I. To the First Question

15. There are two articles in the first question: first whether the intellect of Christ’s soul can be perfected with the most perfect vision of the Word; second whether it can be thus perfected first and immediately, without any form perfecting it beforehand.

A. It is Possible that Christ’s Soul is able to be Perfected with the Most Perfect Vision of the Word

16. To the first article of the first question one can answer yes for the same reason that, in d.13 n.47, I gave for Christ’s will being able to have the highest charity; and its having it in fact is just as likely.

17. There is a confirmation from Isidore On the Highest Good or Opinions 1, that “The Trinity is known to itself and to the man who was assumed,” and this cannot be understood save of knowledge in the ultimate state, whether simply so or the ultimate possible for a creature.

B. The Intellect of Christ’s Soul can be Perfected First and Immediately with the Most Perfect Vision of the Word

18. As to the second article, it can be said that insofar as the intellect has the idea of receptivity with respect to vision, no other form needs to be received beforehand in order for vision to be received in the intellect

19. Proof of the first proposition [n.18]:

If another form is posited, the object is not present unless, in absolute freedom, it represents itself, for the form cannot be a necessary reason for the object to be present as something seen, because “if he wishes he is seen; if he does not wish he is not seen” [Ambrose, on Luke 1 n.24]; also, when the form is not posited, the object can voluntarily impress itself on the intellect, and do so by actually causing vision in the intellect;     therefore etc     .

20. Further, if some form were necessarily in the intellect prior to vision, let it be called a: then a is related to vision either under the idea of efficient cause, or under the idea of material cause as that which properly receives vision (the way that the surface of a body is related to color, because surface is what properly receives color):

21. But if a is related in the first way [as efficient cause; Aquinas], then vision could be present in the intellect without a, for whatever God can do by an intermediate efficient cause he can do immediately as well, and do so as to anything that is receptive of vision.

22. If a is related in the second way [as material cause; Bonaventure], then it cannot be posited as something necessary for what is being proposed:

First because then the intellect, as it is some part of the soul, would receive blessedness in a, for matter that is receptive of many forms is immediately brought to rest when it has the most perfect form of which it is capable; the case here is of this sort, for the intellect cannot of itself receive other forms save through this form (just as a substance would receive blessedness in its surface if it could not of itself receive per se another form); and so the intellect, as it is some part of the soul, would be naturally at rest before the vision of the Word was present in it - which is impossible.

23. Second because if something absolute, which is the idea of receiving some form, exists per se, it can receive per se (as a surface, if it per se exists, can per se receive color); therefore if a is a something absolute other than vision and is the reason for receiving vision, and if it existed per se, it could per se receive vision, and thus, as existing per se, it could be beatified by vision - and consequently even now it would be immediately beatified; the consequence would also follow that the intellect would not be beatified now save per accidens (just as substance, as regards its passive potency, would be at rest per accidens in a color able to exist in its surface).

24. If, however, it be said that the whole, namely the intellect informed by a, would be per se beatified by vision [Bonaventure] - on the contrary: of one per se act there is one per se power (Metaphysics 8.6.1045b17-19), so of this one act, namely per se vision, the potency is not a per accidens whole; therefore the second [sc. the a by itself] will precisely be the proper and immediate reason for receiving vision; and so, as proved by the first two reasons [nn.19, 20-23], the intended conclusion follows.

25. Therefore it can be said that the intellect of Christ’s soul can passively receive the vision of the Word first and immediately [sc. without any preceding light or habit, nn.26-27]:

26. And such that it is not perfected first by some light as by an absolute form other than vision:

First because vision is perfect light; for, in the case of natural understanding, a light preceding vision is required due to the imperfection of the object, either because the intelligible thing is not actual of itself but through the agent intellect (which is the light whereby what is potentially intelligible becomes actually intelligible), or because, if it is actually intelligible, it is not sufficient of itself to move the intellect to second act. Neither of these is found in the present case because the divine essence is of itself supreme light and is intelligible in itself and is of itself most perfectly a mover of the intellect; therefore, no light to cooperate with it is required; for the more an object possesses the idea and perfection of a light able to cooperate with it, the less it needs it; therefore an object possessing altogether perfectly in itself a light of a nature to cooperate with it does not at all require light.

27. Similarly, no habit prior to vision itself is required for receiving vision, for a habit does not dispose a power to receive act but rather act is of a nature to be received first before the habit is. However, because an acquired habit in us has this perfection (because it is immanent in the soul as such when there is second transient act), the intellect, which cannot have the most perfection knowledge of several objects at once (for it is not in act), has a permanent knowledge of them at least in the way it is able to, and so it has this knowledge in habit; but if some act were of its nature as permanent in act as the habit with respect to it is, there would be no need to posit a habit, for such an act would have the perfection of both first and second act. But the beatific vision is of its nature a form as permanent in the intellect as is the habit that is posited as prior to it; for both always persist through the perpetual presence of the beatific object, and neither could persist otherwise.

28. And if an objection be raised against this, that then the intellect could see the Word by its purely natural powers, for it could do so without the light of glory and without a habit preceding vision - I respond according to your own statement, and say that this conclusion seems in some way to follow if one posits a light or habit preceding vision such that it is a necessary or sufficient reason for vision; for although a blind man may be given light miraculously, nevertheless he is, having been given light, seeing naturally, because he has a created form [sc. eyes] for the natural use of that operation. Thus, if some habit is supernaturally given to the intellect through which, when given, the intellect can, as through a sufficient form, see God, then, since this habit is something created and perfects the intellect naturally, the result would be that one could see God naturally through some created form. But this result would not follow if one denied such a disposition or preceding light (whether it is called a light or habit I care not), because in each instant naturally prior to the vision there is no cause naturally prior to it; for up to the instant of nature when the intellect sees, a created intellect does not have in itself power for that vision, but all that precedes is the intellect itself in itself, and the object - which object has the power to elicit the vision, and is not a moving power naturally proportioned to the created intellect, and is not of a nature to move it naturally.

29. Next to the form of the argument [n.28]: the conclusion does not follow save as to the fact that the intellect of Christ’s soul could naturally see the Word; but it does not follow that the vision could be in that intellect by its natural powers or by some natural cause; for it can only be made present by the Word immediately causing it, and when the Word causes he causes supernaturally. And to say this is the same as to say that the intellect of Christ’s soul could formally or receptively see the Word by its natural powers, but not that it could effect or elicit seeing the Word by its natural powers.

30. But if it be asked whether a created intellect without such a habit or light (let it be called a) could be disposed for such vision not only passively but also actively so as to elicit it, and to elicit it as perfectly as when it has a, I reply: Take the supposition that the intellect could be disposed actively with respect to the vision of the Word (which supposition was made above, n.21). Then, just as the intellect is actively disposed with respect to natural vision (namely insofar as the intellect is beatified in the same power, nn.26-27, and insofar as it is the principle of natural intellection, and thus insofar as its way of operating with respect to both objects is the same), one can, on the basis of the above supposition, say what was said to the fourth question of the preceding question, namely that if there is a necessary connection of second causes [d.13 n.84] one must say about the intellect what was said there about the will [d.13 n.85]. But as to the receiving of the vision, which the question here is about, there seems to be no simple necessity to concede that a must perfect the intellect first before vision; but if the intellect can receive two perfections in order, namely a as first act and vision as second act, then it is fitting that intellect and vision should be perfected in the same order, even though either perfection could, absolutely, be present without the other.

C. To the Principal Arguments

31. To the first argument [n.2] I say that the statement of Augustine can be explained through the remark at Physics 2.2.193b35 that “there is no falsehood when people abstract,” for someone who abstracts does not understand the thing to be other than it is but understands the thing in a way other than the way it is; so that the otherness in abstraction determines his understanding or states the way he understands, but it does not determine the object or state the manner of the object. Thus, in the matter at hand Augustine’s first proposition, ‘anyone who understands a thing other than the thing is errs’, is not true unless the ‘other than’ determines the object, namely the implicit being of it, and the sense is ‘anyone who understands a thing other than the thing is errs’. Then Augustine’s conclusion follows, for the same object, taken according to altogether the same idea of it as object, is not understood more by one person than another, because the ‘more’ here determines the object; and this is enough for Augustine’s conclusion. For therefrom follows that understandings do not proceed to infinity but that there is some supreme understanding; because if the object, on its part, is infinite it cannot be understood in different ways, and some understanding can exist that is adequate to an intelligible according to its intelligibility; and so, by parity of reasoning, another understanding, under the first intelligible, can be adequate to it; therefore too there will be some supreme understanding.

32. To the second [n.3]: although some deny that an object under the idea of the infinite is seen by any created intellect, that is, seen absolutely, and although they also concede that the infinite is concomitantly seen non-formally, yet I concede (as was touched on in Ord. I d.2 nn.130, 136, 138) that only something taken under the idea of the infinite can formally give rest to the intellect. I mean that if it is not formally but concomitantly apprehended under the idea of the infinite, it would not give rest to the apprehending power more than some other finite concomitant intelligible would (for infinity, as concomitantly compared to the apprehending power, is accidental to that power). It is like a triangle which, if it is compared to the intellect only as triangle and the concomitant color is not apprehended per se, does not give rest to the intellect more when white than when black. So too the divine essence only gives rest to the intellect as it is seen, and as it is existent in three supposits; and this fact, namely that the same numerical essence exists in three supposits, only belongs to the divine essence by reason of its infinity;     therefore etc     .

33. And then next to the two proofs to the contrary [n.3]:

To the first I say that although an object distinct in species proves a distinction in species of the act, it does not do so formally (for the object is not the form of any act) but causally, for a preceding cause that is an essentially necessary requisite establishes, insofar as it is distinct, a distinction in the thing caused. However, the specific unity of an object does not establish a unity in species of act, for the same object is the object of every blest intellect and also of every blest will, but volition is not of the same species as intellection. These acts then can be formally distinguished although they do not have objects that are formally distinct; and they can be distinguished formally otherwise than by their objects, because they can be distinguished by their power as well as by their essential causes; and so, given that they would not get distinction from an object that is not distinct in species, yet they are specifically distinguished by some other partial cause.

34. Nor does the Philosopher in On the Soul 2.4.415a18-21 say that acts get unity from the unity of the object but rather they get distinction unless some object is so adequated to the act that it would neither exceed nor could exceed it (as perhaps is the case in respect of its own act); it is not so in the issue at hand. There is an example in the case of motion and its term, for a distinction in the term of motion proves a distinction in the motion, insofar as motion is a flowing form, provided that the flowing form is of the same idea as the form that terminates the motion; but it is not necessary that the unity of the term of the motion prove a unity of the motion, because the same ‘where’ can altogether be reached by motions diverse in species, as by circular and by straight motion, and these motions are not comparable according to the Philosopher Physics 7.4.248a10-15.

35. To the second proof [n.3] I say that Augustine in City of God 12.18/19 says that “whatever is comprehended by science reaches its end in the knowledge of the knower” - which remark is not to be understood as that it absolutely reaches its end (for then God would not comprehend himself endlessly), but that it reaches its end in the knower, because it is disposed in respect of the knower as if it reached its end. Briefly, however, the only intellect that comprehends an intelligible is one whose perfection in intellectuality and in understanding is as great as is the intelligible’s perfection or intelligibility in being able to be understood; which is why there is a commensuration and adequation between them. For this reason, indeed, neither of them exceeds the other, so each, as it were, reaches its end in the other; for they are simply adequate to each other. It is like the way that, because of the equality of the divine persons, each person could be said to reach his end in another person because not exceeding the other person, though each person is simply infinite. Therefore, because no created intellect is able to have as much intellectuality, whether in first act or in second act, as is the intelligibility of God (on the contrary, the created intellectuality that was supposed to be commensurate with this intelligible in its intelligibility would have to go on being more perfect infinitely), so no created intellect can comprehend God, even though it see whatever, on the part of God, can be seen.

36. To the third argument [n.4] I say that light is required, but not a light different from the object when the object sufficiently supplies the place of light. For the fact that, in the case of natural understanding, the light is different from the object is because of the imperfection of the object; and so, in suchlike cases, no likeness can be drawn from plurality in things imperfect to a plurality in things perfect, for things dispersed in inferiors are sometimes united in superiors, and especially in a supreme that contains all things in one.

37. To the fourth argument [n.5] response can be made in the same way [n.36], because the likeness does not obtain between a natural and a supernatural act.

38. However one can reply in another way that the most perfect act of cognition can be elicited from a power without a preceding habit; for the intellect can most perfectly know the quiddities of the terms before any act of combining them and putting them together in a proposition, and of proving, from the ideas of these quiddities, the truth of the principle proposed in the proposition. For, as the Philosopher says in Posterior Analytics 1.3.72b24-25, “we know the principles insofar as we know the terms.” So assent is given to the principle and its terms before any generation of a habit. Although the habit follows such assent, the habit is also in some way necessary for the perfection of our nature, for knowledge of a principle could not in any way remain in us after the act ceased unless the habit of the principle remained - and thus would someone, after understanding the principle, be as much in essential potency to understanding as he was before.

39. The like can be said of the science of conclusions. For when the principles have been understood and from them has been inferred, by a perfect syllogism, a conclusion that is evident from the principles (according to the definition of perfect syllogism in Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24, that “nothing is needed for the necessity of it to be apparent,” that is, for it to be evidently necessary through knowledge of the principles and through the evidence of the inference), then the conclusion is necessarily assented to. Thus there is first an act of knowing about the conclusion and therefrom science about it follows, which is the habit of the conclusion - and so a habit is not presupposed to perfect act, but follows it and presupposes it [cf. Ord. Prol. n.9].