Chapter 7

The intellect as a primal potency

1006. The intellect in general is the potency of being as being, that is, of the essence of being.
No created intellect naturally apprehends the essence of being in its real form; only in its ideal form. Being, in its triune form, is naturally known only to itself. Ideology deals sufficiently with the human intellect as formed by ideal being; Supernatural Anthropology deals with the intellect which has been given being in its real form and become a supernatural potency.

1007. In the intellect to which being is communicated in the real form, there must be perfect harmony and reciprocal suitability between ideal and real being. This harmony and suitability constitute moral being, and are understood as completion, perfection and good. Consequently, there is a third relationship under which the human intellect or any other intellect can be considered. This relationship is treated fully in Agathology.

1008. Let me deal here with an important question. I said somewhere that it is not absurd to conceive a subject which is purely intellective, but not affective and volitive. This is true when the matter is considered from the subject's point of view; the conclusion will be quite different when considered from the object's point of view. In fact, being is essentially good; it can be known therefore only as good. To know being as good requires some affection or inclination towards it. As light, being creates the intellect as formal cause of the soul (or if preferred, as cause of the formal cause, cause of the enlightenment of the soul). In the same way, being, as the essential condition of good, creates the primal will as final cause which actuates the first affection, that is, the first volition directed towards being in general. Thus intellect is the receptive potency; the will, the active potency corresponding to the intellect.

1009. The intellect is not susceptible of any development because its essential object is ideal being which in itself is immutable; it is therefore more an immanent act than a potency. It can of course be perfected, increased and elevated by the supernatural order in the way I have described, that is, by the revelation of essential being in its reality.

1010. It is true that ideal being is also intuited as variously determined and limited. The Scholastics attributed the intuition of these ideas, and consequent development, to the intellect. If this is first clarified, the word 'intellect' can obviously be used to mean generally 'the potency of intuiting ideas'. However, when we consider that the determination and limitation of ideal being cannot be attained without the perception of contingent realities and the traces of the perception which remain in the soul, we see that it is more exact to attribute to reason the intuition even of determinate ideas. Reason is not a simple intuition but contains deep within itself the application of ideal being to reality, which is precisely its task.

1011. In the same way we can say that the primal, universal will is not understood as potency but as immanent act, the principle and base of the potency. It would therefore seem better to call the primal will 'primal volition'. For these reasons, I will not give here the synoptic schema of the potency of intellect.