II. To the Principal Arguments

20. To the first argument [n.1] I say that simplicity is simply a mark of perfection according as it excludes combinability and composition of act and potency or of perfection and imperfection, as will be said in the following question [nn.32-34].

21. Nor, however, does it follow that every simple creature is a more perfect creature than a non-simple one [n.1], because something that is simply a mark of perfection can be repugnant to any limited nature, and so it would not simply be such a nature if it had that which is repugnant to it; so a dog would not be a simply perfect dog if it were wise, because wisdom is repugnant to it. Likewise, to any limited nature one perfection simply can be repugnant and another one not be, - and then it does not follow that that nature is more perfect to which such a perfection as is repugnant to it belongs, especially when there belongs to that to which this perfection is repugnant another perfection simply, which latter perfection is perhaps simply more perfect than the former, the repugnant one. An example: ‘actuality’ is a perfection simply and ‘simplicity’ is a perfection simply; but to a composite there belongs greater actuality though not greater simplicity, - while to matter, although there belongs simplicity, there does not however belong as much actuality as belongs to the composite; simply, however, actuality is more perfect than simplicity, - and so, simply, that to which actuality without simplicity belongs can be more perfect than that to which simplicity without actuality belongs.

22. But there seem to be doubts here: one, how a perfection simply is something that is not a perfection everywhere, although it is of the idea simply of perfection that ‘it be simply better, in each thing, than not-it’, according to Anselm Monologion ch.15; the second doubt is how one perfection simply is more perfect than another absolutely.

23. To the first I say that this description [from Anselm’s Monologion] ought to be thus understood, that perfection simply is not only better than its contradictory (for thus anything positive is better and more perfect simply than its negation, nay no negation is a perfection formally), but this is how is understood the remark ‘it is better than not-it’ - that is, than ‘anything incompossible with it’ - and then should the remark which is ‘in anything it is better’ be understood by considering the ‘anything’ precisely insofar as it is a supposit, without determining in what nature the supposit subsists [cf. I d.2 n.384]. For, by considering something insofar as it subsists in a nature, some perfection simply is able to be not better for it, because it is incompossible with it as it is in such nature, because it is repugnant to such nature; yet it is not repugnant to it insofar precisely as it is subsistent, but it will be a simply more perfect being if it is in this way considered to have it than if it had whatever [sc. perfection simply] is incompossible with it.

24. To the second doubt [n.22] I say that clarification is required of ‘what is the order of perfections simply’. And now, briefly, let it be supposed that there is some order of perfection among them such that one is of its idea more perfect than another precisely taken, although when any of them exists in supreme degree then all are equally perfect, because infinite - and then any of them is infinite. About this elsewhere.No such ‘elsewhere’ is to be found in the Ordinatio. ⁴³

25. To the second principal argument [n.2] I say that ‘to give something being formally’ necessarily posits a limitation, because what thus gives being does not include by identity that to which it gives being; nor can imperfection be separated from thus giving being, because neither can limitation, or even every sort of dependence, be separated from it; for although dependence on matter be separated from it, yet there always remains dependence on the efficient cause by virtue of which the form informs the matter. And if an instance be made about the Word, that it gives being to human nature, - this is not to give being formally, as will be clear in book 3 distinction 1 [III d.1 qq.1-5]

26. To the third [n.3] I say that wisdom, according to the idea by which it is a species of quality and an accident in us, is not of the same idea in God, as will be clear in this distinction better at the question ‘Whether God is in a genus’ [nn.112-113].