A. About the Image of the Trinity in Us

574. Here one needs to understand, first, what is the idea of an image in corporeal things, whence the word has been transferred to the issue at hand; second, with respect to what in the Trinity the image is; third, in what in us the idea of the image consists.

575. [Article 1]. As to the first point I say, as was said in the question about the footprint [nn.289, 293], that an image is representative of a whole, and in this it differs from a footprint, which is representative of a part. For if the whole body were impressed in the dust, the way a foot is impressed, it would be an image of the whole, just as the latter is an image of the part and a footprint of the whole. But the conformity expressive of a whole does not suffice, but imitation is required, because according to Augustine 83 Questions q.74, “however much two eggs are alike, one is not an image of the other,” because it is not of a nature to imitate it; and so it is required that an image be of a nature to imitate that of which it is the image, and to express it.

576. [Article 2]. About the second article,a although in our intellect the concept of one Person is partial with respect to the concept of the whole Trinity, the creature that may lead us to knowledge of the Trinity by way of image will represent the Trinity as to the total concept that our intellect can have of it; therefore it will represent the distinction of three Persons and the unity of the essence and the order of origin, because the real distinction in divine reality is through origin; it will also have an essential imitation relative to the Trinity that it represents.

a.a [Interpolated text] namely with respect to what in divine reality there is an image in the mind, one must understand that the Trinity constitutes in our intellect a certain numerical whole, of which whole the parts are understood to be divine persons. The image, therefore, is not focused on in respect of one Person only, nor in respect of that in which they are one, but in respect of the whole Trinity and of the essence.

577. [Article 3] About the third article [n.574] one must first consider the things that are manifest in being in the mind; second in what things the image does not consist; third in what things it does consist.

578. As to the first, we experience in ourselves that there is an act of intellection and an act of volition, and that these acts are in some way in our power when an object is present; therefore, it is necessary to posit in some way in ourselves principles active for these second acts, so that by them we may have a capacity with respect to those acts. Now the same thing under the same formal idea cannot be the principle of these two second acts, because these second acts require in their principles an opposed idea of being a principle; therefore it is necessary to have some distinction of first acts, and this a distinction corresponding proportionally to the distinction of second acts.a

a.a [Note by Scotus] Objection about the powers of the soul in distinction 13 [Ord. I d.13 q.1 n.12]. Look for this against the final rejected opinion.

579. About the second point in this article [n.577] I say that neither in first acts alone nor second acts alone is there an image. This appears in two ways: first because it is both the case that the latter are two only and that the former are two only, so they would only be an image of a duality, not of a trinity; second, because in the first acts, although there is consubstantiality there, yet there is not a real distinction there between thing and thing, nor an order of origin; in the second acts, although there is a distinction and an origin in some way, yet not consubstantiality.

580. From these points follows, third, that the image consists in first and second acts together - and I understand this as follows:

The soul has in itself some perfection according to which there is a first act with respect to generated knowledge, and it has in itself a perfection according to which it formally receives generated knowledge, and it has in itself some perfection according to which it formally receives volition. These three perfections are memory, intelligence, and will - or the soul insofar as the soul has them. Therefore, the soul, insofar as it has total first act with respect to intellection (namely something of the soul and the object present to it in idea of ‘intelligible’), is called memory, and this perfect memory by its including both intellect and that by which the object is present to it. The same soul insofar as it receives generated knowledge is called intelligence; the will too is called perfect, insofar as it is under the perfect act of willing. Accepting, therefore, these three on the part of the soul as they are under their three acts, I say that in these three terms there is consubstantiality, by reason of these three realities that exist on the part of the soul. But there is distinction and origin by reason of the actualities received in the soul according to these realities in the soul.a

a.a [Interpolated text. Rep. IA d.3 nn.204-209] What then are the three things in which the image consists?
     I reply that, by taking a single first act or two first acts, whereby we are capable of second acts (intellection namely and volition), we have thus within us some principle fertile for operations producible in the mind. There are therefore three things in us, namely a principle fertile with respect to these two acts, along with the two second acts, which are as one, with a certain unity, and I do not find another three in us as perfectly representing a trinity and a unity. But there is not a like unity here and there. Because in us they are one with unity of subject and accident, but in divine reality the three are one with unity of essence, because in divine reality there is not found a unity conformed to unity of subject and accident. We have therefore three things in us that represent the Trinity, namely the fertile principle, and this is perfect memory in us (which includes the essence of the soul and the intelligible species and the will as parent and combiner), and two operations or productions that respond to that fertile principle with a double fertility (namely the principle of intellect and will, or of intellection and volition); and from this we have the order of origin.
     Now to the mind of Augustine On the Trinity 9.5 at the end, where he assigns the image very beautifully when he says “mind, knowledge, love” - From this he says ‘mind’, which does not precisely state a fertile principle or power for generating or spirating but a certain first act having both in itself virtually, and this representing the Father, who has both from himself. And this is the most properly assigned image of the Trinity, in my judgment.
     But elsewhere, On the Trinity 10.10, he assigns these three: memory, intelligence, and will. And these represent a unity more, and more principally, than a trinity, because they are the same thing as the soul. But they are not thus representative as to the productions and as to the Threeness. For memory only states fertility for understanding, and so does not represent the Father as he has both fertilities, the way mind represents both. Likewise, the intelligence does not represent the Son as produced, or under act of knowing, nor does intelligence as it is a power originated from memory; likewise the will as it is taken for a power does not represent the Holy Spirit.
     But Augustine does not take will there for the power but for the act of willing, as is plain in On the Trinity 15.3, where he compares these images and says that the will is born from knowledge by the fact that it only loves what is known, or that no one loves save what he first knows. That therefore Augustine says that the second assigning of the image is more subtle than the first is true as to some condition of it, because it more perfectly represents the unity of the essence, as was said.