III. To the Arguments of the Opinion of Others

142. To the arguments for the opinion. To the first, from Augustine Against Maximinus [n.53]: it is plain how the Son is in no way from nothing, but is truly from the substance of the Father [nn.98-103].

143. But if you ask, once origination and consubstantiality have been posited, there is still the question: is it as from matter or from quasi-matter that the Son is from? -I reply that there is no matter or quasi-matter there, and so let him not be from anything.

And you ask further - therefore from nothing? - It does not follow; but what follows is that therefore he is not from any matter.

But you will say, then he is a creature. - I say it is false, because a creature exists after nothing, that is, after the non-being of itself and of whatever is in it; not so the Son, - not only because his being is eternal, but also because, as he is the second person, so his formal being is prior in origin in the first person.

144. To the other, from Augustine On the Trinity [n.55]: it is of no value for the proposed position [n.46], as was expounded in the preceding question [n.25].

145. As for the argument of others that ‘essence is subjectively generated’ [n.59], from the false is inferred the false.From Henry’s [false] opinion that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father as from quasi-matter [n.52] is inferred the [false] conclusion that essence is subjectively generated. ²⁴

146. To the arguments they give [n.145]:

To the first [n.60] I say that here there are not any terms corresponding to generation as it is change, because there is nothing here that is as it were in any way first under privation and later under form. But the terms of generation as generation is change are privation and form, but generation as production has as term the product itself [n.95]; now generation does not thus have a term ‘from which’ except by speaking of the productive principle, and thus the terms of generation are producer and product; and from this it does not follow that something is a quasi-subject, but there follows from it - if generation is univocal - that something is common to the generating and the generated, and this I concede, but it is not common as matter but as form or act, in both of them.

147. When the argument is next put ‘about generation and term’ [n.61], the response is plain, that relation is not in substance as form in matter, but if the person there is relative, then relation is in essence as the property of the supposit is in nature [sc. as Socrateity is in Socrates, nn.109, 113, 124];Note of Scotus: “But it is objected: in the way in which generation precedes the Son - according to way of understanding - in what is it? Not in essence as essence is in the Father, because as it is in him it is not had by generation, - nor as it is in the Son, because it precedes him; and it is in something because it is not per se subsistent (because then it would be a person; not the first person, - therefore the second person would precede the Son) [sc. so it must be in ‘essence after the Father’ and so essence will be the subject of generation]. Response: in what is generation-passion? - it is the same question, nay a more difficult one because here can be given what is ‘in essence’ in a double way, both as in a foundation and as property of a person in the nature - in which the person is - and both without potentiality of essence; nor is the second way [sc. as property of a person in the nature] more difficult than about relation, because passive generation is the same property as filiation - only conceived in a different way.” ²⁵ but to be in something as a supposit or idea of supposit in nature entails nothing about being ‘in’ as form is in matter, although, when nature is imperfect, the individual property in some way informs nature, as was said in the third article of the solution, in the first difficulty [n.109].

148. When it is argued third that ‘to every active potency there corresponds a passive potency’ etc. [n.62], I reply: to the first active power there does not correspond any passive power, as is plain about the power of creating, - and this speaking properly of passive power as that in which, or from which, something is produced; however to the active power there corresponds some passive power which they [followers of Henry] call ‘objective power’, - which is producible power, - and in this way I concede that if the Father is actively fecund, that the Son is producible, but from this does not follow some power of quasi-matter, just as it does not follow in the case of creation.

149. When finally it is argued ‘about fire’ [n.62], I say that if fire were to generate from itself, it would communicate to the thing generated its form as formal term of the generation; but its substance would not be in potency to the form of generating, if fire itself were perfectly something productive, - for then there would not be required another co-causing cause. So it is in the proposed case: the first principle - and not another principle (in the same not another genus of principle) - does not require something else concurring with it to be principle.