To the Arguments

21. To the first principal argument [n.2] I say that the assigning of an image of the Trinity in the soul only avails for someone who believes the Trinity, to enable him to investigate it in some way; but it does not do so for the sake of the Trinity becoming naturally known, first because the soul is not created by God as he is a Trinity, and second because the things mentioned [sc. in the image] are all primary together, as is plain.

22. To the second [n.3] I say that the major premise would be effective if the Father were posited as generating insofar as he understands (as some say) - and badly posited, as was proved above, because the Father does not generate in this way; rather, as I said, the Father has the divine essence by a second distinction present to himself under the idea of being actually intelligible (which belongs to the Father as he is memory) and in this way does he generate; but, as was made clear above, he does not generate insofar as he understands. And     therefore I say that the antecedent is false, because the memory does not represent the Father more than the Son by the fact that memory alone exists in the Father, or that intelligence alone exists in the Son, but by the fact that the Father generates the Son insofar as he has the idea of memory and not as he has the idea of intelligence or will, etc     .

23. To the third [n.4] I say that second acts are produced. The argument is pro se. Hence when it is said then there is no action of action, or action is not the term of action, and this [sc. some production] truly terminates action, as Augustine says On the Trinity 9 last chapter that knowledge is generated, and in On the Trinity 15.27 that volition proceeds - then these are not actions in the genus of action but are absolute forms in the genus of quality.

24. When you prove [n.4] that they are properly actions because they are second acts, I say that there are certain forms which have a fixed and permanent being not dependent on their cause (as heat in wood), and that there are certain forms which have a communicated dependence on their cause, as light in the medium depends on the sun; and about this Augustine says, Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.9, that the air has not been made bright but is being made bright; thus the first forms, because they are independent of their cause in existing, are not actions and are not called actions; but the second forms, because of their independence,The printed text says ‘independence’, but it may be a misprint for ‘dependence’. ¹³¹ seem to have their existence rather in becoming than in being, which is why they seem to be actions; and yet in truth they are not actions, because they have their parts together all at once, which is something repugnant to action, and they are not in a passive thing either, because they have existence at once in the whole and part is not acquired after part; and intellection and volition are forms of this sort, for they have a continuing dependence on the presence of their cause, etc.

25. Intellection and volition pass over into something other as to their term. It is unintelligible that volition and intellection exist and are not of something (I care not what that something is). It seems that they are called second acts because of this continuing dependence and because they pass over to a term; but in fact they are immanent forms, being whole all at once and not as things acquired part after part,     etc .