3. Scotus’ own Opinion

298. As concerns the second article, then [n.285], I concede that every respect of a creature to God belongs to the third mode of relatives [n.296]. And not in relations alone does the vestige consist, but in some absolutes [n.295], and perhaps in some respect as in the third part of itself, according to what Augustine assigns as part of the footprint in On the Trinity 6.10 n.12, where he says of creatures, “All these things that are made by divine art also display a certain unity in themselves and species and order.” Now unity is an absolute perfection, as is plain from his examples there, “something one is something, as are the natures of bodies etc.’ Species too, or form, is something absolute, as is plain from his examples in the same place, “just as of bodies there are qualities, so also of souls there are teachings.” But order states a certain respect, not to the ultimate end but to operation; hence he says, “[operation] retains an ordering, as are weights, arrangements of bodies, and loves and delights of souls.” These three [sc. unity, species, order], thus taken, represent, under the idea of likeness, three things in God corresponding to them. For unity represents the supreme unity of the first principle, whence the origin is; and as to this Augustine says there, “In the Trinity is the supreme origin of all things.” Species in the creature represents supreme beauty, hence he adds [the Trinity] is “the supreme beauty.” Order or operation in the creature represents the most perfect operation in God, and as to this he adds, “and most blessed delight.”

299. Many other things too can be assigned in creatures which represent, as being alike, something in divine reality appropriated to the persons, as one, true, and good. One in creatures represents the unity appropriated to the Father; true represents the truth appropriated to the Son; good represents the goodness appropriated to the Holy Spirit. And all these perfections are disposed in an absolute way, and represent absolute perfections of God, appropriated to the Persons.

300. In another way is the footprint multiply assigned, either in things that represent through the idea of likeness what is appropriated to the Persons, or that do so through the idea of what is proportional. Now I say that they ‘represent proportionally’ when the idea of the representing thing does not formally exist in God but something does that is proportional to the idea, as in the case of the assignment ‘mode and species and order’, with which the assignment in Wisdom 11.21, “in number, weight, and measure,”a seems to be the same. For mode is taken for limitation, and for the same thing is measure taken in Wisdom 11, and weight is there taken for order and number for species. Number or species, and weight or order, are expounded as they were in the first exposition or assignment [nn.298-299]. But measure (which here is the same as mode) does not represent anything under the idea of the like but of the proportional, because the limitation of what has been produced represents the lack of limitation in the producer. And thus is plain in what the vestige consists in creatures, and in respect of what in divine reality, because in respect of things appropriated to the Divine Persons [nn.293-300].

a.a [Interpolated text] Augustine, Literal Commentary on Genesis 4.3 n7, “Measure prefixes the manner for everything; number provides the species for everything; and weight draws to rest and stability.” And later [ch.5 n.12], “Let us admit, therefore, that it is said [Wisdom 11.21], “all things are disposed in measure and number and weight,” as if it were said that they are so disposed as to have their own proper measures and proper numbers and proper weight, which would change in them in proportion to the changeableness of each genus - in increase and decrease, in manyness and fewness, in lightness and heaviness.”

301. But how is the idea of footprint, which is a likeness of a part [n.293], now taken in divine reality, since in divine reality there are no parts?

Response. The Trinity is, as it were, a certain numerical whole, at least in a concept of the intellect, and a Person there is, as it were, a part of this whole; thus too what is appropriated to a Person, insofar as it is appropriated to a Person, is there as it were a part of the same, because it is taken for the Person to whom it is appropriated. And not only this, but what can be appropriated, though it is not taken as appropriated, is still a part there, as it were, of the same; for the idea of it, as it is and as it is taken, is completely preserved in one Person, and consequently its idea does not posit the Trinity but does posit concomitantly the unity of any Person in whom it is. Although, therefore, the creature commonly represents neither a Person as a Person (who in our intellect is as it were a part of the Trinity), nor what is appropriated as appropriated (for thus is it not known unless what it is appropriated to is known), yet it does represent what can be appropriated, in which the idea of a part is as it were preserved (in the way already stated [here supra]) with respect to the Trinity.