Dist. 3, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/3/q/bon-sent-I-d3-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II

*Whether the image is found in these powers through their comparison to God.*

Secondly it is asked concerning the powers in comparison to their object, namely whether the image is found in them through their comparison to God. And that it is so, it seems:

**1.** «The soul is image in that by which it is capable of God and can be a participant in him», as Augustine says in the fourteenth book *On the Trinity*; but it is capable [of God] with respect to its higher part: therefore etc.

**2.** Likewise, in the same work: «The image of him than whom nothing is better must there be sought and found, where our mind has nothing better»; but this is the higher part: therefore etc.

**3.** Likewise, this same thing seems to follow by reason, because something is called an image insofar as it leads back to the prototype: therefore, since that [prototype] is God, the image is not found in these powers,

except insofar as they lead to God; but through these powers a person is led to God, since through them he is turned to him: therefore etc.

**4.** Likewise, God is the object of the theological virtues, in which the image of reformation consists: therefore, since the object of both images is the same — for one is conducive to the other and perfective of it — if God is the object of the one, [he is the object] also of the other.

**On the contrary****:**

**1.** Augustine in the ninth book *On the Trinity* assigns the image to mind, knowledge, and love, according as the soul remembers itself, understands itself, loves itself: therefore it seems that the image is found through the turning of [the soul] back upon itself.

**2.** Likewise, Augustine in the twelfth book *On the Trinity*, chapter four: «When we seek the trinity in the nature of the human mind, we seek it in the whole, not separating the activity concerning temporal things from the contemplation of the eternal, so as to seek some third thing besides»: therefore the trinity of the image is found according to activity concerning temporal things, and so by turning toward lower things.

**3.** Likewise, according as the soul is turned toward lower things or upon itself, in it there is equality and order and origin and all the things that concur to constitute the account of image.

**4.** Likewise, the image is in sinners turned away from God, and even in those who can in no way return, such as the damned: therefore the account of image is not found in terms of turning toward God.

**5.** Likewise, for the perfect account of image it is necessary that knower and known, or speaker and spoken, be made equal; for these two represent the Father and the Son; but in turning toward God there is no such equation: therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> The image is first and principally in the powers of the soul insofar as they are turned to God; secondarily in them insofar as they are turned to the soul itself; insofar, however, as they are turned to lower things, there is in them not image but vestige of the Trinity.

**I respond:** For an understanding of the foregoing, three things must be presupposed in the account of image: first, the image is found according to express conformity to that of which it is image; second, that what is conformed to the image is consequently conformed to that of which it is image — whence whoever sees the image of Peter consequently sees Peter also; third, that the soul according to its powers is rendered conformed to those things to which it is turned, whether by knowledge or by love.

Since therefore, when the soul is turned to God, it is conformed to him, and the image is found according to conformity: therefore the image of God consists in these powers, according as they have God as their object.

Again, since the soul is image of God, and what is turned and conformed to the image is conformed also to that of which it is image, therefore the soul, according as it is turned upon itself, does not depart from conformity; and so the image consists in these powers, according as they have the soul as their object.

But when it is turned to lower creatures, it is conformed to those things in which there is not the image of God but [his] vestige. Therefore the powers of the soul, according as they have lower things as their objects, depart from the account of image, because they depart from express conformity.

Although therefore in powers of this kind, according as they are turned to lower things, a trinity and some conformity may be found, likewise also in the sensitive powers, as Augustine shows; nevertheless, because they fall short of express conformity, the account of image is not found in them. Hence Augustine investigates the trinity in all the powers of the soul, not because the image is in them, but in order to exclude them from the account of image. Hence seeking the whole trinity in the whole soul, he seeks it in the higher and lower part of reason and in sense. And this is what he says in that authority: «When we seek the trinity in the nature of the human mind, we seek it in the whole»; he does not say, we seek the image. Hence Augustine in the twelfth book *On the Trinity*, chapter four: «Although a trinity can be found in the lower part of reason, the image nevertheless cannot be found [there]».

It must therefore be granted that the image consists in these powers, according as they are turned to the soul, first however and principally, as the first arguments show, according as they are turned to God. Hence Augustine in these two ways assigns the image: the first is in mind, knowledge, and love,

according as the mind knows and loves itself; the second is in memory, intelligence, and will. And at the end of the book he shows that the most complete account of image is in [its] comparison to God.

**To 1, 2, 3.** From these things the response to the first, second, and third [objections] is clear: because the first argument must be conceded; the second indeed concludes that in the lower part there is a trinity; and the third, that [there is] conformity; but these are resolved because [the conformity] is not express.

**To 4.** To that which is objected concerning the turning-away of sinners, it must be resolved that we do not say image [is] in these powers according to actual turning but according to aptitudinal [turning], which never abandons the powers: just as a person whose feet have been cut off is also called "able to walk", although he does not walk.

**To 5.** To that which is objected, that it is necessary in image that knower and known be made equal; it must be said that it is not necessary that the known be made equal to the knower by an equality *of thing to thing*, but under the account of the knowable. Hence there is as much known in the intelligence as is represented by the memory. That it should be equated simpliciter is not necessary; it is however equated, according as the soul is turned upon itself. Hence the account of image quoad-quid is greater in the turning to God, [and] quoad-quid is greater in the turning of the soul upon itself. In the turning to God [the image] is greater, because it has more of the account of beauty and conformity; in the turning to itself it has more of the account of consubstantiality and equality.