Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Relationen; mehrer (innere reale) R. eines Absoluten 3; gegensetige entgegengesetze R.; reale Unterscheidung (Beispiel: Vater - Sohn: Vater wäre sein eigener Vater); nicht entgegengesetzte R zu einem A.: begrifflich (Seele -> Leib, Tätigkeiten usw.)

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 38/3 -- Can several real relations be internal to one and the same absolute? ... Are they really distinct from one another? ...

Textausschnitt: As to the third question

735b For the solution to this question we must distinguish between mutually opposed relations and relations that regard different terms. (Fs)

Real relations that are mutually opposed necessarily involve a real distinction; otherwise these relations themselves would cease to exist. (Fs) (notabene)

For example, if a father were the same in every respect as his son, the father would be his own father and the son would be his own son; and since the relation of anything to itself is only a conceptual relation, there would be no real paternity and no real sonship. (Fs) (notabene)
Likewise, if an agent and a patient were identical in every respect, the same thing in the same way would be both in act, as agent, and in potency, as patient, which implies a contradiction. (Fs)

735c On the other hand, real relations internal to one absolute which are not mutually opposed are distinct only conceptually, but the distinction has a foundation in reality. (Fs)

They are distinct conceptually: each relation regards the other as its term. Thus, the soul relates to the body as form, but relates to vital, sentient, and intellectual operations in that it is a nature, a principle of operations. In like fashion an effect is related to the agent as that from which it exists and to the patient as that in which it exists. (Fs) (notabene)
These relations are distinct conceptually with a foundation in reality: the terms which the relations regard are really distinct from each other. (Fs)

735d These relations are not really distinct: the more perfect each one is, the greater is its power; and the greater its power is, the more things there are to which its power extends. Thus, one and the same act of understanding relates simultaneously (1) to the agent intellect from which it exists as from its principal cause, (2) to the phantasm from which it exists as from its instrumental cause, (3) to the phantasm in which it beholds its species illumined, (4) to the acts of sensing from which the phantasms were derived, (5) to the objects of sensation which were known through the acts of sensing, (6) to the simple inner word which proceeds from the act of understanding, (7) to the compound inner word by which the objectivity of the simple word is judged, (8) to the real beings that are known in the word, (9) to the goods that are known through judgments of value, (10) to the acts of the will that are consequent upon the intellect, (11) to the operations that are directed and carried out by the intellect and will; finally (12), the more perfect the act of understanding, the more it comprehends as a unified whole, and thereby extends to more sensible objects, more acts of sensing, more phantasms, more simple and compound words, more goods, more acts of the will, and more operations. These relations are internal, since they belong to the very formality of an understanding that is joined to the body and directs the will and operations. These relations are also real, since the act of understanding itself is real, and there can be no real thing which does not really include whatever belong to its essence. Hence also St Thomas: '... it is not contrary to the simplicity of anything for it to have a multitude of relations between other things and itself; indeed, the more simple a reality is, the more relations accompany it' (De potentia, q. 7, a. 8 a). (Fs; tblStw: )