VI. To the Principal Arguments

130. To the first principal argument [n.2] I say that names are conventional. Hence ‘hope’ can be and was imposed to signify a certain passion impressed on the sense appetite by some delightful thing that is present not in itself but in imagination (for if it were present in itself it would be of a nature to impress delight, just as, on the other side, an evil present in imagination is of a nature to impress fear, and an evil present in itself impresses pain). And I concede that in this way hope is not a virtue, either moral or theological; yet the same name can signify the aforesaid habit [n.90], whose property it is to tend to the sort of object that is ‘desire that the infinite Good be good for me from God freely conferring it because of the merits that I have or that I hope for myself.’

131. To the second [n.3], although it be said that the mean does not participate the extremes but unites them, yet one can concede that a theological virtue is properly a mean, not on the part of the object, but on the part of the excess that can exist in the act. A moral virtue, by contrast, has excess and defect not only by reason of the mode of the action but also by reason of the act as it tends to the object. A theological virtue is not so because the object to which it tends is infinite; yet an immoderate act (here greater, there lesser) can tend toward it, and the virtue moderates it so that it tends toward it in a middle way. And one can in this way concede that faith is a certain mean or middle between levity, whereby someone assents too easily to what is not to be believed (according to the saying ‘who believes too quickly is shallow of heart’, Ecclesiasticus 19.4), and stubbornness, whereby someone resists what is to be believed, refusing to assent to anything unless it be made evident by natural reason. Thus also can one tend with too much and with too little love to some lovable object, but one cannot, when tending to God, tend to an object that is too good or too true. Now moral temperance requires the mean in both ways, because it can tend to an excessive or a deficient object and with a deficient or excessive act; the second way is common to moral and theological virtue, and the first is not.

132. The answer to the third argument [n.4] is plain from what was said in the question on faith [Lectura 3 d.23 nn.48, 56-57], and also from what was said in this question [n.105]; because it cannot be proved by natural reason that there is some infused virtue, for the acts that we experience in ourselves can perhaps be equally perfectly present and be equally perfectly of the same idea even on the supposition that there is no infused virtue; but, believing that there is some infused virtue, the acts are not bound to be as perfect as in the infused virtue; therefore although by acquired faith one could hope for the things promised by God (just as one can believe by acquired faith), yet there is another hope of a nature to be an infused virtue, which perfects the higher part of the will in its desiring the infinite good for itself; and once this infused virtue is possessed, the will desires the good more perfectly than without it, just as it is held that there is some virtue infused by God perfecting the higher part of the will [sc. charity], whereby someone more perfectly tends to the good than without it.

133. To the fourth [n.5] I say that the will has two affections [n.110], according to each of which it is possible to reach God immediately - namely according to the elicited affection of justice, tending to God immediately as he is good in himself, and according to the affection of advantage or concupiscence attaining God as he is good for me; and both acts can be ordered and possess a habit inclining to God, and a theological habit because regarding God immediately as object. It is not so on the part of the intellect; for there is only one power there, of a nature to have a second act attaining God (as intelligence); and this power is sufficiently perfected by one habit, which tends to the truth one assents to because of revelation.

134. And from this is plain the answer to the objection about the parts of the image [n.6], because although there are two parts to the image on the part of the intellect and one only on the part of the will, this is not because the intellect attains the object of the will by a double elicited act; for memory, although it have an action of the category of action, yet does not have an action of the category of quality whereby it attains the object; but intelligence alone has an action of the category of quality whereby it attains the object, and this action is an operation about that object. And, to this extent, there is in the intellect the idea of parent, to which belongs action of the category of action, and the idea of product (these two in divine reality represent the Father and the Son); but in the will there is no such idea of originating naturally but only of originating freely - and to the extent the will has the idea of originator, it can be posited as concurring with memory, as was said in 1 d.2 nn.300-303. Briefly then I say that these habits do not correspond to the parts of the image but are only two principles to which belong attaining God immediately by elicited acts; such are the acts of the intellect, which - as it is indistinct - by a single elicited act attains God immediately by believing; but the will, having the ideas of the affection of justice and of advantage, attains God immediately by loving and hoping.