Dist. 3, Part 2, Art. 2, 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-a2-q2
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### Question II.
### *Whether mind, knowledge, and love have order, equality, and consubstantiality.*

Secondly, the question is raised concerning these in comparison to one another, according to the threefold comparison which Augustine sets down, namely of order, of equality, and of consubstantiality, which the Master recites in the text. There is order among these, because mind is parent, knowledge is offspring, and the third is love proceeding from both. There is also equality there, because mind knows itself as much as it is, and loves itself as much as it knows itself. There is also consubstantiality; whence Augustine, in the ninth book *On the Trinity*, says: "We are admonished, if in any way we can see it, that these exist substantially in the soul, not as in a subject, as color in a body, nor any quality or quantity; for whatever is such does not exceed the substance in which it is. But the mind, by the love by which it loves itself, can also love something else"; and thus he holds that love is consubstantial with the mind.

1. But it is objected against this: First, it seems that in these there is neither order nor origin. For either they are taken as innate habits, or as acquired. If as innate, there is no order, because they are simultaneous with the soul itself; if as acquired, then love precedes knowledge; for no one acquires or strives to learn anything unless he loves to know. Whence Augustine at the end of the ninth book *On the Trinity*: "An appetite precedes the offspring of the mind, by which, when we seek and find what we wish to know, an offspring is born, which is knowledge itself." Therefore either there is no order, or there is not such an order.

2. Likewise, it seems that there is no equality there. For either knowledge and love are taken in comparison to inferior things, or to the soul. If to inferior things, it is manifest that there is no equality there; for we know many things which we do not love; if in comparison to the soul, either there is equality with respect to *intension*, or with respect to *extension*. As to extension, no; this is plain, because there is only one thing there: therefore as to intension; but that this is false seems clear, because, since we know the soul to be less than God and greater than body, it sometimes happens that we love it more than God and less than the body; and so the quantity of love does not follow the quantity of knowledge.

3. Likewise, that there is no consubstantiality there seems to follow, because love and knowledge are habits and are qualities; therefore it seems that they differ essentially from the mind itself.

4. Likewise, Augustine's reason is that they are not in the soul as accidents, because they extend themselves outward; but this is nothing, because accidents do extend themselves outward, as heat by heating and color by altering the sight. Moreover, a man knows certain knowable things by acquired knowledge, which is an accident, and thus extends itself outward.

> **Conclusion.** Mind, knowledge, and love have order, equality, and consubstantiality.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Augustine assigns, in these there is order, equality, and consubstantiality.

Now order is attended to in these connatural habits of the soul in comparison to acts, just as order is posited in faith, hope, and charity, although they are infused together.

*To 1.* And thus what is objected to the contrary is clear, because there is no order in these habits considered absolutely, but through their relation to acts.

Likewise there is equality there according to the soul's turning back upon itself and the perfection of the aforesaid habits. Whence Augustine says in the ninth book *On the Trinity* that there is no equality in these habits except according as they are perfect.

*To 2.* And thus the solution is clear to that which is objected concerning love, because that love is not perfect love, but disordered and lustful. — Or it must be said that they are equal in so far as they are connatural; for as much as one is apt or capable of knowing himself, so much also of loving himself; but concerning acquired habits, whether evil or good, it is not true; and the statement is not understood of them.

Likewise there is the third thing there, namely consubstantiality, because, as was said above, love and knowledge are connatural to the soul, in so far as the soul turns back upon itself; and thus they add nothing at all over and above the powers themselves. For by the very fact that the soul is present to itself, it has knowledge; by the fact that it is one with itself, it has the habit of love: and therefore, just as the powers are consubstantial with the soul, as was seen above, so also are habits of this kind. Hence, although they may seem to bespeak the mode of a habit or quality, in reality they add nothing over the powers.

*To 3.* And thus the response to the objection is clear, that they are not qualities in that manner.

*To 4.* To that which is objected from Augustine's reasoning, it must be said that that reasoning does not principally conclude that love or knowledge are substantially in the soul; and this is so, because then by parity of reasoning the same could be said and objected concerning every love; but it concludes consequentially, which is plain thus. For when love extends itself outside its subject by loving another, this is through the power of the substance, just as it does not exist of itself except through the substance. If therefore love and knowledge extend themselves through substantial power, and these are intelligence and will; and the love by which the soul loves itself is the same as the will itself; and likewise the knowledge by which it knows is nothing other than intelligence: it remains, therefore, that love and knowledge with respect to themselves are consubstantial to the mind itself.