I. The Opinions of Others

A. First Opinion

9. There is here an opinion [Aquinas ST Ia q.41 a.5] of this sort, that that by which the Father generates is essence, - for the following reason, that the one generating assimilates to himself the thing generated in the form by which he acts; but the Son is assimilated to the Father in essence, not in property; therefore etc.

10. And there is a clarification of the reason, that just as in creatures the individual property is not the idea of the acting but the nature is, in which the individuals agree, so in divine reality the personal property - which corresponds to the individual property in creatures - will not be the idea of the acting or generating.

11. Against this [n.9] there are multiple arguments. - First thus: every form sufficiently elicitive of some action, if it exists per se, acts per se with that action (example: if heat is a sufficiently heating power, separated heat heats); therefore if deity is the generative power, and it is agreed that it is sufficient, - it follows that if deity exists per se then it will per se generate. But deity exists in itself - in some way - before it is understood to exist in a person, because deity as deity is per se being, such that the three persons exist per se by deity itself and not conversely (Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.9, ch.5 n.10: “God subsists for himself;” and later: “for God to exist is this, to subsist”); therefore in the first moment of nature in which deity is understood, before it is understood in a person, it will generate, - and thus deity considered as such is distinguished from the generated.

12. If it be said that deity does not have ‘per se being’ save in a person, and therefore it does not per se act but the person per se acts, - on the contrary: the argument proves the opposite, that if heat, having per se participated being, were, by a miracle, to exist per se, it could per se operate with the operation of which it is the principle; therefore the essence itself, which is ‘per se being’ of itself (it does not, however, participate ‘per se being’), will be able per se to be an agent with the action of which it is the elicitive principle in the supposit, and so the argument [n.11] stands.

13. Second thus: the producer and the form by which it produces have the same relation to the product. This is taken from the Philosopher Physics 2.3.195b21-25, Metaphysics 5.2.1013b30-33, where he means that art and the builder pertain to the same genus of cause. Therefore the producer and that by which the producer produces pertain to the same genus of principle, and so, if the essence is that by which the Father generates, the essence will have a real relation to the one generated; this is false, therefore etc.

14. Again, third: the form, insofar as it is that in which the generator and the generated are assimilated, only has the unity of idea, therefore it only has the being of idea; therefore, according to this, it is not the elicitive principle of real action.

15. Again, fourth: the form is only the principle of acting insofar as the agent is in act by it, but the agent is not in act by it save insofar as it is in the agent; but as it is in the agent it is a ‘this’; therefore it is principle as a ‘this’.

16. Again, production distinguishes before it assimilates - as is plain (for every production distinguishes but not every production assimilates) - therefore the form which is the principle of production is first a principle of it insofar as form distinguishes before it is a principle of it insofar as form assimilates; the form distinguishes insofar as it is a ‘this’, and it assimilates insofar as it is a ‘form’; therefore it is a productive principle insofar as it is a ‘this’ before it is so insofar as it is a ‘form’.

17. Again, there is an instance against the proof of the argument for the position [n.9]: both because when a brute generates a brute it is assimilated to it in species, and yet the specific form of the brute is not the principle of generating, but the vegetative power is, - therefore the major [‘the one generating assimilates to himself the thing generated in the form by which he acts’, n.9] seems to be false; and also because in the increase of flesh heat is the active principle (according to the Philosopher On the Soul 2.4.416a13-14), and yet animated flesh is generated, being similar to the generator in form of vegetative [soul].

B. Second Opinion

18. In another way it is said [by Henry of Ghent] that for generation in divine reality one must give some positive principle, because action is positive; but the only positive principles in the divine persons are essence and relation, - but relation cannot be a principle of the production, because relation is not a principle or a term of motion, Physics 5.2.225v11-13; therefore essence is. But essence, considered in itself, is indeterminate to several persons and to the actions of several persons, therefore, in order for it to be principle of determinate action, it must be determined; but it is determined by relation, - and therefore relation is posited as a principle, not an elicitive principle but a determinative one.

19. To this there is adduced a confirmation from creatures, where the same form gives the first and the second act [sc. being and action, n.3]; but it is determined to the former and the latter by diverse respects, because to the first it is determined by respect to the subject, and to the second by respect to the object.

20. To the contrary. Of indetermination one sort is of a ‘passive power’ and another is of an ‘active power’ unlimited to several effects (an example: as the sun is indeterminate to producing many generable things, not because it receives some form so as to act, but because it has an unlimited productive virtue). What is indeterminate by ‘indetermination of matter’ [sc. the first sort of indetermination] must receive a form so that it may act, because it is not in act sufficient for acting, but what is indeterminate ‘by indetermination of active power’ is of itself sufficiently determinate for producing any of the effects; and it is so if the passive disposed thing, when something passive is required, is close by, or of itself when something passive is not required; proof: if such an active thing was of itself determinate to one effect, it could of itself sufficiently produce it, - but if it is indeterminate to this and to that, the perfection of its causality with respect to such an effect is not taken away by such lack of limitation, but there is only added causality with respect to one or other of them; it can then produce it just as if it were of it alone, and so there is not required anything to determine it.

21. To the intended proposition [n.18]. The divine essence is not a principle that is indeterminate by ‘indetermination of matter’; therefore if it is indeterminate by the indetermination of something else as an active principle, it will be simply determined by the determination that is required for acting, and thus nothing else is required. A confirmation is that such indetermination of an active principle, although it is to disparate things, is yet not to contradictories, but it is determinately to one or other part of the contradiction with respect to any of the disparate things; but no indetermination prevents a thing acting determinately of itself save an indetermination that is in some way to contradictories, as to acting and not-acting; therefore etc.

22. Again second thus: when some active principle is indeterminate to two effects, not equally so but according to a natural order, - it is sufficiently of itself determined to the first of them, and, once the first is in place, to the second;Note by Scotus: “Note here that the indeterminate thing is determined by itself, - otherwise there would be a process to infinity, because it would be determined to those effects because it was determined to others, and to those others because it was determined by yet others. - On the contrary: what is determined of itself to one opposite is incompossible with the other; again [what is determined of itself to one opposite] is therefore determined to it in anything at all. - Response: this holds of contradictories; to the second, - in anything at all it has been determined, etc. [sc. determined first to the first effect, second to the second etc.]” ³¹ but the divine essence is not indeterminate equally to those two productions [sc. generation and inspiriting], but is related first to generation; therefore it is of itself sufficiently determined to both, because it is of itself determined first to the first - in order of origin - and, with that in place, it is determined to the second, - and so in no moment of origin is it indeterminate to each as each is then to be elicited.

23. Again third: relation is the idea of the acting supposit. Therefore if the relation is determinative of the principle ‘in which’, it will have a double idea of principle with respect to generation: one insofar as it is the idea of the agent, and another insofar as it is the determinative idea of the acting principle, - and so it will mediate between itself and the action.

24. Fourth thus: nature as nature is posited as the elicitive principle of the action. But nature ‘as nature’ is not determinable, according to Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.50: “The properties determine the hypostases, not the nature” ‘as nature’. Therefore nothing is determinative of the principle ‘in which’ as it is the principle ‘in which’, but only of the acting principle.

25. Again, relation according to you differs only in idea from the foundation; therefore it cannot be a determinative principle, in some way distinct from the essence, for a real act, because only something real concurs with the idea of some principle in respect of a real action.

26. Again, what is said of determinative relation in creatures [n.19] seems to be false, because heat of itself - not by some intermediate respect - is the foundation with respect to this heating power; also, it is not necessary that the determination to the first and the second act be done through respects, because the same absolute form gives a first absolute and not respective act, and the principle of acting too is absolute and not respective.