Single Question. Whether the Image of the Trinity consists in three powers of the rational soul really distinct

Bonaventure, Sent. 2 d.16 q.1
Scotus, Sent. 2 d.16 q.1
Thomas, ST Ia q.77 a.1
Richard of St. Victor, Sent. 2 d.16 q.1

1. About the sixteenth distinction the question asked is whether the image of the Trinity in the soul consists in three powers really distinct.

2. That it does. The divine persons are really distinct from each other; but an image of the Trinity is in the soul;     therefore there are three really distinct things in the soul; but not in act, therefore in power.

3. Further, powers are distinguished by their acts (On the Soul 2 text 33); but the acts of the soul are really distinct; therefore etc     .

4. Again, where a real identity is, there an identical predication can be made; so one can say ‘the intellect is the will’ and vice versa, which is false.

5. On the contrary: the soul is in its essence immaterial,     therefore it is in its essence immediately an understanding and a willing. The proof of the consequence is that, according to Proclus, everything immaterial turns back on itself. Therefore understanding and intellect are really the same in the soul. Therefore etc     .

To the Question

6. Reply. One opinion [Thomas ST Ia q.77 a.1] says that the powers of the soul are absolute accidents superadded to the essence of the soul, being really distinct from each other and from the soul. The reason is that power and act belong to the same genus; but to will and to understand are accidents and acts in us.     Therefore their powers will also be accidents. Therefore etc     .

7. Again, a variable accident, of which sort are willing and understanding, is present in a substance not immediately but by an intermediate invariable accident; for a greater distinction does not proceed from a unity save by means of another lesser one.

8. Again if the soul were to understand and will immediately through its essence, then, just as it is a principle of life but lives through act, so it would always be understanding and willing, which is plainly false.

9. Again the Philosopher in the Categories and Simplicius on the same place (chapter on quality), and Damascene, put the natural powers in the second species of quality.

10. Again the Commentator says that the soul is divided into its natural powers in the second species of quality, as an apple is divided into color and flavor.

11. These reasons [nn.6-8] are not compelling.

12. To the first of them [n.6] I say that there is an equivocation over the term ‘power’; for power as it is divided from act does not just belong to the same genus as act but adds numerically to it; for, from Metaphysics 9 text 13, the same thing that was in potency was and becomes act, but a power that is the first principle of operation (which is what is here being dealt with) does not necessarily belong to the same genus as its act, because it is first a principle of change. For the substance of fire is immediately the principle of generation, for by its heat it immediately heats; so by its substance it immediately generates. For heat cannot be the immediate formal principle of two diverse acts.

13. From this is also apparent that the assumption of the second argument [n.7] is false.

14. The response to the third [n.8] is plain, for the likeness does not hold. Living is not an elicited second act but a first act, and so the soul, which in essence is life by informing the body, gives the body living existence just as the form of fire gives to matter fire existence; but to understand and to will are elicited second acts, for which objects too are required. And so there is no similarity.

15. To the authorities [n.9] I say that a natural ability, as the ability to lift a weight, is not a distinct quality but an innate quality for being naturally and easily able, and it is in the second species of quality, as is plain there from the example of being able to box and the like [see Richard of St. Victor, Quodlibet q.1, about whether the powers of souls and angels are accidents].

16. To the Commentator [n.10] I say that, just as the color of an apple does not formally contain the perfection of flavor, or conversely, so the will is not formally the intellect, or conversely (as will be said), yet they are not accidents as the former are.

17. Another opinion [Bonaventure Sent.2 d.24 a.3 q.1] says that the powers of the soul add to the essence only a real respect, because the soul of itself is indeterminate as to act but is determined to this act and to that by this respect and by that, and so a power formally states a real respect added to the soul; and thus are the powers of the soul really distinct from each other, not by an absolute reality but by a respective one

18. To answer this we ask about the power that is the formal and immediate principle of second acts, of which sort are understanding and willing. It is also plain that a relation is not the formal principle of a real and absolute act; rather a power of something prior in nature turns to the principle of the act before a relation to act arises.

19. There is another opinion [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 3 q.14] that the powers of the soul are essential parts of the soul; so in this way they are really distinct from each other but not from the soul. This is confirmed by the Philosopher On the Soul 3 text 1 where, intending to treat of the soul’s power, he says ‘Now of the soul’s part...’

20. Again Boethius in his book Divisions says that the soul is divided into its powers as a whole into its virtual parts.

21. On the contrary: a part precedes its whole in order and in origin; but the will and intellect do not precede the substance of the soul but rather conversely;     therefore etc     .

22. Besides, Augustine On the Trinity 9.5 says that each of the powers embraces its whole, but a part is not like this.

23. To the Philosopher and to Boethius [nn.19-20] I say that the powers are so far called virtual powers, not because such parts constitute the essence, as the opinion imagines, but because they are certain partial perfections of the soul, as will be made plain.

24. To the question, therefore, I say that the view can be maintained that the powers of the soul are distinct neither from the soul nor from each other, neither really nor formally on the part of the thing. But the soul is a sort of essence that is simple and unlimited as to the diverse potential acts immediately elicited by it as by an immediate formal principle that is altogether without distinction; nor will the soul for this reason be infinite, because it is not unlimited as to infinite acts. And if you hold that the soul has distinctions at least in idea, this is nothing to the purpose, for it is to conceive the soul because it is an intermediary: as a principle of willing let it be called will and, as conceived, as a principle of intellection let it be called intellect - a soul because of this sort of conceiving is nothing more nor less than a power to elicit such acts, and so never will such an idea belong to the formal idea of a power, nor accordingly would it distinguish the powers, save conventionally.

25. But because many authorities from the saints and prophets seem to hold that the powers in some way arise and flow from the essence of the soul and that they are like certain perfections of the soul - for this reason I say that they are not absolute accidents or relations added to the soul, but that they are certain intrinsic perfections of it, not really distinct from it or from each other, but formally not the same as the soul or as each other, in the sort of way I spoke in the first book about the attributes in relation to the divine essence.

26. To understand this, I say that, according to Dionysius On Divine Names, virtual containing does not belong to things that are altogether distinct but to things that are really and formally and quidditatively the same. But this containing is double: one that of superiors, in the way that this whiteness is said to contain virtually, by formal identity, the idea of whiteness, of body, of quality, and of all superior genera; another is that of quasi inferiors and quasi properties, in the way that being is said to contain its properties, as good, true, and the like; but these properties are not really distinct, as the Philosopher proves in Metaphysics 4 text 3 and 5, but formally and quidditatively distinct, I mean by a real and quidditative formality. Otherwise metaphysics, which proves these properties of being, would not be a real science.

27. In this way, then, I say that the soul virtually contains its properties, and contains them in the intellect conjointly, but it is not contained by any of them. And so one of them does not contain the other. From this it follows that they are formally distinct from each other, but are really the same per accidens, namely by reason of the essence of the soul, which is the other extreme of this combining.

To the Arguments

28. Hereby is plain the answer about the principal issue, as to how the idea of the image is more properly preserved in the powers, although there is no total likeness with the Trinity of persons. And hereby too is plain the response to the first argument [n.2].

29. To the second argument [nn.3-4] I say that for predication in the abstract a real identity without formal identity is not sufficient, especially in the case of creatures; hence this predication is not true, ‘humanity is animality’. But it is sufficient for predication in the concrete, and hence we say, ‘man is an animal’; and thus one can say, ‘the intellective is volitional’ and vice versa.