Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Analogie, Mensch 1; gött. Intellekt zu Sein - Akt des Seins; menschl. Intellekt zu Sein - Potenz; Potenzen: akzidentell, essentiell, obediential (potentia obedientialis)

Kurzinhalt: A third kind of potency is that of one who possesses neither a form nor a habit and cannot be brought to becoming informed through any created agency. This is obediential potency, which only the power of God can actuate ...

Textausschnitt: 23 Implications of the Analogy with Respect to Man

637d Let us go now to another part of the analogy. As the divine intellect is to being as the act of all being, so the created intellect is to all being as potency. But there are several different kinds of potency. (Fs; tblStw: Potenz)

639a One kind of potency is the potency of that which already possesses a form or a habit so that, whenever it wills, it can immediately go into operation. This potency, which is called second or accidental potency, is found both in human beings who have acquired some knowledge and in angelic beings inasmuch as through species connatural to them they can know other angels and material reality as well. (Fs) (notabene)

639b A second kind of potency is that of one who does not possess a form or habit but yet can receive such a form through some created agent. This potency, which is called first or essential potency, is found in persons who have not yet acquired knowledge but are capable of doing so. (Fs) (notabene)

639c A third kind of potency is that of one who possesses neither a form nor a habit and cannot be brought to becoming informed through any created agency. This is obediential potency, which only the power of God can actuate (Summa theologiae, 3, q. 11, a. 1 c), and is found in all created intellects with respect to knowing all being (ibid. q. 9, a. 2, ad 3m). For the totality of being is known by an intellect only if God is known by his essence; but God is known by his essence only if God himself unites with a created intellect as an intelligible species (ibid. 1, q. 12, aa. 4 and 5). This, of course, is a gift of God that exceeds the scope or proportion of any finite substance and so is absolutely supernatural. (Fs) (notabene)