IV. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion

128. To the arguments for the second opinion [nn.90-94]. I respond to Damascene [n.90]. Although he says many words, in diverse places, which seem to say that God is in a genus, yet one word - which he says in Elementary Instruction on Dogmas ch.8 -solves everything. For there he says that “Substance, which contains the uncreated deity super-substantially, but the whole creation cognitively and content-fully, is the most general genus.” Therefore he does not say that the substance which is the most general genus contains the deity as it contains the creature, but contains it ‘super-substantially’, that is, by taking that which is a matter of perfection in substance, as it is a genus, and leaving out that which is a matter of imperfection - in the way Avicenna says in Metaphysics VIII ch.4 [n.122] that God is ‘being in itself’.

129. As to Boethius [n.91] I say that nowhere in that little book is he found to say that ‘two genera remain in divine reality’. In brief, neither genera, nor modes or genera, nor their ideas remain there, - because, just as genera and the things in them are limited, so also are their modes and ideas (speaking of ideas of first intention, which are founded on these), because nothing can be founded on a limited thing save a limited thing.

130. Yet Boethius does - in his little book On the Trinity chs.4, 6 - say, after enumerating the categories, that “if anyone turns these toward divine predication, all that can be changed are changed; but a something is not at all predicated as ‘a relation to something’,” - and later, “essence contains the unity, relation multiplies the trinity;” and from these is taken the thought that he indicates substance and relation remain in divine reality. But he expressly says there that neither substance, which is a genus, nor anything of it, remains there; for he says “When we speak of God, we seem to signify substance, but a substance that is beyond substance,” in the way Damascene spoke of substance ‘super-substantially’ [n.128]. Boethius intends, then, that there are two modes of predicating in divine reality, namely of relative predicate and essential predicate, which modes Augustine expresses rather as ‘to itself’ and ‘to another’ - On the Trinity V ch.8 n.9 - , and all the predicates said formally of God are contained under one or other of these two members; but under the first member [sc. ‘to itself’] are contained many predicates that have a mode of predicating like quality and quantity (and not only those that have a mode of predicating similar to the ones which are of the category of substance), and under the second member [sc. ‘to another’] are contained all that have a mode of predicating similar to relatives, whether they are properly relatives or not.

131. And as to why all essential predicates are said to be predicated according to substance, and why against them are distinguished the predicates said ‘in relation to something’, although however the predicates said ‘in relation to something’ pass over, by identity, into substance, just as the other predicates also do, - the reason for this will be assigned in the following question ‘About attributes’, in the second doubt against the principal solution [nn.215-216, 222].

132. As to Averroes [n.92] I say that he does not seem to have the intention of the master, because Aristotle, in Metaphysics 10.1.1052b18-1053b3, 2.1053b9-1054a19, asks whether in substances there is something one that is the measure of the others, and whether this is the one itself. And he proves - from his intention against Plato - that it is not the one itself, but something to which one itself belongs, just as with all other genera when speaking of one and of the other common things measured in the genera. And he concludes at the end: “Wherefore indeed, in properties and qualities and quantities one itself is something one but not the substance of it; and in substances things must be similarly disposed - for things are similar in everything” (about which text the Commentator set down the words afore mentioned [n.92]). But if the first mover is posited as the measure of the genus itself of substance, this one thing would itself be posited as the measure, because the first mover - on account of its simplicity - would much more truly be this one thing itself than the idea of Plato.

133. What then is the first measure of the genus?

I reply: some substance in that genus, to which unity belongs, is first. - But the first mover is not the intrinsic measure of that genus, just as not of the other genera either. Yet insofar as it is, in some way, the extrinsic measure of everything, it is more immediately the measure of substances, which are more perfect beings, than of accidents, which are more remote from it. It is, however, the intrinsic measure of no genus.

134. To the first reason [n.93] I say that if you contract substance with the difference of created and uncreated, then substance is not taken there as it is the concept of the most general genus (for uncreated is repugnant to substance in this way, because substance in this way involves limitation), but substance is taken there for ‘being in itself’ and not ‘being in another’, whose concept is prior and more common than the concept of substance as it is a genus, - as was plain from Avicenna above [n.122].

135. To the other reason [n.94] I concede that the composition of thing and thing is not required for a being ‘in a genus’, but there is required composition of reality and reality, one of which - precisely taken in the first moment of nature - is in potency to the other and perfectible by the other; but such composition cannot be of infinite reality to infinite reality; but all reality in God is infinite formally, as was made clear above [n.107], -     therefore etc     .