B. How the Father does not Generate the Son by Will as by Productive Principle

16. As to the second article [n.7], it seems that the Father does not produce the Son by will as by productive principle, because a productive principle of one idea in divine reality cannot have two productions; for there is no production of one idea there save a single production, because it is an adequate production; since therefore the Holy

Spirit is produced by way of will as of productive principle, the Son will not be thus produced.

17. But in this article there is a difficulty, on account of the word of Augustine, because he seems to attribute generation to will in us as to productive principle, On the Trinity IX ch.7 n.13: “the word is conceived in us by love;” and by the same, ch.11 n.16, ch.3 n.6: “The will itself, in the way it was moving the sense to be formed by the object and, when it was formed, uniting it, so in this way it was converting the mental vision of the remembering soul to memory;” and in the same, ch.4 n.7: “The will, which brings hither and thither and brings back the mental vision that is to be formed and conjoins it when it is formed.” There are also many similar passages. - Therefore he intends that will have the idea of turning back mental vision before generation, and of retaining it in act.

18. Thus then it seems that in the Trinity - whose image is in the soul - the will has there some idea of principle with respect to production and generating, or has the idea of some superior applying a proximate principle to its act, just as it does in us.

The consequence is confirmed, because thus to conjoin belongs to the will from its perfection, insofar namely as it is first in the kingdom of the soul; therefore it belongs most of all to the most noble will.

19. The fact is also argued for in us, because if our generating were merely natural, it would in no way be in the power of the will, - and so we would always have the same word, about the same object, which is more strongly moving the intellect.

20. As to this article, although some [Henry] make a distinction that the ‘by will’ can be held adverbially, so that the sense is ‘he generated by will’, that is ‘he generated willingly’, - or it can be held ablatively, and then it indicates the cause and elicitive principle with respect to generating, and then the proposition is false, - but however it may be with this distinction, it does not seem that one should concede that the Father has produced the Son by will such that the will is the proximate or remote principle. That it is not the proximate principle has been proved [n.16], because a principle of one idea is only principle of one production; but that it is also not the remote principle is plain, because just as the will, as it is the operative principle in some way, operates posteriorly to the intellect, - so, as it is in some way the productive principle, it produces posteriorly to the intellect, and thus it will be a superior or prior cause in a production that belongs properly to the intellect.

21. However, because of the authorities of Augustine [n.17], one must understand that in us there is not only a single act of understanding (taking ‘act’ in the genus of quality), nor only a single act of generating (taking ‘act’ for action in the genus of action), because if there were only the single latter act and only the single former act, and the latter and the former act were the same, - our will would have no causality, either with respect to the act of understanding which is of the genus of quality, or with respect to the act of generating which is of the genus of action. In divine reality, therefore, since there is in the Father only a single act of understanding, with respect to that act the will of the Father will not have any idea of principle or cause, - since too there is only one act of speaking, the will with respect to it will not have the idea of principle, because the will -being principle in the way it is operator - in some way follows the intellect; therefore the act of speaking precedes every way of the will’s being a principle. But the will can have, as being well pleased - not as being principle -, an act with respect to the generating, from the fact that the will, as operating in the Father, does not presuppose the generating but only the intellection by which the Father formally understands.

22. But in us the authorities of Augustine are true, because the will moves mental vision to the act of knowing and holds it in knowing [n.17], - because once our first act has been posited, whether of the genus of quality or of the genus of action, we can have other later acts from the command of the will; but in the Father the will does not move the intelligence of the Father as needing to be formed by the memory of the Father, because there is in the Father only a single intellection formally, which precedes in some way the production of the Word, - nor does it move the memory with the object itself, so that the Word may be generated.

23. Against this [nn.21-22] there is an argument that Augustine understands it not only in us but also in God, because Augustine never seems to assign an act to the will as it is the third part of the image [of God], save that which is conjoining the parent with the offspring, and in this way it has some causality with respect to the generating of the offspring; therefore this part, as it is part of the image, will represent nothing in the prototype unless the divine will in some way has to conjoin in this way.

24. I reply. Although he frequently assigns that act to the will - as it is part of the image - yet sometimes he assigns another one to it, namely ‘love of the same object’ (which is the ‘object’ of the memory and intelligence), as is apparent in On the Trinity XV ch.20 n.39: “Hence it is possible,” he says, “for eternal and immutable nature to be recollected, considered, and desired” (which authority is set down at distinction 3 of the last question, I d.3 n.591); for there he expressly posits a trinity “in memory, intelligence, and will” as they have an act about the same object, namely uncreated truth. Likewise in XIV ch.8 n.11 he posits a trinity in the mind insofar as “it remembers itself, understands itself, and loves itself.” He also touches on both acts in XV ch.3 n.5: “The mind and the knowledge, by which it knows itself, - and the love by which it loves itself and its knowledge.”

25. And these two acts come well together in our will, because in loving the object the will also loves the knowledge of the same object, and from love of the object it moves the intelligence to understanding it, uniting it to memory (from which it is formed), and holding it in such uniting, and by this in actual understanding of one object.

26. Now of these two acts of the will, the more principal one in us is that which is ‘love of the object’, because it is sometimes cause of love, - but the other act, namely ‘love of the act’, is more universal, because even in respect of a bad object we love the act of knowing, although not the object, as Augustine says IX ch.10 n.15: “I define intemperance, and this is the word for it; I enjoy defining, although I do not enjoy incontinence.”

27. The will then in us, as it is part of the image, represents will in God, not as to the act of uniting, which belongs to our will, but as to the other act, namely insofar as our will is the principle of producing an act about the same object as belonged to our memory and intelligence; for will in divine reality is a principle of producing love adequate to the divine essence, which is the first object of the divine memory and intelligence and will, -and the love produced is the Holy Spirit, to whom corresponds in us the love produced, and this love is frequently called will by Augustine; but will properly in us - which is a power - does not correspond to the Holy Spirit but to the force of the inspiriting power in the Father and the Son, and this according to the act by which the will in us has to produce love of the object understood, though not primarily, to the extent it has to produce love of generated knowledge, and in no way, moreover, to the extent it is a superior cause of generated knowledge; if indeed the inspiriting force is the principle of producing the Holy Spirit in divine reality, who is love of the divine essence and also love of generated knowledge, - although perhaps according to a certain order, - yet the inspiriting force is in no way the productive principle of generated knowledge, because although the Father in the first moment of origin is willing and in the second moment generates, yet the will of the Father does not have the idea of principle with respect to the generating of the Word. - Thus then is it plain how the Father willingly generates and yet not by will as formal elicitive principle of generation.

28. However, as to Augustine’s intention ‘about the intention of uniting the parent with the offspring’ [n.23], a certain doctor [Henry] says that the uniting intention -speaking in respect of the act of sensing - is ‘inclination’, made in the power by the sensible species. Hence the five things that that doctor posits (namely sensible object, species, and made intention, and power of sensing, and act of sensing), he proves by one authority of Augustine On the Trinity XI ch.2 n.2, - and when Augustine enumerates ‘intention’, saying that “‘the intention of the spirit’ detains the sense of the eyes;” “behold the third,” says that doctor [Henry], “for what ‘detains’ the sense is not other than the excitation by the said inclination; but Augustine calls it” (according to him) “intention of the spirit causally, because by it the sense of the spirit becomes intent on perceiving the object.”

29. But this is not to the intention of Augustine there, because in the same place -distinguishing these things from each other - he says of intention that “it is the third of the soul alone;”     therefore , according to him, the intention which was ‘the third’ is not the excitation or inclination through the species; likewise, the ‘third’ is attributed to the will of which he says later that “the will carries the mental vision hither and thither” etc     ., -which is not true of inclination but only of will and the power of the soul.