identity), but from the formal infinity of the essence, because of which the essence has in itself relation by identity.

274. In all these cases (and especially in the case of creatures) the container is not precisely the contained, but is an entity as perfect in itself as it would be if the contained were outside the container and added to it - nay, a more perfect entity, because by its perfection it contains every other entity; hence the intellective soul is not merely substantial form (because then it would not be perfect), but is as perfectly the ultimate entity - which is there - as it would be if it presupposed entity other than itself.

275. So I say in the issue at hand, that the foundation is not only the relation (which it contains by identity), but is as absolute as it would be if the relation were added to it, or if it had altogether no relation; but this is not because of its own perfection [sc. as foundation], but it is because of perfection (either simply or in some way or other), because the foundation contains the relation by identity, so that the containing itself prevents the accidentality of the relation from being able to be an accident, because it is perfectly contained in the substance - which relation, however, if it were not thus contained, would of itself not perhaps have the fact that it is the substance by identity.