Chapter III.
On the contemplation of God through His image marked with natural powers.
1. Since, however, the two aforementioned steps, leading us toward God through His vestiges, through which He shines forth in all creatures, have led us by the hand to this point: that we should re-enter into ourselves, namely into our mind, in which the divine image shines forth: hence it is that now in the third place, entering into ourselves and as it were leaving the outer court behind, in the holy place, namely the anterior part of the tabernacle, we ought to endeavor to see God through a mirror; where, after the manner of a candelabrum, the light of truth shines forth in the face of our mind, in which, namely, the image of the most blessed Trinity resplends.
Enter therefore into yourself and see that your mind most fervently loves itself; nor could it love itself unless it knew itself; nor would it know itself unless it remembered itself, because we grasp nothing through the intellect that is not present in our memory; and from this you perceive that your soul has a threefold power, not with the eye of the flesh, but with the eye of reason. Consider therefore the operations and dispositions of these three powers, and you will be able to see God through yourself as through an image, which is to see through a mirror in an enigma.
2. Now the operation of memory is the retention and representation not only of things present, corporeal, and temporal, but also of things successive, simple, and sempiternal.
For memory retains things past through recollection, things present through reception, and things future through foresight. — It also retains simple things, such as the principles of continuous and discrete quantities, namely the point, the instant, and unity, without which it is impossible to remember or think those things which are principiated through these.
It retains no less the principles and axioms of the sciences as sempiternal things and sempiternally, because it can never so forget them, while it uses reason, that it would not approve them when heard and assent to them, not as though it perceived them anew, but as though it recognized them as innate and familiar to itself: as is evident if one proposes to someone: "Of anything, either the affirmation or the negation"; or: "Every whole is greater than its part," or any other axiom which inner reason cannot contradict.
From the first actual retention, therefore, of all temporal things, namely of past, present, and future, it has an effigy of eternity, whose indivisible present extends itself to all times.
From the second it appears that it is not only formed from without through phantasms, but also from above, receiving and having within itself simple forms which cannot enter through the gates of the senses and the phantasms of sensible things.
From the third it is established that it has an unchangeable light present to itself, in which it remembers invariable truths.
And thus through the operations of memory it appears that the soul itself is the image and likeness of God, so present to itself and having Him present, that it actually grasps Him and through its power "is capable of Him and can be a partaker of Him."
3. The operation of the intellective power, however, consists in the intellect's perception of terms, propositions, and inferences. - Now the intellect grasps the significations of terms when it comprehends what each thing is through definition. But definition must be made through higher things, and those must be defined through still higher things, until one arrives at the supreme and most general, which being unknown, the lower things cannot be understood definitively. Unless therefore it is known what being per se is, the definition of any particular substance cannot be fully known. Nor can being per se be known unless it is known with its conditions, which are: one, true, good. Now being, since it can be thought of as diminished and as complete, as imperfect and as perfect, as being in potency and as being in act, as being in a certain respect and as being simply, as being in part and as being totally, as transient being and as permanent being, as being through another and as being through itself, as being mixed with non-being and as pure being, as dependent being and as absolute being, as posterior being and as prior being, as mutable being and as immutable being, as simple being and as composite being: since "privations and defects can in no way be known except through positive attributes," our intellect does not come to fully resolve the understanding of any created being unless it is aided by the understanding of the most pure, most actual, most complete, and absolute Being; which is being simply and eternal, in which are the reasons of all things in their purity. But how would the intellect know that this is a defective and incomplete being, if it had no knowledge of being without any defect? And so for the other conditions mentioned above.
Now the intellect is said to truly comprehend the meaning of propositions when it knows with certitude that they are true; and this knowing is knowing that it cannot be deceived in that comprehension. For it knows that that truth cannot be otherwise; it knows therefore that that truth is unchangeable. But since our mind itself is changeable, it cannot see that truth shining so unchangeably except through some light radiating altogether unchangeably, which it is impossible to be a changeable creature. It knows therefore in that light which illumines every man coming into this world, which is the true light and the Word in the beginning with God.
Our intellect truly perceives the meaning of inference when it sees that the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises; which it sees not only in necessary terms, but also in contingent ones, as: if a man runs, the man moves. Moreover, it perceives this necessary relation not only in existing things, but also in non-existing things. For just as, when a man exists, it follows: if the man runs, the man moves; so also when he does not exist. Therefore the necessity of this kind of inference does not come from the existence of the thing in matter, because that is contingent, nor from the existence of the thing in the soul, because then it would be a fiction if it did not exist in reality: it comes therefore from exemplarity in the eternal art, according to which things have fitness and relation to one another according to the representation of that eternal art. Therefore, as Augustine says in On True Religion, the light of everyone who truly reasons is kindled by that truth and strives to arrive at it.
From which it manifestly appears that our intellect is joined to eternal truth itself, since it cannot grasp anything true with certitude except through that truth which teaches it. You can therefore see through yourself the truth which teaches you, if concupiscences and phantasms do not impede you and do not interpose themselves like clouds between you and the ray of truth.
4. The operation of the elective power is observed in counsel, judgment, and desire.
Counsel consists in inquiring what is better, this or that. But nothing is called better except by approach to the best; and approach is according to greater likeness: therefore no one knows whether this is better than that unless he knows that it is more like the best. But no one knows that something is more like another unless he knows that other; for I do not know that this man is like Peter unless I know or am acquainted with Peter: therefore upon everyone who deliberates the notion of the highest good is necessarily impressed.
Certain judgment about matters of deliberation is through some law. But no one judges with certitude through a law unless he is certain that that law is right and that he ought not to judge it; but our mind judges concerning itself: since therefore it cannot judge concerning the law by which it judges, that law is superior to our mind, and through this law it judges insofar as it is impressed upon it. But nothing is superior to the human mind except He alone who made it: therefore in judging, our deliberative power reaches to the divine laws, if it resolves by full resolution.
Desire, however, is principally for that which moves it most. But what moves most is what is most loved; and what is most loved is to be blessed; but to be blessed is not attained except through the best and the ultimate end; nothing therefore does human desire seek except because it is the supreme good, or because it leads to it, or because it has some likeness of it. So great is the power of the supreme good that nothing can be loved by a creature except through desire for it, and the creature is then deceived and errs when it takes an image and simulacrum for the truth.
See therefore how close the soul is to God, and how memory leads into eternity, understanding into truth, and the elective power into the supreme goodness, according to their operations.
5. Moreover, according to the order and origin and disposition of these powers, one is led into the most blessed Trinity itself.
For from memory understanding arises as its offspring, because we understand when the likeness which is in memory shines forth in the gaze of the intellect, which is nothing other than the word; from memory and understanding love is breathed forth as the bond of both. These three, namely the generating mind, the word, and love, are in the soul with respect to memory, understanding, and will, which are consubstantial, coequal, and coeval, mutually circumincessing one another. If therefore God is a perfect spirit, he has memory, understanding, and will; he also has a begotten Word and a spirated Love, who are necessarily distinguished, since one is produced from the other, not essentially, not accidentally, therefore personally.
When therefore the mind considers itself, through itself as through a mirror it rises to contemplate the blessed Trinity of the Father, the Word, and Love, three persons coeternal, coequal, and consubstantial, such that each is in each of the others, yet one is not the other, but these three are one God.
6. For this contemplation which the soul has of its triune and one principle through the trinity of its powers, by which it is the image of God, it is aided by the lights of the sciences, which perfect and inform it and represent the most blessed Trinity in a threefold manner. — For all philosophy is either natural, or rational, or moral. The first treats of the cause of being, and therefore leads to the power of the Father; the second of the principle of understanding, and therefore leads to the wisdom of the Word; the third of the order of living, and therefore leads to the goodness of the Holy Spirit.
Again, the first is divided into metaphysics, mathematics, and physics. And the first is about the essences of things, the second about numbers and figures, the third about natures, powers, and diffusive operations. And therefore the first leads to the first principle, the Father; the second to his image, the Son; the third leads to the gift of the Holy Spirit.