Whether the Image of God Is to Be Found in the Acts of the Soul?
Objection 1: It would seem that the image of God is not found in the
acts of the soul. For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xi, 26), that "man
was made to God's image, inasmuch as we exist and know that we exist,
and love this existence and knowledge." But to exist does not signify
an act. Therefore the image of God is not to be found in the soul's
acts.
Obj. 2: Further, Augustine (De Trin. ix, 4) assigns God's image in
the soul to these three things--mind, knowledge, and love. But mind
does not signify an act, but rather the power or the essence of the
intellectual soul. Therefore the image of God does not extend to the
acts of the soul.
Obj. 3: Further, Augustine (De Trin. x, 11) assigns the image of the
Trinity in the soul to "memory, understanding, and will." But these
three are "natural powers of the soul," as the Master of the
Sentences says (1 Sent. D iii). Therefore the image of God is in the
powers, and does not extend to the acts of the soul.
Obj. 4: Further, the image of the Trinity always remains in the soul.
But an act does not always remain. Therefore the image of God does
not extend to the acts.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine (De Trin. xi, 2 seqq.) assigns the
trinity in the lower part of the soul, in relation to the actual
vision, whether sensible or imaginative. Therefore, also, the trinity
in the mind, by reason of which man is like to God's image, must be
referred to actual vision.
_I answer that,_ As above explained (A. 2), a certain representation
of the species belongs to the nature of an image. Hence, if the image
of the Divine Trinity is to be found in the soul, we must look for it
where the soul approaches the nearest to a representation of the
species of the Divine Persons. Now the Divine Persons are distinct
from each other by reason of the procession of the Word from the
Speaker, and the procession of Love connecting Both. But in our soul
word "cannot exist without actual thought," as Augustine says (De
Trin. xiv, 7). Therefore, first and chiefly, the image of the Trinity
is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the
knowledge which we possess, by actual thought we form an internal
word; and thence break forth into love. But, since the principles of
acts are the habits and powers, and everything exists virtually in
its principle, therefore, secondarily and consequently, the image of
the Trinity may be considered as existing in the powers, and still
more in the habits, forasmuch as the acts virtually exist therein.
Reply Obj. 1: Our being bears the image of God so far as it is proper
to us, and excels that of the other animals, that is to say, in so
far as we are endowed with a mind. Therefore, this trinity is the
same as that which Augustine mentions (De Trin. ix, 4), and which
consists in mind, knowledge, and love.
Reply Obj. 2: Augustine observed this trinity, first, as existing in
the mind. But because the mind, though it knows itself entirely in a
certain degree, yet also in a way does not know itself--namely, as
being distinct from others (and thus also it searches itself, as
Augustine subsequently proves--De Trin. x, 3,4); therefore, as though
knowledge were not in equal proportion to mind, he takes three things
in the soul which are proper to the mind, namely, memory,
understanding, and will; which everyone is conscious of possessing;
and assigns the image of the Trinity pre-eminently to these three, as
though the first assignation were in part deficient.
Reply Obj. 3: As Augustine proves (De Trin. xiv, 7), we may be said
to understand, will, and to love certain things, both when we
actually consider them, and when we do not think of them. When they
are not under our actual consideration, they are objects of our
memory only, which, in his opinion, is nothing else than habitual
retention of knowledge and love [*Cf. Q. 79, A. 7, ad 1]. "But
since," as he says, "a word cannot be there without actual thought
(for we think everything that we say, even if we speak with that
interior word belonging to no nation's tongue), this image chiefly
consists in these three things, memory, understanding, and will. And
by understanding I mean here that whereby we understand with actual
thought; and by will, love, or dilection I mean that which unites
this child with its parent." From which it is clear that he places
the image of the Divine Trinity more in actual understanding and
will, than in these as existing in the habitual retention of the
memory; although even thus the image of the Trinity exists in the
soul in a certain degree, as he says in the same place. Thus it is
clear that memory, understanding, and will are not three powers as
stated in the Sentences.
Reply Obj. 4: Someone might answer by referring to Augustine's
statement (De Trin. xiv, 6), that "the mind ever remembers itself,
ever understands itself, ever loves itself"; which some take to mean
that the soul ever actually understands, and loves itself. But he
excludes this interpretation by adding that "it does not always think
of itself as actually distinct from other things." Thus it is clear
that the soul always understands and loves itself, not actually but
habitually; though we might say that by perceiving its own act, it
understands itself whenever it understands anything. But since it is
not always actually understanding, as in the case of sleep, we must
say that these acts, although not always actually existing, yet ever
exist in their principles, the habits and powers. Wherefore,
Augustine says (De Trin. xiv, 4): "If the rational soul is made to
the image of God in the sense that it can make use of reason and
intellect to understand and consider God, then the image of God was
in the soul from the beginning of its existence."
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