Chapter Three

The Consideration of God through His Image Imprinted on Our Natural Powers


1. The first two steps, by leading us to God through vestiges through which He shines forth in all creatures, have thereby led us to re-enter into ourselves, that is, into our mind, where the divine image shines forth. Here it is that, at the third place, entering into ourselves, and forsaking the inner atrium, we ought now to strive to see God through a mirror in the Holy of Holies, that is, in the place before the Tabernacle. Here the light of Truth, as from a candelabra, will shine upon the face of our mind, in which the images of the most Blessed Trinity appears in splendor.
Enter into yourself, therefore, and observe that your soul loves itself most fervently; that it could not love itself unless it knew itself, nor know itself unless it summoned itself to conscious memory, for we do not grasp a thing with our understanding unless it is present in our memory. Hence you can observe, not with the bodily eye, but with the eye of the mind, that your soul has three powers. Consider, therefore, the activities of these three powers and their relationships, and you will be able to see God through yourself as through an image; and this indeed is to see through a mirror in an obscure manner.

2. The activity of the memory is to retain and represent not only present, corporeal, and temporal things, but also successive, simple, and everlasting things. It retains the past by remembrance, the present by reception, and the future by foresight. It retains also simple things which are the principles of continuous and discrete quantities, as the point, the instant, and unity, without which it is impossible to bring to our memory or to think of things which stem from them. It retains also in an enduring way the principles and axioms of the sciences as themselves enduring, for as long as one uses reason he can never forget them, so that on hearing them again, he would approve and give his assent to them, not as though he perceives them anew, but: rather he recognizes them as innate and familiar. That this is so becomes clear when one proposes the following principle: "Everything is either affirmed or denied"; or "Every hole is greater than its part"; or any other axiom that may not be contradicted in the "interior discourse of the soul." In its first activity, the actual retention of all things in time - past, present, and future - the memory is an image of eternity, whose indivisible present extends itself to all times. From the second activity, it is evident that the memory is capable of being informed not only from the outside by phantasms but also from above, by receiving and having in itself simple forms that cannot enter through the doors of the senses, nor through sensible phantasms. From the third activity, we hold that the memory has present in itself a changeless light in which it recalls changeless truths. And thus it is clear from the activities of the memory that the soul itself is an image of God and a similitude so present to itself and having Him so present to it that it actually grasps Him and potentially "is capable of possessing him and of becoming a partaker in Him."

3. The activity of the intellective faculty consists in understanding the meaning of terms, propositions, and inferences. First the intellect grasps the meaning of terms when it understands by a definition what each one is. But a definition must be given in more general terms; these, in turn, must be defined by others still more general, until we arrive at the highest and most general. If these last are unknown, we cannot understand the less general by way of definition. Consequently, unless one knows what being per se is, he cannot fully know the definition of any particular substance. But being per se cannot be known unless it is known together with its properties, which are unity, truth, and goodness. And since being can be understood as diminished or as complete, as imperfect or as perfect, as in potency or in act, as existing in a qualified or in an unqualified manner, as in part or in entirety, as transient or permanent, as existing through something else or per se, as mixed with non-being or as pure being, as dependent or as absolute, as posterior or prior, as changeable or unchangeable, as simple or composite; and since "privations and defects can in no way be known except through something positive," therefore our intellect does not make a full and ultimate analysis of any single created being unless it is aided as a knowledge of the most pure, most actual, most complete and absolute Being, which is Being unqualified and eternal, and in whom are the essences of all things in their purity. For how could the intellect know that a specific being is defective and incomplete if it had no knowledge of the Being that is free from all defect? And in like manner may we reason about the other properties mentioned before.
Secondly, the intellect can be said truly to comprehend the meaning of propositions when it knows with certainty that they are true; and to know in this way is really to know, for it cannot be deceived in such comprehension. Since it knows that this truth cannot be otherwise, it knows also that this truth is changeless. But since our mind itself is changeable, it could not see this truth shining in so changeless a manner were it not for some other light absolutely and unchangeably resplendent; nor can this light possibly be a created light subject to change. The intellect, therefore, knows in the light that enlightens every man who comes into the world, which is the true light, and the Word in the beginning with God.
Finally, our intellect only then truly grasps the meaning of an inference when it sees that the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises and when it sees this inference not only in necessary but also in contingent terms, as, for example, "I! a man runs, a man moves." Our mind perceives this necessary relationship not only in existent things, but also in non-existent ones. For just as it follows, granted a man's existence, that "If a man runs, a man moves," so also does the same conclusion follow if he does not exist at all. But such necessity of inference does not follow from the existence of the thing in matter, since it is contingent; nor from its existence in the mind, because that would be a fiction if the thing did not exist in reality. Hence it must come from the exemplarity in the Eternal Art, in reference to which things have an aptitude for each other and a relation, because they are represented in the Eternal Art. Thus, as St. Augustine says in De Vera Religione, "The light of one who reasons truly is enkindled by that Truth and strives to go back to It." From this it is manifestly evident that our understanding is joined to eternal Truth itself, and if this light does not teach, no truth can be grasped with certitude. You are able, then, to see what truth can teach you within yourself, if desires and sensory images do not hinder you and become as clouds between you and the ray of Truth.

4. The activity of the elective faculty is found in counsel, judgment, and desire. Counsel consists in inquiring which is better, this or that. But something can be said to be better only because it approaches the best. The approach, however, is proportionate to its higher degree of likeness. But no one knows whether this thing is better than that unless he knows that this is in a higher degree more like the best. And no one knows that one thing is more like another unless he knows the other. For I do not know that this man is like Peter unless I know or recognize Peter. Therefore, the notion of the highest good must necessarily be impressed on all who give counsel.
Moreover, the sure judgment of things subject to counsel is made according to some law. No one, however, judges with certainty according to a law unless he is certain that the law is right and that he ought not to judge the law itself. But our mind does judge about itself. And since it cannot judge about the law according to which it judges, that law is higher than our mind, and the mind judges by means of it because it is stamped on the mind. But there is nothing higher than the human mind save only Him who made it. Therefore, in its judging, our deliberative faculty touches the divine laws, if it makes a full and ultimate analysis.
Finally, desire is concerned principally with what moves it most, but that moves it most which is loved most, and what is loved most is happiness. But happiness is not attained unless the best and final end is possessed. Human desire, therefore, seeks nothing except because of the highest Good, either because it leads to it, or has some likeness to it. So great is the power of the highest Good that nothing can be loved by a creature except through the desire for that Good, so that he who takes the image and the copy for truth errs and goes astray.
See, therefore, how close the soul is to God, and how, through their activity, the memory leads us to eternity, the intelligence to Truth, and the elective faculty to the highest Good.

5. Moreover, if one considers the order, the origin, and the relationship of these faculties to one another, he is led up to the most blessed Trinity Itself. For from the memory comes forth the intelligence as its offspring, because we understand only when the likeness which is in the memory emerges at the crest of our understanding and this is the mental word. From the memory and the intelligence is breathed forth love, as the bond of both. These three - the generating mind, the word, and love - exist in the soul as memory, intelligence, and will, which are consubstantial, co-equal and contemporary, and interpenetrating. If God, therefore, is a perfect spirit, then He has memory, intelligence, and will; He has both a Word begotten and a Love breathed forth, which are necessarily distinct, since one is produced by the other - a production, not of an essence, nor of an accident. but of a Person.
The soul, then, when it considers itself through itself as through a mirror, rises to the speculation of the Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Word, and Love. Three Persons co-eternal, co-equal and consubstantial, so that whatever is in any one is in the others, but one is not the other, but all three are one God.

6. For this consideration which the soul has of its principle, one and triune, 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 it, inform it, and represent the most blessed Trinity in a threefold manner. For all philosophy is either natural, or rational, or moral. The first is concerned with the cause of being and thus leads to the power of the Father; the second is concerned with the basis of understanding and thus leads to the wisdom of the Word; the third deals with the order of life and thus leads to the goodness of the Holy Spirit.
Hence the first, natural philosophy, is divided into metaphysics, mathematics, and phvsics. Metaphysics deals with the essences of things; mathematics, with numbers and figures; and physics, with natures, powers, and diffusive operations. Thus the first leads to the first Principle, the Father; the second, to His Image, the Son; and the third, to the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The second, rational philosophy, is divided into grammar, which makes men capable of expressing themselves; logic, which makes them keen in argumentation; and rhetoric, which makes them apt to persuade or move others. This likewise suggests the mystery of the most Blessed Trinity.
The third, moral philosophy:, is divided into individual, familial, and political. The first of these suggests the unbegettable nature of the First Principle; the second, the familial relationship of the Son; and the third, the liberality of the Holy Spirit.

7. All these branches of knowledge have certain and infallible laws as lights and beacons shining down into our mind from the eternal law. And thus our mind, enlightened and overflooded by so much brightness, unless it is blind, can be guided through itself to contemplate that eternal Light. And, in truth, the consideration of this Light's irradiation raises up in admiration the wise, but on the contrary, the unwise, who do not believe so that they may understand, it leads to confusion. Hence is fulfilled the prophecy: Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills. All the foolish of heart were troubled.