Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

The final argument of the preceding fourth difficulty calls upon us, after we have explained that an imprinted species clearly and quidditatively representing God cannot exist, to explain whether the same must be said of an expressed species, or, better, of the Word.

§ I. The first opinion is proposed.

197 The first opinion affirms that the Word is so necessary in the blessed for seeing God by essence that its absence implicitly entails their not seeing. Thus Suarez, lib. 2 de attributis, cap. 11, and others among the Commentators.

The principal foundation of this opinion, apart from the final argument of the preceding fourth difficulty, can first be confirmed and explained as follows: the beatific vision is either a quality or a true immanent predicamental action. If the former, then it is itself the word of the mind. The consequence is evident. For the word of the mind is nothing other than a certain quality proceeding immediately from the intellect, so that the intellect itself in its representative being is similar to its object: since the word is a quality produced by the intellect and representing an object, it cannot fail to be a quality proceeding from that same intellect, as it is similar to its object in representative being; therefore, since the beatific vision proceeds from the intellect insofar as it is similar to its object in representative being, the consequence follows that, if it is once a quality, nothing is lacking to it for the ratio of a word. If, however, it is said to be the latter, then since it implies the presence of a true action—and a true becoming without some having been made—it will imply the presence of the beatific vision without its proper having been made, namely, a word.

It is confirmed secondly. For since the beatific vision is something created and proceeding from the intellect, it proceeds from it either precisely as that by which (quo) something proceeds, or as that by which and that which (quo and quod). If the former, therefore, it is that by which something proceeds and is made from the intellect; and since that which is made, the mean in question, cannot be anything except a word, as we have just said, the consequence follows that the word is necessarily produced through it. The second alternative, however, cannot be stated: for nothing can be the becoming of itself. Then also, because otherwise it would exist before it existed, as is evident from itself. Then too, because, just as a real cause is necessarily really distinguished from its effect, so its real causation and becoming cannot fail to be really distinguished from that effect; and thus nothing will be able to proceed from any cause as that by which it is made from it, either as quo or as quod.

198 The same opinion can be proved secondly. For the word formally constitutes the intellect as an intellect actually understanding: therefore it implies the presence of the vision of God by essence without a word. The consequence seems evident. The antecedent, however, is proved. First by the testimony of St Augustine, lib. 9 de Trinit., cap. 10, where he calls the Word knowledge: for knowledge is certainly nothing other than cognition and the apprehension of an object; therefore, etc. Then too from St Thomas, 1, part, q. 34, art. 1, ad 3, who, speaking of intellection formally taken, says: To understand imports only the disposition of the intellect toward the thing understood, in which no relation of origin is imported, but a certain information in our intellect, according as our intellect is put into act by the form of the thing understood. Here, as you can see, to understand is said to be the formal effect of the form of the thing understood, in which no relation of origin is imported: for the word alone is the form of the thing understood in which no relation of origin is imported; indeed, although the intelligible species is the form of the thing understood, nevertheless it involves the fact that a word proceeds from it, whereas no other form of the thing understood, or anything else, originates from the word, because it is the terminus of the intellect's productive power. Finally from the same St Thomas, q. 8, De potentia, art. 1, where he says: The word of our intellect is not extrinsic to the very act of understanding by the intellect, since the act of understanding itself cannot be completed without the word mentioned. Therefore he holds that it pertains intrinsically to the act of understanding, and consequently is the intellection itself: for intellection, which is a quality, as is evident from what has been said, must be one simple quality, just as other qualities pertain of themselves and directly to the predicament of quality; and thus it cannot result from a word and some other quality.

199 Thirdly, the view is proved and the preceding argument confirmed. Because intellection is nothing other than actual manifestation, through which a thing is manifested to the intellect; but through the word of the mind the thing represented through it is actually manifested to the intellect; therefore intellection and the word will be the same, and consequently, precisely because the vision of God by essence is present in the blessed, the Word itself cannot fail to be found there as well. Both consequences clearly follow from what precedes. The major is evident too, because nothing else means that a thing is made manifest to the intellect than that the intellect perceives it; and consequently a thing cannot be manifest to it while unknown to it. The minor is evident too: for since the word is the most actual representation of an object, it will also be the most actual manifestation of that object.

It is confirmed. For the divine essence is from itself an actual intellection of all intelligible things, because it represents all of them most actually and is the most actual manifestation of them all; therefore, since the word represents the thing understood most actually to the intellect, it will be its actual manifestation, and consequently its actual knowledge and intellection.

200 Fourthly, the view is proved, and the two preceding arguments are confirmed together. For precisely by being informed by an intelligible species that habitually represents its object, the intellect is constituted as an intellect; therefore, precisely by being informed by an expressed species that represents its object most actually, it is constituted as understanding in the second act, and consequently word and intellection will be the same; and this being present in the blessed, it cannot be denied to them. This second consequence follows from the preceding one. The former, however, is also clear. For just as intentional likeness completes the intellectual power, so likeness in the first act and according to the mode of a habit will complete it and constitute it in the first act, rendering it, as it were, habitually complete as an intellect; then the most actual likeness, which represents in the second act, will complete it most actually by rendering it understanding in the second act. The antecedent, however, requires no proof.

It is confirmed first. For the intellect understands by actually drawing things to itself, whereas the will wills by being actually borne toward them, as Aristotle seems to teach in 3 de Anima, text. 15, and St Thomas, below q. 27, art. 4, show. Therefore intellection consists in the word of the mind, through which things are represented most actually and in the second act, and are consequently drawn most actually, and in their intelligible or representative being, to that same intellect.

It can be confirmed secondly from what we have said above. For when we wish to understand some thing rightly, we then strive above all to form within us a perfect likeness to it; and when our intellect is first put into act through it, we immediately have a perfect knowledge of that same thing. This sufficiently proves that intellection consists in the likeness just mentioned.

201 Finally. For a person to be understanding in act, it is necessarily required that the person be a thing understood in act; just as for something to be intellectual habitually, it is indispensably required that it be a thing understood in the habit, namely through an intelligible species habitually representing its object. Therefore a word is likewise necessarily required, and consequently will be produced through every intellection. This final consequence follows from the preceding one, since precisely because a word is present, it must occur through intellection. The former also follows from the antecedent: because the word is nothing other than the most actual form of the thing understood, through which the intellect becomes in act the thing understood itself.

§ II. The second opinion is referred to.

202 The second opinion affirms that in the blessed there is in fact a word of the mind representing the divine essence quidditatively and as it is in itself, but that this does not imply that the said essence as it is in itself can be seen without a word produced. They hold this view to be probable: Sylvius, in conflatu q. 12, art. 2; Canarianus, q. 27, art. 1, disp. 15; Capreolus, in 1, dist. 27, q. 2, art. 3, ad 8, and in 4, dist. 49, q. 5, art. 3. The same view is held by St Bonaventure, in 1, dist. 3, q. 1, art. 1, qaest. 1, ad ult.; Scotus, quodlib. 8, and in 4, dist. 49, q. 2, where he cites Soto, art. 3; Gabriel, in 1, dist. 27, and at the same place; Durand; Ferrara, 1 contra Gentes, cap. 53; Vazquez, in the present dissertation, 38; Molina, here, disp. 1; Arrubal, disp. 17, cap. 2.

This opinion will be clear as to its second part from what we shall say in support of our assertion. As to the first part, however, it is proved first. For the beatific vision, speaking naturally, is prior in having the connaturality of being in becoming than of being in having been made; therefore, speaking connaturally, and consequently in fact, action and word will be simultaneous. The antecedent is proved. Because intellection itself depends upon the actually inflowing intellect, and is considered in this respect to be in becoming; and then such intellection, at least speaking connaturally and therefore in fact, is truly complete and terminated; and thus it will not only be in becoming but in having been made, and not just somehow, but in such a way that speaking connaturally it is prior in becoming than in having been made, since whatever is under either of these states must first be in becoming than in having been made, as appears inductively. The consequence, however, is proved. Because in its becoming, and in so far as it itself depends actually upon the intellect, it is an action, since this is proper to an action; but in its having been made it is a word, since the word is nothing other than completed intellection in its having been made.

203 Secondly. For although the eternal Father has his own most present essence in the ratio of an object to be known, he nevertheless produces the Word; and likewise, although the essence of an angel may be actually present and proportionate to the angelic intellect, nevertheless in his intellection he also forms a word, as we shall say below from the doctrine of St Thomas; therefore the blessed will also form a word in act in the beatific vision. The consequence is evident. For one of the chief reasons why this production of a word could be denied to the blessed was that the word was posited to supply the absence of the terminating object of intellection, just as the imprinted species is posited to supply the absence or disproportion of the object motivating the intellect, because the intellect understands by drawing things to itself and consequently by holding the object within itself both as motive and as terminus. Therefore, if this reason is no obstacle in other intellections, neither will it prevent the word from being produced there, nor will it impede it in the beatific vision.

204 Thirdly. A representative word of God by essence need not import infinite perfection, as the intelligible species quidditatively representing God does; therefore it can be present in the beatific vision, and in fact will be present. The consequence—that the latter statement follows from the former part—is clear from the preceding argument. For once a created representative word of God by essence is not contrary, there is no reason why it should not in fact be present, since every intellection connaturally seeks to be terminated by its own terminus, namely by a word. As to the first part, the same consequence plainly follows from the antecedent. For the said word alone could be impossible because it would necessarily import infinite perfection.

The antecedent, however, follows from the distinction between the imprinted species and the word. For although the imprinted species must be commensurate with the object and its immateriality, because it holds itself on the object's side, the word is otherwise situated, because it is not immediately commensurate with the object itself, but with the perfection of the light and action through which it is produced. Since therefore both have a bounded existence both in the being of a thing and in the intelligible genus, the word likewise cannot fail to have the same finitude and limitation in both orders.

205 It is confirmed first. The representative word that an angel forms need not equal in entitative perfection, or in representative being, the whole imprinted species through which it is produced; therefore, neither will the word representing the divine essence have to equal its perfection in any real being, whether entitative or representative, as it has the ratio of an intelligible species. The antecedent is commonly admitted by theologians when treating of angels. The consequence, however, seems sufficiently established: first from the parity of the reason; then also because precisely because the angelic word does not equal the intelligible species through which it is produced, the mean through which it is produced is not part of the reason of a word to equal that species; and consequently a created representative word of God as it is in itself can be produced, even though it does not equal the power of the species through which it is made.

It is confirmed and explained secondly. For a word cannot fail to be limited by the beatific vision, which is of finite perfection, in its representing; therefore it cannot fail to be finite and limited, and consequently it will be possible and will in fact be present together with the same beatific vision. Both consequences are clear from what has been said. The antecedent, however, is urged because a word cannot represent more than what is attained through cognition; therefore the word cannot fail to be limited through the said cognition.

§ III. The more probable opinion.

206 Nevertheless, it must be said that even by God's absolute power a word representing God by essence cannot be produced. Thus St Thomas in the places cited, after considering dub. 1 of this article, whom Caietanus, Bannesius, Zumel, Nazarius, Gonzalez, Navarette, Ripa, Alvarez, Javellus, and Soncinas follow in the places cited for the difficulty; and Capreolus in 4, dist. 49, q. 5; and our Complutenses in lib. de Anima, disp. 21, q. 5; and finally Ledesma, De perfectione Dei, q. 8, art. 5 and 6, where he says that this opinion is more common among Thomists than it is openly defended by very many others.

This assertion follows openly from that twofold reason by which, in the preceding difficulties, we proved the impossibility of a created imprinted species quidditatively representing God. For just as an imprinted species represents God quidditatively and as He is in Himself, so an expressed species, or a word formed through the beatific vision, ought to represent Him quidditatively as well. Hence, just as for this reason an intelligible species cannot fail to be of the same nature as its object, namely as God, so for the same reason a word also could not fail to be of the same nature as God; for that likeness of the word to God could not fail to be grounded in the unity of nature, as is clear from what was said above; and since it implies a created form to be in some true and real being of the same nature as God, as has been shown, it will also imply the presence of a word seeking the said likeness.

Then, just as an imprinted species must be of the same immateriality as the object quidditatively represented, so also must an expressed species, or word. Therefore, whenever an angel—for example—is known through a word representing him quidditatively, that word is as immaterial as the angel; and likewise our word representing some material quidditity, or some quidditative predicate of it, is of the same immateriality as those things. Therefore, just as for this reason a created imprinted species of God by essence is repugnant, so also is a created word, or expressed species, of God as He is in Himself.

§ IV. Solutions of the arguments of the first opinion.

207 To the first argument of the first opinion, which was left as the final one from the fourth difficulty, the answer is given by denying the antecedent. To its proof, the antecedent must be distinguished. Considered under the predicament of action, consisting in flux and vital being, it is a true vital action and a true becoming must be denied; considered under the predicament of quality, possessing by the mode of a perfect form the ratio of an action and terminus in an eminent manner, it must be granted; and then the first consequence must be denied.

This is explained as follows. The said immanent action, namely intellection, and the other actions already mentioned, because of their eminence and ultimate actuality, are equivalent to a transient action and its terminus: to its terminus indeed, because it is a form and a kind of perfect quality, just as it is the terminus of the said action; but to the action, because it is in an eminent manner the ultimate actuality of a power and consists in a most actual exercise. Thus it is a kind of perfect form constituted in actual exercise and ultimate actuality, by which the intellect actually lives and is virtually and intelligibly united to its object. Hence, although a transient action, which is a pure becoming considered under the predicament of action and consists really in vital being and flux, must necessarily have a terminus produced from the nature of the thing and distinct from it, since its being, namely vital, is for the sake of that terminus; the case is different with intellection, because it is not necessarily for the sake of a terminus, namely the word, but the terminus and word exist for the sake of it, so that through the word, as an object understood beforehand in the manner already explained, the object is contemplated.

Accordingly, when the said intellection needs this terminus because the object is not actually present and does not have sufficient actuality under the ratio of a terminating object, since it is not part of its ratio to be actually understood, or to exist in act as terminating intellection, then the same intellection, insofar as it is eminently equivalent to a transient action and is the ultimate actuality of the agent, produces in a more elevated manner a terminus distinct from itself, namely a word. When, however, it does not need it because the object is intimately present and has sufficient actuality to be united immediately with the intellect itself not only under the ratio of a motivating object but also as an actually terminating object, as occurs in the beatific vision, then it does not produce a terminus distinct from itself. For since, unlike a transient action, it does not exist for the sake of the terminus, but rather the terminus exists because of the intellection's need, it does not produce it, since it has no need of it; rather, by itself alone, in the mode of a perfect form, and bearing in itself the ratio of action and terminus eminently, it proceeds from the intellect and is united with it and the object in the second act.

208 The first confirmation is answered with the Complutenses, in lib. Phys., disp. 16, num. 13, and in lib. de Anima, disp. 21, q. 1, as well as 2 and 3, and especially q. 1: namely, that the beatific vision is not an action under the predicament of action, but a true quality. For as St Thomas teaches in 1, dist. 8, q. 4, art. 3, ad 3, action, insofar as it constitutes a special predicament distinct from all others, is said to be something flowing with motion; but intellection does not consist in flux or vital being, nor does it have the ratio of motion or instantaneous mutation, which in 3 Physic. is defined as being the act of a thing in potency, etc.—features imported by action under the predicament of action. On this point the said Complutenses should be consulted in the place cited. Hence, just as intellection is a perfect form, so it does not constitute its subject in flux and in a process; but, as Aristotle says in 3 de Anima, text. 22, and St Thomas explains in the same place, lecture 12, it is the act of the perfect, that is, it constitutes the intellect in perfect being, not in vital being.

We have said that it is not an action under the predicament of action, but not absolutely that it is not an action, for we do not deny that it is a true action, but that it is an action under the predicament of action. For true action is abstracted from what constitutes the predicament of action as distinct from all other things, and from what is a true quality pertaining to the second species of quality, as the said Complutenses explain at length from St Thomas in the place cited.

To the argument proving the contrary, it must be denied that the beatific vision arises from this as the word of the mind; for this word is not any kind of quality, but a quality similar to its object and proceeding from the intellect through another intervening quality, namely intellection, as it has the ratio of a word. What intellection means insofar as it is a word, and how intellection itself, as the contemplation of an object, and the same insofar as it is the production and utterance of a word, together with other matters bearing on this, are to be compared for a more exact understanding of this difficulty, are explained from St Thomas by the said Complutenses in the cited lib. de Anima, disp., q. 4.

The reason, however, why a word does not proceed immediately from the intellect itself is that it does not have the ratio of a quality so eminent as intellection, which is equivalent to a transient action and its terminus. Thus it needs an action distinct from itself, through which it is made and which, as was touched upon above, has the ratio of the ultimate actuality with respect to it, to the intellect, and to the whole order of purely created intelligibles insofar as such.

209 Nor does it matter that it is said there that each thing produces something similar to itself, and consequently that the beatific vision, proceeding from the intellect insofar as it is similar to its object, ought to be a likeness of that same object and therefore cannot fail to be a word. For this means nothing other than an expressed or produced quality, proceeding from the intellect, which is similar to its object.

This therefore makes no difference. For whenever the created intellect is concerned with an object that is in itself an intelligible object and is at the same time essentially understood through some intellection, that is, with the divine essence as it is in itself, then it acts in the ratio of a productive principle by the mode of an equivocal agent. Thus it produces nothing except the intellection which, by its eminence, is equivalent to a transient action and its terminus, as has been said; and, as is also clear from what has been said, it cannot be a formal likeness of the object unless it is of the same nature in its intelligible being as God, and consequently it would mean infinite perfection in this order. Yet when the same intellect is concerned with other objects, it has at least in part the ratio of a univocal agent, and therefore it produces a word which is of the same nature in its intelligible being as the object, or intelligible species, subject nevertheless to what was indicated above in dub. 5 of this dissertation.

210 The second confirmation is answered by saying that, precisely because intellection proceeds from the intellect by the mode of a perfect form eminently equivalent to a transient action and its terminus, it can proceed from it in an eminent manner both as quo and as quod. Consequently, if such intellection does not need a terminus really distinct from itself, because the object is intimately united with the intellect under the ratio of the object understood, owing to its eminence and most pure actuality, then no word will be produced.

To the first argument proving the contrary, the answer is that although a becoming under the predicament of action and joined with motion cannot be the becoming of itself so as to be made both as quo and as quod, but only as quo, the case is different with an eminent becoming consisting in a form and a kind of perfect quality. For insofar as it is the ultimate actuality of the agent and is equivalent to a transient action, it needs no other intervening actuality or action through which it proceeds from the intellect; and insofar as it is a perfect form, not consisting as to its formality or entitative status in flux and vital being, it also proceeds as a thing effected, as quod. Nor does it follow that it exists before it exists, as the argument intends; rather, it simultaneously has the ratio of proceeding by its eminence as quo and as quod, without any distinction on the part of the thing conceived, but only on the part of the mode of conception, and at most (discussed elsewhere) with a merely virtual distinction. Thus, that formality by which it is equivalent to a transient action is virtually prior to the other, by which it is equivalent to the terminus of that action, although, speaking really, both formalities are altogether simultaneous.

Accordingly, the second argument is also sufficiently clear. For although the effect, or the produced terminus, must necessarily be distinguished from its cause or productive principle, it is not nevertheless necessary that the becoming and production of a thing, consisting in actual exercise and in the ultimate actuality of the agent while also bearing the ratio of a perfect form, be distinguished from that same form as produced, as quod. For such a becoming is not the ordinary real becoming of the thing, but a real and eminent becoming.

Hence, just as the passive generation of the divine Word—which, according to the highly probable opinion of many, consists in the relation of filiation signified by the mode of origin—simultaneously has a real existence produced in an eminent manner both as quo and as quod, without this proving a real distinction in it, because this belongs to it only as something real, but in an eminent manner, and thus through the mode of some pre-existing unity and in a more elevated manner bearing both ratios; so, proportion being preserved, this same will be found in intelligible and created emanation by the ratio of its eminence.

211 To the second argument the answer is given with our Complutenses, in lib. de Anima, disp. 21, q. 2, 3, and 4, and especially q. 2, num. 32 and the following, by denying the antecedent. To the first argument, drawn from the testimony of Augustine, the answer is given with the Angelic Doctor, 1, part, q. 34, art. 1, where, after he had set against himself Augustine's words used in this argument, he says as follows in the answer to the second: Now, therefore, when it is said that the Word is knowledge, knowledge is not taken for the act of the understanding intellect, or for any habit of it, but for what the intellect conceives by knowing. Hence Augustine also says that the Word is begotten wisdom, which is nothing other than the very conception of the wise man, which can likewise in the same way be called begotten knowledge.

212 To the second argument, the answer is that the holy Doctor is speaking there of intelligere, insofar as it is distinguished from dicere; but, taken in that sense, it is true that no relation of origin is imported into it—that is, that nothing proceeds from it as a terminus produced through it and distinct from it, as occurs in dicere itself. For this reason St Thomas said that no relation of origin is imported into it, but only a certain information in our intellect, to signify that one ought not to regard anything distinct from it as a terminus produced through it, but rather the subject, which it constitutes in the being of an understanding subject as its object.

Nevertheless, after the words just cited, namely: according as our intellect is in act through the form of the thing understood, he immediately added, he did not intend to signify that the form of the thing understood is that through which the intellect is most formally constituted in the ratio of an understanding subject, such that this be the formal effect of such a form; but rather what it is through which the intellect is rendered altogether capable of eliciting and receiving within itself an intellection distinct from the said form and through which it is constituted in the being of an understanding subject. He said that this itself is the form of the thing understood, namely the intelligible species: he often calls this the form of the thing understood, as is clear from 1 cont. Gent., cap. 53, and the other places cited above. For unless the intellect be actualized through the said intelligible form, it is not at all capable of eliciting and receiving within itself an intellection distinct both from an imprinted species and from an expressed species, or word.

Whence it is not altogether true that what is added in the same argument, namely that to understand is said by St Thomas to be the formal effect of the form of the thing understood in which no relation of origin is imported. For although it is true that no relation of origin is imported into intelligere, insofar as it is distinguished from dicere, it is nevertheless false that intelligere is the formal effect of the form of the thing understood. Whether, however, an intelligible species is required in order to receive intellection, so that it may adhere immediately to the species, or whether it is only received in an intellect nevertheless actualized and informed through the said species in the proportionate manner in which the actions of our Lord, although not received into the substance of the Word, are nevertheless received in his humanity specified by the said hypostasis, and the beatific vision, although not received into the divine essence, is nevertheless received in the blessed intellect actualized by the divine essence under the ratio of an intelligible form, is another question and is to be discussed elsewhere.

213 To the last argument, the answer is that it is not correctly inferred from the fact that intelligere cannot be completed without a word, and hence is not extrinsic to it, that the said word pertains intrinsically to the act of understanding as something directly imported by it. It is inferred only that the word has a necessary connection with it, as with an object that is first per se and (as we shall say below) understood in those intellections of the natural order and in many others in which the object is not intimately present in the intellect with sufficient actuality and immateriality for it to be united of itself, without the aid of a word distinct from it, to the intellect under the ratio of an object understood.

Against this, the proof there adduced has no force, namely that intellection is one simple quality, and therefore cannot result from a word and some other quality, but must necessarily consist in a word if it is once required for it. For that intellection is a simple quality takes from it the direct importation of a word as something intrinsically constituting it, but does not imply that it brings it as an object in the manner just explained and in the sense already stated. For just as it belongs to the ratio of the intellect to be per se united with its intelligible object, so it belongs to the ratio of intellection to be united also with the object whose ratio it is to be actually understood, or to exist in act as terminating intellection, as was touched upon above. It is clear from what has been said in this difficulty that the word is an object actually understood through the intellections already explained; and thus it is no wonder that it has a necessary connection with it.

214 To the third, the answer is that there is a twofold actual manifestation of a thing: one indeed through the mode of a vital operation, and another through the mode of an object and likeness which manifests the object not habitually but actually, and which is always and indispensably united with the actual intellection distinct from it. Intellection, therefore, is the actual manifestation of a thing through the mode of vital operation, not through the mode of an object terminating intellection, which does not have the ratio of vital operation. These considerations make sufficiently clear everything there adduced.

To the confirmation, what has been said shows the point. For the divine essence, by the ratio of its eminence and most pure actuality, has united in itself the ratio both of intellection and of the object whose ratio it is to be actually understood. The former, however, belongs to it because it is a manifestation of the thing understood through the mode of intelligible and vital operation. The latter, by contrast, belongs to it insofar as it corresponds (though we shall explain the manner elsewhere) to the mental word, in that, by belonging to its ratio, it is the manifestation of the thing understood as actually existing and intrinsically terminating intellection, or existing through the mode of the object already explained. Hence, insofar as it expresses this ratio, it does not express itself as intellection, but as the object understood.

215 To the fourth, while granting the antecedent, the consequence must be denied. For intellection is not formally, however actual, a likeness of its object. To its proof, it must be said that it proves only that just as an intelligible species makes an intelligible object by the ratio of its habitual representation, so an expressed species, or word, makes it actually understood, that is, actually terminating intellection; but not that, just as an intelligible species constitutes the intellect in the first act as something intrinsic and intrinsically pertaining to such a first act, so the word constitutes the intellect as understanding as something intrinsic and intrinsically bearing on intellection.

The reason for the difference is taken from what has been said above. For although intellection must arise, as from a single principle perfectly adapted to the first act, from the male and female of intellectual nature, that is, from the intellect and the object, or from the intelligible species that is the same object in its intelligible being and renders it intelligible, and although likewise the object, or word, which in that order and in a more actual manner is the same object and constitutes it in the ratio of the thing understood, must terminate intellection, or that act of giving birth to intellection in the intellections mentioned above, nevertheless intellection itself in creatures (of whom we are speaking) is not the object understood insofar as it is still in its intelligible being, as its principle and terminus do have the said object as their being. For it is not a likeness of that object, but a union with it as with the object understood, or a vital tendency toward it as toward a thing understood. Consequently, the object, or word, will not pertain intrinsically to intellection as something intrinsically constituting it, but only as an object considered in itself and actually united with it. Nevertheless, the intelligible species pertains to the intellect as intrinsically completing it, constituting it in the first act, and rendering the object intelligible; and likewise the word bears intrinsically on the ratio of the terminus and object of actual intellection, because each of these offices is an office of the thing understood, or of what is the same as it in its intelligible being.

216 Accordingly, the answer to both confirmations is also clear. For the intellect is not said to understand by drawing things to itself insofar as intellection itself consists in the intellect's having things intelligibly, or drawing them to itself, or (equivalent for our present purpose) being a likeness of them in its intelligible being. Rather, no intellection can occur unless the object is intimately present to the intellect both under the ratio of a motivating and under that of a terminating object, whether it terminates intellection in itself or through the intervening likeness just mentioned. Hence, when we wish perfectly to understand a thing, we accordingly strive to form a perfect expressed likeness of it. For in the intellections already mentioned, such a likeness is necessarily required in order to produce this influx; and when it is formed through intellection, a perfect knowledge of that thing cannot fail to be possessed.

It makes no difference if one objects that these claims do not fit what the Complutenses say in Summulis, lib. 1 de Terminis, cap. 1, about the acts of the intellect, namely that they are likenesses of things expressed per se. The answer is that they said this much only because they introduced the acts of the intellect as an example in order to explain the formal sign as distinct from the instrumental sign. For it is clear from the common opinion of the Doctors that, to introduce something as an example, the probable opinion of others suffices, as St Thomas often did.

217 To the last, the answer is given with our Complutenses, in lib. de Anima, disp. cited, num. 102, by granting the antecedent. For although intellection, taken most formally, does not consist in the intellect becoming the thing understood itself—since to be understood is not by itself the first formal effect of the thing understood—nevertheless there is no intellection unless the intellect becomes in act the thing understood. This occurs either because the thing understood is united of itself, in the ratio of a thing actually understood, with the intellect itself, or because it is united with it through the word supplying its defect. Then both consequences must be denied. To the proof of the former, upon which the latter rests, what has just been said makes the point clear. For a word is not any form of the thing understood, or the thing understood itself, but the expressed form of that thing, produced through intellection. Nevertheless, for the intellect to understand, it is not necessary that it become in act through this form, but through the form, or through the thing understood itself, not expressed through intellection but united of itself with the intellect by the ratio of its supreme actuality under the mode of the object understood, or the object actually terminating intellection. On account of this ratio, what is commonly called the word is usually so named.

We shall answer the arguments of the second opinion in the following difficulty.