Export a Citation 
Print View
hide main text 
show main text 
hide table of contents
show table of contents
previous
3. Statement and Refutation of Some People’s Proof
116. [Some people’s proof] - Some people70 prove it in a fourth way [nn.101, 108, 110], that God is not a genus because “he contains in himself the perfections of all genera.”71
[Refutation of the proof] - But this argument is not valid, because what contains something contains it in its own way. Substance too, which is now the most general genus, contains, as it is taken for all inferior species, all the accidents virtually; so that, if God were to cause only the individuals of substances, they would have in themselves the wherewithal to cause all accidents, and yet created substances would not be denied, because of this, to be in a genus, because they contain accidents virtually in their own way and not in the way of accidents. So, therefore, from the fact alone that God contains the perfections of all genera, it does not follow that he is not in a genus, because containing them in this way does not exclude finitude (for this ‘to contain virtually’ is not ‘to be infinite’), but from God’s absolute infinity this does follow, as was deduced before [nn.101-109].
117. [Instances from infinite line] - But against this [sc. the last clause of n.118] an instance is made that infinity simply does not prove the intended proposition [sc. that God is not in a genus], because the Philosopher Topics 6.11.148b23-32 takes exception to the definition of straight line (namely this definition, ‘a straight line is that whose middle does not extend outside the extremes’), for this reason, that if there were an infinite line it could be straight, - but then it would not have a middle, nor extremes or ends; but a definition is not to be taken exception to because it does not agree with that to which being in a genus is incompossible; therefore it is not incompossible for an infinite line to be in a genus, and consequently infinity does not necessarily prohibit being in a genus.72
118. I reply, first to the intention of the authority [sc. of Aristotle, n.117], -because a straight line is a whole per accidens, and, if this whole be defined, it will be assigned one definition corresponding to line and another corresponding to straight. That which corresponds to ‘straight’ in the place in the definition does not formally contradict the infinite (because straight does not formally contradict the infinite), and what a definition is formally repugnant to, the thing defined will also be repugnant to; but that there is assigned in the definition, which the Philosopher takes exception to, a definition as it were of straight (that is, to have a mean within the extremes), this is formally repugnant to the infinite; therefore, if this definition were good, it has to be that straight would be formally repugnant to the infinite, - but this is false, although straight is, as to its subject, formally repugnant to the infinite. The Philosopher, then, does not intend to say that an infinite line can be in a genus, but that infinity is not formally repugnant to the idea of straight, - and therefore the definition to which infinity is formally repugnant is not a definition ‘of straight insofar as it is straight’; for he would not have taken exception to this definition ‘a straight line is length without breadth, whose extremes are two points equally extended’, because here something would be repugnant to infinity, but it would assigned as the idea of line, not as the idea of straight, - and then it would be well assigned because infinity is repugnant to that line.
119. But there is another doubt, concerning the thing, whether an infinite straight line could be in the genus of quantity, - and if it could, then the two reasons taken from infinity [nn.101, 108] do not seem to be valid.
I reply. Never does the supreme in a superior follow on the supreme in an inferior unless the inferior is the most noble thing contained under the superior, just as ‘the most perfect ass, therefore the most perfect animal’ does not follow, but ‘the most perfect man, therefore the most perfect animal’ does, thanks to the matter, follow, because man is the most perfect of animals; therefore the best or most perfect being does not follow on the most perfect of the things that are contained under being unless it is the simply most perfect thing contained under being; but quantity is not such, nor anything in that genus -because anything in it is limited - nay, nothing is such save what is perfection simply, which can of itself be infinite; and so ‘the most perfect quantity, therefore the most perfect being’ does not follow, nor does it thus follow about anything in any genus, but only this follows, ‘the most perfect truth or goodness, therefore the most perfect being’. So it is, then, with the infinite, that because it does not assert only supreme perfection but also a perfection that cannot be exceeded, infinite being does not follow save on such an infinite as is the most perfect thing in which there is the idea of being, namely which asserts perfection simply. And therefore, although there were a quantity infinite in idea of quantity, yet, since quantity is not a perfection simply, it would not follow that it was an infinite being, because it would not follow that it was a being which could not be exceeded in perfection. There might, then, be an infinite line in the genus of quantity, because it would be a simply limited being and exceeded simply by a simply more perfect being, but ‘an infinite being simply’ cannot exist in a genus; and the reason is that the first infinite [sc. that of a line] does not take away all the potentiality that the idea of genus requires, but it only posits an infinity in a certain respect of some imperfect entity (in which, as it is that thing, there can well be composition, in whatever degree it be put -
as long as it is that thing), but the second infinity necessarily takes away [that potentiality], as was made clear before [nn.106-107, 103].
120. [Instance from the insufficiency of the categories of Aristotle] - Against this [n.119] it is opposed that then contradictories would be posited, by conceding a common concept said in the ‘what’ about God and creatures and denying that God is in a genus; for every concept said in the ‘what’, if it is a common concept, is either the concept of a genus or the concept of a definition, otherwise there will be more predicates than Aristotle taught in Topics 1.4.101b15-28.73
121. To this I say that they are not contradictories. The thing is plain from the authorities of Augustine given above [n.97], - where he denies that God is a substance and concedes that properly and even truly he is essence. But if there were a different, an equivocal, concept for essence as essence belongs to God and creatures, then there could thus be an equivocal concept of substance, - and so God could then be called substance just as he is called essence.
122. Likewise Avicenna in Metaphysics VIII ch.4 (99rb), where he denies that God is in a genus, concedes there that he is substance and being not in another. And that he is taking ‘being’ non-equivocally from the concept according to which it is said of creatures appears from himself in Metaphysics I ch.2 (71ra), where he says that “being in itself does not have principles, which is why science does not look for the principles of being absolutely, but of some being.” But if being had a different concept in God and in creatures, there could well be a principle in itself of being, because of being according to one concept being itself according to another concept would be the principle.
123. When you argue ‘it is said in the ‘what’, then it is genus or definition’ [n.120], - I reply: Aristotle Metaphysics 8.3.1043b23-32 teaches what sort of ‘predicate said in the what’ is a definition. For he introduces there, against the ‘ideas’ of Plato the sayings of the followers of Antisthenes, - whom to this extent he approves when they say, “a long account is a term.” And afterwards he adds that “it is a feature of substance that of it there can be a term (to wit of composite substance, whether sensible or intelligible), but of the first elements from which these are, there is not” (supply, a definition), - and he adds the reason: “since a definition signifies something of something” (this needs to be understood virtually, not formally, - as was said elsewhere [I d.3 n.147]); and he adds: “this indeed must be as matter, but that as form.” From which he seems there to be arguing that the [Platonic] ‘idea’, if it were posited, would not be definable, and so if, because of the simplicity of the ‘idea’, his own reasoning has validity in any way, he himself would much more deny a definition of God, whose simplicity is supreme. Therefore it follows from his authority that nothing is said of God in the ‘what’ as a definition.
124. From the same it follows that nothing is said in the ‘what’ of God as a genus. For whatever has a genus can have a difference and a definition, because (Metaphysics 7.12.1038a5-6) genus ‘either is nothing besides the species, or if it is, it is so indeed as matter’, and then that of which there is a genus should be set down as being able to have a difference as form. If, therefore, something is said of God in the ‘what’, it follows, arguing constructively from Aristotle’s authority not destructively, that that something is not a genus or definition; but when you infer ‘it is a genus or definition, because Aristotle did not say that there were other predicates asserted in the ‘what’, therefore there are no other predicates’ [n.120] - you are arguing from the authority destructively, and there is a fallacy of the consequent.74
125. But you will say: then Aristotle did not sufficiently hand on all the predicates said in the ‘what’.
I reply. The Philosopher in the Topics [n.120] distinguished predicates because of the distinction of problems, because diverse problems have, from the diversity of predicates, a diverse way of terminating. So he does not there number all the predicates, because he does not number specific difference (although he did include general difference under genus); and yet specific difference has the proper idea of a predicate; now species too has the proper idea of a predicate, different from definition, otherwise Porphyry [Book of Predicables ch.1] would have been wrong to posit five universals. For that reason, therefore, Aristotle did sufficiently there distinguish the predicates, because he distinguished all those about which puzzling problems require a special way of terminating, which is what he was there intending to hand on. - But the transcendent ones are not such predicates, because there are no special problems about them; for a problem supposes something certain and inquires into what is doubtful (Metaphysics 7.17.1041b4-11), but being and thing “are impressed on the soul in first impression” (Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.6 (72rb)), and therefore about these most common concepts there are no per se terminable problems. It was not necessary, then, to number them among the predicates of problems.
126. But is it really the case that Aristotle never taught those general predicates [sc. the transcendent ones]?
I reply. In Metaphysics 8 [n.123] he taught that nothing was said of God as genus (from the afore-mentioned authority [n.123]), and yet he did teach that ‘truth’ is said univocally of God and creatures in Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31, as was mentioned above (where he says that ‘the principles of eternal things are most true’ [n.79]); and by this he taught that entity is said univocally of God and creatures, because he adds there (sc. Metaphysics 2, ibid.) that “as each thing is related to being, so is it related to truth;” it is also plain - according to him75 - that if being is said of God, it will be said in the ‘what’. Therefore in these passages he implicitly taught that some transcendent predicate is said in the ‘what’, and that it is not genus or definition, - and that other transcendent predicates are said in the ‘what sort’ (like true), and yet that they are not properties or accidents in accord with the fact that these universals (sc. property and accident) belong to the species of some of the genera, because nothing which is a species of some genus belongs to God in any way.
127. He also in some way taught the same in Topics 4.6.128a38-39: “If something,” - he says - “always follows and does not convert, it is difficult to separate it from being a genus.” And he afterwards adds: “To use it as a genus by the fact that it always follows, although it does not convert,” - as if he were saying that this is expedient for the opponent; and he adds: “when the other grants one of the two sides, one should not obey him in everything,”76 - as if he were to say that this is expedient to the respondent, not to concede that every non-convertible consequent is a predicate as a genus; and, if he were not speaking of a predicate said in the ‘what’, there would be no plausibility to what he teaches, that the opponent is using such as a genus. Therefore he insinuates there that something is a common predicate said in a ‘what’ which is not a genus. - And that he is speaking of predication in the ‘what’ is seen from his examples, ‘tranquility is quiet’. For predication in abstract things is not predication in the ‘what sort’ or a denominative predication.