B. Second Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

50. Another response [Bonaventure] to the question is the distinction that the intellect of Christ’s soul is able to see everything in the Word habitually but not actually (and so about all souls).

51. Proof of the second part [the ‘not actually’]:

Infinite virtue does not have power for more than infinite objects; so if a finite virtue has power for infinite objects then a finite virtue would be equal with an infinite one, which is unacceptable;     therefore etc     .

52. Further, a finite virtue sees two things more distinctly than three things, and three things more distinctly than four and, thus continuing upwards, it sees a thousand things less distinctly than it sees a hundred;     therefore , thus continuing infinitely, it sees more things less distinctly than it sees fewer things; but to see finite things ad infinitum more distinctly than some infinite limit is not to see; therefore etc     .

53. Further, third, an extensive infinity presupposes an intensive infinity, according to Averroes On the Substance of the Globe ch.3; Christ’s soul cannot have an intensive infinity, since it is a creature and something finite; therefore it cannot have an extensive infinity for infinite objects.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

54. Against this opinion.

And first against the first part of the position, about habit [n.50]; if the sense is that a single habit is the reason for understanding infinite objects, this seems impossible (and this for the opinion’s own reasons); for then it would follow that such a habit is intensively infinite, as was proved in 2 d.3 nn.367-377 about the habit that some posit in angels which, as to itself, is representative of infinite objects.

55. But if you say that there are founded on this habit infinite respects to infinite objects, and that this could be without infinity in the foundation - against this the argument is that then, accordingly, the second member contradicts the first [n.50]; for the habit is hereby posited as founding infinite respects without an infinity in the foundation itself following on; therefore, by similarity, there is nothing unacceptable in some act being actually of infinite things through infinite respects to infinite things, and yet the act not being in itself infinite.

56. The point about respects [n.55] also does not hold, because some respects can be founded on a same thing and others not; for if there were an infinite number of whitenesses, an infinite number of likenesses would be founded on the nature of whiteness, because the very unity of the nature of whiteness (which is the proximate idea for the foundation of the likeness) would be, as concerns itself, in infinite things; but relations to what is essentially posterior [sc. the habit] cannot be infinite in relation to what is essentially prior [sc. the objects], especially when the priority is one of perfection (namely the perfection of efficient or final causality), because the more that something can be such a cause of many things at the same time, the more perfect it is; and so, if it can be of infinites at the same time, it can at the same time be in infinites [sc. if the habit can be of infinite objects, the habit must be infinite]. Such is the relation of a habit to an object known in first act, for the object is the idea in which the habit first has being.

57. Further, I prove that the second member contradicts the first [n.50] because every single habit in a single intellect can have an act or acts adequate to the habit or to the intellect where the habit is, for every finite total cause can be understood to have an adequate effect or effects. This single adequate effect, if posited, will be single for all objects (or several effects will be if several are posited), for the habit is posited to be for all the effects in first act, and so the second act will also be for all effects. Thus, either the habit is infinite, which is what is proposed on one side, and then an actual infinity follows just as does an habitual infinity. Or the single act, or several acts, which would be of infinite objects, would not be infinite, which is what is proposed on the other side, and then the finite habit would not be an infinity, for from a finite total cause an adequate infinite effect or effects cannot follow.