C. To the Arguments for the Opinion

80. To the arguments for the opposite opinion [n.44].

To the first [n.45]. Either one understands in the minor the ‘they are totally under the extremes of a contradiction’, that is, that they are precisely under the extremes of a contradiction, - and thus the minor is false; for God is not precisely the extreme ‘not from another’, because this negation is said of a chimaera, nor is a creature precisely the negation ‘not a necessary being’, because this belongs to a chimaera, - but both God and a creature are something to which one or other side of a contradiction belongs. Take the major then to mean that whatever things are of the sort that the extremes of a contradiction belong to them, that ‘these things are not univocally spoken of in anything’; this major is false, for all things that per se divide something common are of the sort that the extremes of a contradiction are said of them, and yet they are univocally spoken of in that division. So in the intended proposition: these things can all receive, according to themselves, the predication of a contradiction, and yet they can have something abstract -or some substrate of the extremes of the contradiction - which is common to both [sc. extremes].

81. As to the confirmation about the ‘neutral’ [n.46], I say that even a concept common to two things is neutral formally, and so I concede the conclusion that the concept of being is not formally the concept of something created or of something uncreated [I d.3 n.27]; but if the understanding be that this concept is neutral such that neither of the contradictories is said of it, it is false. For thus it is about rational and irrational, that the concept animal is formally neutral with respect to them, and yet that which is conceived is not neutral but is truly one or other of them. For one or other of the contradictories is said of any animal whatever, and yet it is not necessary that any concept whatever is formally one or other of the contradictories.

82. As to the third [n.47] the answer will be plain in the third article ‘that God and creatures are not diverse first in their concepts’ [nn.95-127]; they are, however, diverse first in reality, because they agree in no reality - and how there can be a common concept without agreement in thing or in reality will be said in what follows [nn.137-150].

83. To the next one, about attribution [n.48], I say that attribution by itself does not posit unity, because the unity of attribution is less than the unity of univocity, and the lesser does not include the greater; yet a lesser unity can stand along with a greater unity, just as things that are one in genus are one in species, although the unity of a genus is less than the unity of a species. So here, I concede that the unity of attribution does not posit unity of univocity, and yet this unity of attribution stands along with unity of univocity, although this unity is not formally that unity, example: the species of the same genus have an essential attribution to the first thing of that genus (Metaphysics 10.1.1052b18), and yet there stands along with this the unity of univocity of idea in those species. Thus -and much more so - must it be in the proposed case, that the attributes may have in idea of being, in which there is unity of attribution, a unity of univocity, because never are things compared as measured to measure, or as exceeded to exceeding, unless they agree in some one thing. But just as comparison simply is in the univocal simply (Physics 7.4.248b6-7), so any comparison is in what is somehow or other univocal. For when it is said ‘this is more perfect than that’, if it is asked ‘a more perfect what?’, one must assign something common to both, so that the determinable of every comparative is common to each extreme of the comparison; for a man is not a more perfect man than an ass, but is a more perfect animal. And so, if certain things are compared in being, where there is attribution of one to the other (‘this is more perfect than that; a more perfect what? - a more perfect being’), there must be a unity in some way common to each extreme.

84. Thus may it also be argued about number or about distinction, because all distinct or numbered things have something common, as Augustine means in On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.7: “If three persons are spoken of, common to them is what a person is,” - so that the determinable of a numerable term is always something common (according to Augustine) to all the numbered things. - And if it be instanced that there is properly no number of God and creatures, I argue about the diverse or the distinct or the other, thus: God and a creature are diverse or distinct, or God is something, or someone, other than a creature. In all these cases the determinable of the distinction, or of the stated singularity or plurality, must be common to each extreme - the point is plain in all examples, because a man is not ‘another man than an ass’ but ‘another animal’. This is proved by reason, because in relations of equal comparison the extremes are of the same idea; otherness is such a relation; therefore in all things ‘other’ there is an otherness of the same idea, and consequently the determinable of otherness will be of one idea. Do not rely on this, because it would conclude that the foundation is of the same idea, hence the minor [‘otherness is such a relation’] is contrary to the article about ‘other’.An article that Scotus apparently intended to put together from the Cambridge and Parisian Reportationes: “otherness connotes some agreement of the extremes in their determinable, and also notes some non-identity corresponding to the same” [Rep. IA d.4 q.1 n.9], which non-identity would here be lacking [n.54]. ⁵⁵

85. As for the argument from Dionysius [n.49], it is clear rather in the third argument [n.73] that the intention of Dionysius is to the opposite, because at the third level a stand is not made at negation alone, but at some concept taken from creatures, to which that negation is attributed.

86. To Augustine [n.50] I reply that ‘the good by participation in which other things are good’ (which good is understood by understanding this good and that) can either be posited as a universal to all goods, and then ‘the other goods’ are by participation in it (the way a species participates the genus, or as any inferior participates the superior), or it can be understood as the good in essence, by participation in which, as in their cause, the other goods are, and then it is true that, by understanding this good and that good, I understand the good in essence, but in the case of the universal I understand good the way that, when understanding this being, I understand being as part of its concept, and that in being I understand any being whatever universally. And when Augustine adds ‘if you can know it in itself’ [n.50], I say that if the ‘in itself’ is referred, not to the act of knowing, but to the object [sc. if ‘in itself’ goes with ‘it’ not with ‘know’], - to wit, that I know the good, which I know universally, with the determination ‘in itself’, namely that I conceive the good with the sort of determination that it is a nondependent good and good in essence - then I understand God not only in a common concept but in a proper concept, and then, by the phrase ‘in itself’, the good that was common is contracted and becomes proper to God; and beatitude lies in cleaving to this good by enjoyment (speaking of the beatitude of the way [sc. as opposed to the beatitude of the heavenly fatherland]), because this concept is the most perfect we can have in conceiving God naturally.

87. And this appears to be the intention of Augustine in On Free Choice of the Will II chs.8-14 nn.23-28 - or elsewhere in the same book [On the Trinity VIII, n.50], where he says: “do not look for what truth is, because at once phantasms will present themselves, etc.;” which would not be true if there was a concept of being or of good in God altogether different from the concept of them in creatures. For then one well ought to look for ‘what truth is’, because then a truth would be looked for that is proper to God, nor would phantasms there present themselves to disturb the concept of truth as it is proper to God, because this concept does not have concepts corresponding to it. But they do disturb the concept of truth as it belongs to God when speaking of truth universally, as has been expounded elsewhere [I d.3 n.193].

But there are some who shamelessly insist that there is one concept of being and yet none that is univocal to this thing and that, - this is not to the intention of this question, because, whatever it is that is conceived according to attribution or order in diverse things, yet if there is a concept of itself one, such that it does not have a different idea according as it is said of this and of that, that concept is univocal.

89. Also if anyone in any way shamelessly insists that a denominative concept is not univocal, because the idea of the subject is not of the idea of the predicate, - this instance seems puerile, because in one way a denominative predicate is a middle between a univocal and an equivocal predicate, in another an equivocal and a univocal predicate are, in logic, immediate [extremes]. The first is true when taking a univocal predicate which is univocally predicated, that is because, namely, its idea is the idea of the subject, and in this way a denominative predicate is not univocal. The second is true when understanding it of the unity of the idea which is predicated; thus a univocal concept is that whose idea is in itself one, or the idea is the idea of the subject, whether it denominates the subject or is said per accidens of the subject, but an equivocal concept is that whose idea is different, however that idea is disposed to the subject. An example: animal is univocal, not only as said of its species but also as determined by its differences, because it has one concept determinable by them, and yet it is not said univocally of the differences, such that it is predicated in their ‘what’ - such that its idea is the idea of the differences, the way it is said of the species. Also, this dispute is nothing to the purpose, because if being is said about God and creatures according to a single concept of itself, one must say that the idea of being is the idea of the subject; for it will be said of both in the ‘what’, and so it will be univocal in both ways.