Question Four. Whether along with the Divine Simplicity can stand a Distinction of Essential Perfections preceding the Act of the Intellect

157. I ask whether along with the divine simplicity there can in any way stand a distinction of essential perfections preceding every act of the intellect.

I argue that there cannot:

Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.5 n.7: “Wisdom and justice are not two qualities in God as they are in creatures, but that which is justice is itself also goodness.” From this I argue: predication in the case of something abstract is only true if it is ‘per se in the first mode’;     therefore this proposition ‘wisdom is truth’ is per se in the first mode, and so there is in no way a distinction between the subject and the predicate, but the subject per se includes the predicate, because this is what belongs to per se in the first mode [Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-37]; therefore etc     .

158. On the contrary:

Damascene On the Orthodox Faith I ch.4: “If you say just or good or anything of the like, - you are not stating the nature of God but something in respect of the nature.” But you are stating something that precedes the act of the intellect; therefore, before every work and act of the intellect, there is something in God which is not the nature formally.

I. The Opinions of Others

159. On this question there are many opinions, all of which I do not intend to recite. But there are two holding to the negative conclusion that nevertheless contradict each other; each posits that along with the simplicity of God no distinction of attributes stands save only a distinction of reason, but the first [from Thomas of Sutton] posits that it cannot be had save through an act of the intellect ‘understanding God himself in an outward respect’, - the second [from Henry of Ghent] posits that this distinction of reason can be had ‘without any outward respect’.

A. First Opinion

160. [Exposition of the opinion] - The first rests on this reasoning:Scotus seems to be following, somewhat freely, Henry’s report of this opinion (with which opinion Henry himself did not agree), and the Vatican editors suggest that Henry’s report is not fully accurate to, e.g., Sutton’s own view. They quote the following from Sutton [Quodlibet II q.2]: “Therefore the divine intellect, insofar as it is the same, never distinguishes several reasons in its essence. But, once all respect to creatures is removed, the divine intellect is, in knowing its essence, only disposed in one and the same way alone; therefore it does not distinguish several reasons of attributes without respect to creatures, but it has one reason of the essence, by which it perfectly knows the essence... The divine intellect knows distinct attributes through respect to the human intellect distinguishing the attributes.” Again: “For because our intellect - on account of its imperfection - cannot know in one conception the perfection of the divine essence, therefore it has need to understand it in diverse conceptions, which are diverse reasons that it receives from creatures and attributes to God.” Again: “For because the created intellect cannot know the one divine perfection, in the way it is, according to its own single reason, therefore it has need, because of its imperfection, to know it under many distinct reasons.” They also quote the following from Bernard of Auvergne criticizing Henry [Quodlibet V q.1]: “But as to his [Henry’s] imposing on this position that ‘only one concept can be formed of the divine essence’, it is false, because the position says that ‘one complete concept is formed of the divine essence and that concept God forms, who conceives himself completely; but the created intellect can form many concepts of the divine essence, because it cannot capture the whole perfection all at once’; hence that position is true.” ⁸¹ “whenever there is in one extreme a difference of reason to which a real difference corresponds in the other extreme, the distinction or difference of reason is taken by comparison with things really distinct (an example of a distinction according to reason is of the right and left side of a column, which is taken by respect to the real distinction of these in an animal, - likewise, an example of a distinction of reason is in a point as it is the beginning and end, which distinction is taken by respect to lines really diverse); but the divine attributes have in creatures certain things really distinct corresponding to them, as goodness to goodness and wisdom to wisdom, and other things that are really called attributes (by which are excluded certain divine properties, as everlastingness and eternity, which are not properly attributes);     therefore etc     .”

161. “The adherents of this reasoning say that the attributes are distinguished with respect to our intellect in that, once the corresponding attributes have been removed, only a single and simple concept can be formed about the divine essence (which would be expressed in a single name for, if other names were imposed, either they would be synonymous names, because the same thing in reality and in reason would correspond to them - or they would be empty, because nothing would correspond to them).”

162. “Their mode, then, of positing attributes is of the following sort: to all the ideas of the attributes (namely those that state a perfection in God and in creatures) there corresponds in God the unity of essence, not according to the being which he has absolutely” - as was said - “but according to the respect which he has to creatures; not in the genus of efficient cause (for no attribute is thus taken, as wisdom because he causes wisdom), nor even to remove something from God - which two modes seem to be the ones asserted by Avicenna [Metaphysics VIII chs.4 and 7 (99ra, 101rb)] and Rabbi Moses [Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed p.1 chs. 53, 55-60] - but insofar as the divine essence is compared to creatures according to the idea of formal cause, containing in itself the completeness of every perfection which is dispersed and imperfect in creatures, and in this respect the divine essence can in diverse ways be imitated by everything. - Further: the plurality of attribution-al perfections, as it exists in the divine essence, is as it were in potency, but as it is in a concept of the intellect it is as it were in act (example about the universal in the thing and in the intellect). But this plurality has a diverse existence in diverse intellects; in the divine intellect, indeed, and in a creature made blessed by the fullness of the perfection of the simple essence, it is conceived according to diverse ideas, and from this comes the multitude of conceptions in act in the intelligence, but by an intellect understanding with natural light they are conceived a posteriori, insofar as this intellect forms, from perfections really diverse in creatures, corresponding conceptions and perfections proportional in God; yet no intellect actually understands them without respect to those they are proportional to - whether it understand them from those they are proportional to, as does the third intellect [an intellect understanding with natural light], - or not, but from the essence, as does the first and the second intellect [sc. the divine intellect and the intellect of a blessed creature]. -Limited perfections insofar as they are actually in the intelligence are called reasons, and reason here is said to be the conception of a determinate perfection, from its respect to the determinate perfection corresponding to it in creatures.”

163. [Godfrey of Fontaine’s clarification for the opinion] - Others clarify this position in the following way, that “the divine intellect, apprehending its own essence according to one simple reality, yet a reality virtually containing, without limitation and defect, the simple and absolute perfections of all things, insofar as it is more eminently perfect than the same perfections because of the eminence of its own perfection, understands that essence as one in reality, perfect with a multiple perfection that differs according to reason; and if it did not apprehend that the creature was perfected with diverse perfections really different insofar as the creature is good and wise, or because those perfections introduce diversities in the creature, it would not apprehend itself as perfect in wisdom under one reason and perfect in goodness under another reason, nor would it apprehend the difference in reason between its own wisdom and its own goodness unless it apprehended the difference in reality of wisdom and goodness in the creature, - otherwise unity and plurality would be taken from one thing disposed in the same way in reality and in concept. Since, therefore, the divine essence, as considered in itself, is something wholly without distinction - altogether simple - in reality and in reason, it cannot be said that, without a comparison between it and other things in which is found a diversity of reality and reason, such a distinction could exist, because, when that is apprehended which is altogether simple and single under the reason that belongs to it in itself without any relation to anything else in which there is some distinction, then, just as the apprehended is only one in reality, so it cannot be apprehended save as one simple reason.”

164. “Nor can it - namely the intelligible and the intelligent - apprehend in its essence certain things as differing in their comparison with each other or as having a mutual relation with each other, unless these things are supposed already to exist in their own difference, or to be introducing a certain difference. For things which are apprehended as certain different things having a mutual relation to each other, and which are also, by the operation of the intellect, compared as differing from each other, these are also supposed to exist in their own difference; but things that, by the operation of reason or intellect, do not possess what makes them to be beings according to reason, and to differ by reason from each other, these cannot be said to be constituted in their own such being and to have this difference according to reason through comparison of them with each other by the operation of reason or the intellect; nay this second operation necessarily presupposes the first, such that, first, they are by one operation of reason constituted in such distinct being, and, second, by another operation of the intellect they are compared as thus distinct from each other; for just as things of absolute nature, when they are compared with each other, are supposed to have a distinct being in reality, so too beings of reason, when these are compared with each other, are supposed to have a distinct being according to reason. Therefore, if the divine intellect apprehends its own essence as different in reason from the attributes, and if it also apprehends the attributes as different in reason, and if the attributes are compared with each other under this very difference, they are of themselves in it actually as so differing, and under their own actual distinction - which they thus have of themselves - they move the divine intellect so that it conceive them as so distinct and compare them with each other. But this does not seem to be concordant.”

165. This reasoning is confirmed as follows: “For all things that differ, or have a difference, formally in themselves or from themselves through what they are in themselves, without comparison to other differing things, all such things differ in reality. But there are other things that have plurality or difference from comparison with other things that really differ, and these things differ by reason; and this is plain in creatures, for once unity of specific form in reality is presupposed, the intellect distinguishes in it the idea of genus and difference - which are said not to be diverse things - but this diversity could not be taken in any single and simple thing unless it were compared by the intellect to some things really different and, according to some order, agreeing with that single thing; one and the same thing would not have diverse reasons of true and good unless to understand and to will the ‘one and the same thing’ were, for some subject, acts really diverse and ordered with respect to each other. This is plain also in God, because, when every kind of comparison to the diverse essences of creatures introducing a real diversity has been stripped away, the divine essence would not be apprehended by the divine intellect under the reason of diverse ideas (or of forms), differing by reason alone, but under one simple altogether indistinct reason.”

166. “And this is the intention of the Commentator in Metaphysics XII com.39 where, speaking of this matter, he says that life, wisdom, etc. are said properly of God, because God is properly and truly said to be alive and to be wise etc. But such and the like things, which are signified by way of disposition and thing disposed, ‘are reduced’ in material things ‘to one thing in being and to two things in consideration; for the intellect is of a nature to divide things united in being, but in composite things - when it disposes the composite, or what has a form, through the form - it understands both the things that are united in some way and different in another way; but when the disposed thing and the disposition have been considered in immaterial things, then they are reduced to altogether one intention, and there will be no mode by which the predicate is distinguished from the subject outside the intellect, namely in the being of the thing. But the intellect understands no difference between them in being, save according to way of taking them, namely because the same thing receives the disposed thing and the disposition as two, the proportion of which to each other is as the proportion of predicate to subject; for the intellect can, in the case of composite things, understand the same thing according to likeness to a categorical proposition, just as it understands many things according to likeness’.”

167. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this position I argue first thus:Scotus’ arguments here [nn.167-173] are, according to the Vatican editors, freely based on statements by Henry of Ghent (indicated by the quotation marks). ⁸² “whatever is a mark of perfection simply in a creature is more principally and of itself in God, and not with respect to another;” an attribute is a mark of perfection simply in a creature, such that ‘it rather than not it’ is simply ‘better’ [n.22];     therefore etc     .

Proof of the major: “the perfect is always independent of the imperfect, just as the imperfect is dependent on the perfect;” an attributal perfection is in God perfectly, in creatures imperfectly. - Likewise it would not be of infinite perfection simply unless it contained all perfection simply without respect to anything external.

The minor is made clear thus: for because any created thing, and any perfection of it essential to it, is limited in quidditative existence, therefore from nothing of this sort is an attribute taken (for by parity of reason an attribute might be taken from any created essence), but an attribute is taken from that which is an accidental perfection in a creature - or in its existing well - and which states a perfection simply in the subject substance, -because, although as a certain nature it has a limited rank, yet as perfecting another in its existing well it indicates no limitation, and thus it is an attribute. Thus too in God it does not indicate a proper perfection but as it were an accidental one, in his existing well, - On the Trinity XV ch.5 n.8: “If we say wise, powerful, beautiful, spirit, what I put last seems to signify substance, but the rest qualities of this substance.”

168. Again, those things are not distinguished by respect externally of which any one contains essence according to every ideal reason; but “any attribute contains essence according to every reason of ideal perfection;”     therefore etc     .

The proof of the minor is that the ideal reason corresponds to the perfection of the creature insofar as it is perfected in quidditative existence and, consequently, under the idea by which the essence is limited (hence also creatures are distinguished according to diverse degrees of limitation), but not insofar as the essence is perfect simply, because thus one attribute in God, as good or perfect, corresponds to all of them; from this the proof of the minor is apparent: for because any attribute is a perfection simply (from the clarification of the minor of the first proof [n.167]), it follows that any one of them is imitable by every limited grade.

The proof of the major is that what contains every idea seems to regard equally everything patterned after the idea, and so in regard to none of them can it be distinguished from another, because it similarly regards any one at all; hence the attribute wisdom does not more regard wisdom patterned after the idea than color patterned after it, because both are equally limited, nor is the attribute taken more from one than from the other.

169. Again, “the distinction of attributes is the foundation of the distinction of the personal emanations, because the Son proceeds by being born as the word in the intellect, the Holy Spirit by being inspirited as love in the will, and not as the word, - which could not be unless there were some distinction of intellect and will internally,” such that the production of the persons is compared necessarily to nothing external;     therefore etc     .

170. Again, “he [God] understands his essence insofar as it is true, not insofar as it is good, - and he wills it insofar as it is good, not insofar as it is true;” “also from eternity he understood that he understands his essence and wills it simply, not in respect of something external,” because this act follows natural immateriality.     Therefore , without such respect, it includes in its essence the idea of true and good, and similarly the idea of understanding and understood, of willing and willed, as formally distinct; therefore etc     .

171. Again, “divine beatitude consists in its perfect acts, of intellect and will, but all the divine attributes mutually regard each other in perfecting those acts,” as will be plain [n.175]; but the beatitude of God depends on no extrinsic respect;     therefore etc     .

172. Against the reasons for the opinion [n.160].

The major is false. First because the divine essence is distinguished by reason from the attribute, just as one attribute is from another; can it therefore follow that ‘essence as essence is only there by outward respect’? - Second because true and good in creatures are distinguished by a distinction of reason; from which really distinct things, then, is this distinction taken? From none but from true and good in God, which differ in reason. - Next, third because where there is “a mere distinction of reason, no outward respect is required” (just as is the case with definition and defined); and such is the distinction in the case of attributes, “which are objects of the divine intelligence, different in reason, although they are one act of understanding in God.” For when an outward respect is required, then the distinction is partly from the intellect and partly from elsewhere; and this either from diverse circumstances extrinsic in diverse ways, as is plain in the examples adduced of the column and the point [n.160], - or from the same thing diversely circumstanced, as is plain in the second instance [above, n.172] against the major.

173. Again, against the minor of the reason [n.160] there is this argument: “since all the attributes pertain to the intellect and the will - which are the principles of the emanations - the distinction of attributes can be really reduced to distinct persons, such that those which pertain to the intellect have respect to generation, - those which pertain to the will have respect to inspiriting; so that, just as the natural intellect does not distinguish these and those save by respect to things in creatures to which it turns back all its understanding, so the blessed intellect distinguishes them about the persons, to which it directs all its understanding.”

B. Second Opinion

174. [Exposition of the opinion] - There is another position [Henry of Ghent’s],Scotus again quotes, somewhat freely, from Henry. ⁸³ which says that “the divine essence absolutely considered, insofar as it is a nature or essence, has no distinction of reasons save as it were in potency, - for the Commentator says Metaphysics XII com.39 that ‘the multiplicity of reasons in God is only in the intellect alone, not in reality’; but the divine essence considered, not in itself, but insofar as it is truth - insofar namely as it has existence in the intellect - can be taken in two ways, either insofar as it moves the intellect as by simple intelligence, and thus it is still conceived by reason of its simplicity and does not have any plurality save as it were in potency, - or insofar as the intelligence, after this apprehension, busies itself about the very plurality of the attributes, as if reducing them from potency to act. In the first way [sc. the divine essence absolutely considered] the natural intellect does not attain it but then only perceives it from attributes conceived from creatures,” according to this opinion; “in the second way [sc. the first way of taking the divine essence considered as it is truth] the blessed intellect grasps it as if in the first action of understanding; in the third way [sc. the second way of taking the divine essence considered as it is truth] the same intellect [sc. the blessed intellect] combining as it were and dividing, and the divine intellect in a single, simple intuition, distinguish the reasons contained in the essence, which essence contains, of its supreme perfection, all the perfections simply that are, by the sole operation of the intellect, to be distinguished.”

175. “These reasons of the attributes, which the intellect forms from the simple essence through diverse conceptions, are only respects founded in the essence (because simplicity prevents the concept of several attributes within it), and they are several concepts, lest the concepts be synonymous, and lest they be empty in the essence, but they are not outward respects” (as was proved [nn.167-171]), “but inward ones. Thus all the divine attributes pertain to the intellect or will, and they mutually regard each other inwardly insofar as they all - these and those - fall, by congruence, under the apprehension of the intellect; this intellect firstly conceives, in a simple intelligence, the essence as it is essence, and then, busying itself about it, conceives it as understood and as understanding and as the reason of understanding, - such that the essence, insofar as it is essence, has a respect to the other things as they are founded in it; but the essence as conceived, and as moving the intellect to understand, is called truth, whose proper reason is that it have a respect to the essence, insofar as it is essence, as being that of which it is clarificatory, and to the intellect as that to which it has to clarify it, and to the act of understanding as that by which it has to clarify it, and to wisdom as the habit in which the intellect is fit to have a clarification made to it. But the essence itself, as it is conceptive of itself by an act of understanding, is the intellect, and it has a respect to truth as that through which the essence which is conceived is made manifest,” - and likewise of the act, etc. - Thus too about the attributes pertaining to the will.

176. “From the supreme unity of the essence, in ordered manner, according to the mode of conceiving, the diverse reasons of the attributes are first conceived (and among these attributes there is still order, according as they are more immediately or more mediately ordered to the emanations), next the emanations are conceived, and there an inward stand is made, and finally there follow all the outward respects, which are per accidens; but just as the distinction of real relations is to what corresponds to them, so too is the distinction of relations of reason to what corresponds to them, and wholly inwardly, according to the argument that was made for this part [sc. that the relations of reason are inward only].”

177. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this opinion there is argument through the reasons I adduced against the first opinion [nn.167-176], - first, by the third reason, because it is against them [sc. the followers of Henry, n.169]: the distinction of the attributal perfections is the foundation with respect to the distinction of the emanations, -but the distinction of the emanations is real, as is clear; but no real distinction necessarily pre-requires a distinction which is only one of reason, just as neither does anything that is truly real pre-require something else that is merely a being of reason; therefore the distinction of attributes is not one of reason only but is in some way from the nature of the thing. - The assumption is plain, because a real being, which is distinguished against a being of reason, is that which has existence of itself, setting aside all work of the intellect as it is intellect; but whatever depends on a being of reason, or pre-requires it, cannot have existence when all work of the intellect has been set aside; therefore nothing that pre-requires a being of reason is a truly real being.

178. A confirmation of this reason is that what is naturally posterior cannot be more perfect than a being that is naturally prior; but real being is more perfect than a being which is a being of reason only [sc. therefore a real being cannot be posterior to a being of reason].

Although this reason is sufficient against one who holds the opinion, yet it is necessary to confirm it for the conclusion in itself [nn.180-181; the conclusion is that attributes are distinguished in the nature of the thing,].

179. Let it be said to it that the attributes are not the foundations of the distinct emanations,Note by Scotus: “This response is rejected in distinction 13, by argument against the third opinion [I d.13 q. un n.5].” ⁸⁴ nay the essence alone along with the relations is the principle of the diverse emanations; yet the intellect can afterwards consider the essence itself as it is, along with the relations, principle of this and that emanation, and then can consider the idea of nature and of will, and yet these will not there be prior from the nature of the thing.

180. On the contrary: in the instant of origin in which the Son is generated, I ask whether his productive principle is related to him in a way other than the productive principle of the Holy Spirit is related to him, or not in another way. If not in another way, then the Son is not more son or image of the Father by force of his production than the Holy Spirit is, - if in another way, then in those moments of origin, before all act of the intellect, some distinction and formal non-identity is obtained.

181. Nor is it valid to attribute this distinction to the relations, because every relation has a respect naturally to its correlatives; therefore the essence, as it is under the idea of inspiriting, equally has a respect to the inspirited, just as under the idea of generative it has a respect to the generated or the begotten. The different modes, then, of producing - naturally and freely - cannot there be saved by the relations, but only if the absolute, by which the producer produces, is of a different idea.

182. This point [that the attributes are distinguished in the nature of the thing] is also argued against this position by yet another of their reasons, about the objects of true and good [n.170] - because if ‘from eternity God, of his immateriality, understands himself and wills himself’, and this under the idea of true and good, then there is there a distinction of true and good by reason of formalities in the objects, before every act about such objects.

183. This is also confirmed by their argument about beatitude [nn.174-176], which belongs to God from the nature of the thing before every act of busying intellect, because the act of being busy about something is not formally beatific; but that beatitude (as is said) requires the proper idea of object and of power and of the one operating;     therefore etc     .

184. However the position [of Henry’s] is expounded in this way, that we can speak about the relation that the object makes in the intellect of itself, or about that which the intellect can make by busying itself about the object;Note by Scotus: “[Henry of] Harkeley [argues] otherwise - first proposition: a thing one in reality can be many in the intellect (Commentator Metaphysics XII com.39 [n.166], ‘the intellect is of a nature to divide what is united in reality’); the reason is that one cause can have many equivocal effects, because none is adequate to the virtue of the cause; conception or intellection is an equivocal effect with respect to the object. Second proposition: yet two intellections have two formal objects (namely in cognized being), although they have the same material object in reality, - or they have the same object under this idea and that, and then there is a difference of reason only, and not of formal objects. From these propositions the argument is as follows: on the supposition from distinction 3 [I d.3 n.35] that the creature can cause in our intellect some absolute concept ‘proper to God’ - either it will be a single concept differing only in reason (for whether it is a composition of the intellect according to logical reasons, or a composition outwardly, there are no differences in conception about an absolute concept save only relations of reason), or there will be many concepts having several formal objects, which may by diminution be the same object in cognized being, because they are reasons of it as it exceeds [the intellect]. In the first way it is easy to save the distinction of attributes in any intellect, even the divine one, because any intellect can understand the same absolute object under one or another relation of reason; as to relations outwardly the thing is plain, - and no less plain as to relations inwardly, to the persons; since indeed the essence is understood by God ‘to differ in reason from the person’. But then in knowing all the attributes of God there is no real science, because the same formal object about him is not known, but the first proposition [above] holds; but as it is under an idea, if it has the idea of ‘knowable of itself’, it only exists on account of the reason under which it is understood, which in some way distinguishes it from itself as absolutely understood, or it is under another idea. - In the second way, several absolute concepts can be posited. But it seems difficult to distinguish these [sc. several absolute concepts] in a blessed intellect, because there is only one concept as existent, intuited by that intellect; again, one ‘object in itself’ has, in the intellect to which it is present in itself, one concept, adequate to itself according to the virtue of that intellect, otherwise it cannot show itself to it as it is intelligible. - On the contrary, it can cause every concept that can be had about it, and if something else - to wit its effect - can cause imperfectly, yet it itself can cause perfectly; again, otherwise something would now be known of God which would not be seen in the fatherland; again, theology will be a science for no intellect, not for ours, because of faith, not for a blessed intellect, because of the singleness of concept. Theology is knowledge of God (of the things that are present in him, known naturally to the divine intellect alone), therefore it is knowledge of the things that are in this science ‘as it is this’ (of which sort are the properties of the persons and the notional acts, the attributes), under the ideas by which they are these. If however a distinction of reason is held to or of formal objects and, third, some aptitudinal respects to creatures (such as the creative, the resuscitative, the remissive of sins, the retributive), - first against [the last]: nothing is in that case present ‘per se’, as it seems, because it is then common to all three [persons]; second against [the second]: how does the metaphysician know them [sc. if the ideas of formal objects are not there from the nature of the thing]? - third against [the first]: ‘respects of reason’ are in potency. Against the first proof for all of them [sc. the preceding paragraph]: an angel naturally knows it [sc. the divine essence] as ‘this’, although it does not see this ‘as this’, - therefore it could have theology; again, any concept about it [sc. the divine essence] is proper to it, because not common, - wherefore it is about it ‘as it is this’.” ⁸⁵ if we speak of the first, it is single, as it is also single in reality, - and this the opinion in itself said, that it has, as it is in the intelligence by an act of simple knowledge, the idea altogether of something indistinct [n.174]; if in the second way, thus the intellect can form about that one idea of the object many distinct ideas, comparing this to that, - and this likewise the opinion said, that the object, as it is in the intellect busying itself, has distinct ideas, quasi-formed about it [nn.174-175]. Yet this exposition adds - which the opinion in itself does not seem to say - that the one idea in itself is formally truth and goodness, and any perfection simply, and that the one idea, which is made in the intellect by virtue of the object, is also the idea of goodness formally and of truth,     etc . The opinion in itself, however, seems to say that they state diverse respects founded in the essence.

185. Because, therefore     , the said opinion [nn.174-176] can be understood in diverse ways, besides the arguments already made, I append other reasons, - and first I show that truth and goodness are formally in the thing, as well as any perfection simply, before all work of the intellect; because any perfection simply is formally in a simply perfect being from the nature of the thing; truth is formally a perfection simply, and goodness likewise;     therefore etc     .

The major is plain, first because otherwise there would not be a simply perfect thing, because there would not be ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [I d.2 n.137] (for a greater than it would be thought if it were perfect thus and so), second because otherwise perfection simply would exist perfectly in nothing (for there is no perfection perfectly in a creature, because it exists there finitely, nor is there any perfection perfectly in God if it is not in him as existing but only as known, because ‘to be known’ is to exist in diminished fashion in contradistinction to something existent), then third because perfection simply in something would exist formally by participation and would not exist formally in that from which it would be participated (nay, such perfection in the participant would not be by participation of the perfection in its cause, because there is nothing on which participation in something existent depends save something existent), all which - namely all these inferred results - seem absurd. - The minor is plain, because otherwise Anselm would not posit such things in God, because according to him, Monologion ch. 15, nothing such should be posited in God which is not ‘better existing than not existing’, and hence a perfection simply. The same minor is also plain because anything such can be formally infinite; infinity is repugnant to anything that is not a perfection simply;     therefore etc     .Note by Scotus: “[Henry] of Harkeley proceeds in his discussion this way: the intellect according to its own proper and formal reason, namely according to its distinction from the will, is a perfection simply, - and the same about any attribute; the second proposition, the intellect according to its proper formal reason is in God from the nature of the thing as it is existent; third proposition, the intellect does not include per se any relation. The proof of the first proposition, as the minor, is the following: first, because according to Anselm ‘anything that is better it than not it’ is to posited there (and he and the doctors treat of many cases [nn.195-197]). There would be only one single perfection simply (namely deity) unless the intellect were formally such, because if it were such only materially - insofar as it includes deity - it is a single perfection understood simply or compared in many ways. - The second proof (and it is a confirmation of the first proof) is that the idea gives the understanding of the perfection which is the essence, although the formal reason of it is not simply perfection - so neither the formal reason of an attribute, according to you; nor is it valid about this and the other genus of cause, because the idea in a foundation which is perfection simply indicates eminence with respect to the thing patterned after the idea. - Third, because otherwise no perfection simply would be possible for an attribute; because it would not be second perfection (perfection in well being [n.167]); because nothing is a perfection simply save the first perfection in God. - Fourth, by that which is said here [n.185, end]; and prove it by the two reasons that are made for this purpose in distinction 13, against the seventh opinion in the second response [I d.13 q. un n.15]. - Fifth, because a perfection simply is in accord with a reason common to God and creatures; it is contained here, at the beginning of the solution [nn.192-193]. The proof of the second proposition: in three ways, as the major here is proved [n.185]. -Again, fourth: as here [Scotus marks here the reference back to the passage in the previous footnote, see*], by intuitive cognition of anything as intuited object in the first object. - Again, fifth: ‘he is blessed by nature’, as in distinction 13 [ibid.]. - Again, sixth, because it is the principle of a real production; and it requires the rejection of the seventh and sixth opinion in distinction 13 [ibid. nn.11, 7], hence let it be supposed for the present, unless it was proved in distinction 2 in the question ‘about the number of the intrinsic productions’ [not found in d.2 now, but presumably something Scotus intended to add]. - Again, seventh, that if the intellect is not there from the nature of the thing, it will never be there by an act of the uncreated intellect without a process to infinity; this reason is touched on here [n.189, at sign Z], and in distinction 13 [ibid. n.13]. - Again, eighth: science of these things would not be real, because the relation of some other reason to God (or conversely) would not be known of him, otherwise these things would not denominate; a confirmation: if they denominate through eminence, then God is in this way a stone. - Ninth Augustine On the Trinity XV as in distinction 13 [ibid. n.14]. Proof of the third proposition: from the first proposition, because no relation is a perfection simply (it is plain about divine relation), therefore it is not included in perfection simply. The proof of this consequence is, first, because perfection simply includes nothing to which the reason of perfection simply is repugnant (because then ‘it’ would in anything be better, and something ‘included in it’ would not in anything be better), and second because perfection simply is per se one, but relation does not make a per se one with the absolute [n.186]. - Again it is proved, third, from the second proposition, for from the second it follows that no relation of reason can be included in perfection simply, because then it would not be in the thing ‘from the nature of the thing’; but no real relation is posited as common to the three persons. From these propositions it follows that an attribute, as it is distinct from another attribute, is in God as he is existent and for himself; and for this inferred conclusion some reasons are added to the three others that are made plain here [nn.177-178, 182, 183].” ⁸⁶

186. Further, I prove that such perfections in the nature of the thing do not, before the work of the intellect, have formal identity; because the intellect can by its own act only cause a relation of reason, from the fact, namely, that it is a collative virtue, able to confer this thing as known to that. I ask then whether truth states precisely the perfection which is in the thing formally, or precisely the relation made by the intellect, or both? If precisely the relation of reason, then truth is not a perfection simply, because no relation of reason can be infinite; for if a real relation - as paternity - is not formally infinite, how much less so the relation of reason. If both, since they are not one save per accidens - because a relation of reason never makes with a real being something one per se (as is plain, because it makes one thing much less with a real being than a property does with the subject; for a property follows the subject from the idea of the subject, but no being of reason follows a real being from the idea of it) - then separate those two things apart that come together in this being per accidens, and it then follows that truth always states precisely that perfection in the thing, and goodness likewise; and then further, since there is no distinction in the thing, whether according to the opinion or according to the exposition of the opinion [nn.174-176, 184], it follows that goodness and truth are formally synonymous (which they themselves deny [n.175]), because they would state the same perfection as it is a perfection in the thing, as was proved [just above at “then separate...”], and without any distinction of thing or of reason.

187. Further, the intuitive intellect has no distinction in the object save according to what is existent, because just as it does not know any object save as existent, so it does not know any things formally distinct in the object save as it is existent. Since, therefore, the divine intellect does not know its own essence save by intuitive intellection, whatever distinction is posited there in the object - whether of distinct formal objects or as of reasons caused by an act of intellect [sc. the two ways of taking Henry’s opinion, his and the expositor’s] - it follows that this distinction will be in the object as it is actually existent; and so, if this distinction is of distinct formal objects in the object, those distinct objects will be formally distinct (and then the intended proposition follows, that such distinction of formal objects precedes the act of the intellect), but if it is of reasons caused by an act of understanding, then the divine intellect will cause some intellection in the essence ‘as a relation of reason’, as it is existent, which seems absurd.

188. Again, there is an argument against the exposition [n.184], - that if only one real concept is of a nature to be had about any object, nothing causes a real concept of the object unless it causes that one concept; but about the divine essence, according to them, only one real concept is of a nature to be had, because the divine essence is only of a nature to make one real concept (but it is of a nature to make any real concept that can be had of it, otherwise it would be a more imperfect intelligible than is any created intelligible, which created intelligible indeed is causative of every real concept that can be had of it); therefore nothing will cause in the intellect any concept of God unless it make that single concept, and so since the creature cannot cause that concept in the intellect - because the concept is of the divine essence as the essence is a ‘this’, in itself, under its proper idea - it follows that by no action of a creature can any natural concept be had of God in this life [n.55].

189. Further, against the opinion in itself, because if these things [the attributes] are distinguished in some way or other by reason, they are not distinguished by the nature of the thing, but by an act of intellect or will. From this I argue: a distinction preceding the idea of the first distinguishing thing is not made by such a distinguishing thing; but a distinction between nature and intellection, or between will and intellection, precedes intellection, which is the distinguishing principle of things which are distinguished by reason; therefore the distinction between nature and intellection, or between intellection and will, will not be made by intellection.The passage ‘From this I argue...' to the end of the paragraph is marked as Z by Scotus. See the third paragraph of the long note to n.185 above. ⁸⁷ - The assumption is plain. For if no distinction of them were to precede, these [attributes] would not be distinguished more by intellection than by nature or will; but whatever is distinguished by intellection, as it is altogether indistinct from nature, is also distinguished by nature; for whatever belongs to a as it is in every way indistinct from b, belongs to b itself, - the opposite seems to involve a contradiction.

190. And if it be said, as if despising this argument [189] (perhaps by precaution, because of the defect of the reply), that if there were, per impossibile, intellection alone, by itself, it would do the distinguishing, not nature or will, - this response is not sufficient, because however much certain things are per impossibile separated, if, when they are separated, something belongs to one and not to another, this cannot be except because of some formal distinction of the reason of this one from the reason of that one. Therefore if, per impossibile, with these things separated, a distinction would belong to intellection and not to nature, there is some distinction ‘between this reason and that’ even when they are not separated; for, after white and white are per impossibile separated, you will not be able to have it that white is the cause of something without white being the cause of the same thing, because there is no distinction between white and white; hence, there would never be a fallacy of accident here, ‘these attributes are distinguished by intellection, intellection is nature, therefore they are distinguished by nature’, unless the idea of intellection were extraneous to the idea of nature, insofar as they are compared to a third thing; therefore that extraneity precedes ‘any distinction’ of this idea from that, insofar as they are compared to a third, and it [sc. the idea of intellection or of nature] precedes the distinction of the ideas between themselves.

II. To the Question

191. [Solution of the question] - To the question [n.157] I reply that between the essential perfections there is only a difference of reason,Note by Scotus: “Every other opinion on this question, besides the one here, seems to evacuate as it were all the difficulties of the first book about the productions and the persons, as is touched on in distinction 13 [I d.13 q. un n.8].” ⁸⁸ that is, of diverse modes of conceiving the same formal object (for there is such a distinction between wise and wisdom, and a greater one at any rate between wisdom and truth), and there is not there only a distinction of formal objects in the intellect, because, as argued before, that distinction is nowhere in intuitive cognition unless it is in the object intuitively known [n.187]. These two members are also proved by the reasons made against the preceding opinion [sc. of Henry, nn.177-178, 182-183, 185-190].

192. So there is there a distinction preceding the intellect in every way, and it is this, that wisdom is in the thing from the nature of the thing, and goodness is in the thing from the nature of the thing - but wisdom in the thing is not formally goodness in the thing.

The proof of this is that, if infinite wisdom were formally infinite goodness, wisdom in general would be formally goodness in general. For infinity does not destroy the formal idea of that to which it is added, because in whatever grade some perfection is understood to be (which ‘grade’ however is a grade of that perfection), the formal idea of that perfection is not taken away because of that grade, and so if it as it is general does not include it formally as it is in general, neither does it as infinite include it formally as it is infinite.

193. I make this clear by the fact that ‘to include formally’ is to include something in its essential idea, such that, if a definition of the including thing be assigned, the included thing would be the definition or a part of the definition; but just as the definition of goodness in general does not include wisdom in itself, so neither does infinite goodness include infinite wisdom; there is then some formal non-identity between wisdom and goodness, insofar as there would be distinct definitions of them, if they were definable. But a definition does not indicate only the idea caused by the intellect, but also the quiddity of the thing; there is then a formal non-identity on the part of the thing, and I understand it thus, that the intellect, when combining this proposition ‘wisdom is not formally goodness’, does not, by its collative act, cause the truth of this proposition, but it finds the extremes in the object, from the combining of which the act is made true.

194. And this argument ‘about non formal identity’ the old doctors [e.g. Bonaventure] stated by positing in divine reality that there was some predication true by identity that yet was not formal; thus I concede that by identity goodness is truth in the thing, but truth is not formally goodness.

195. The rule of Anselm, Monologion ch.15: “It is necessary that it be whatever is altogether better it than not it;” no relation of reason is of this sort [sc. a perfection simply, n.185], and nothing is unless, when relations of reason have been removed, it is altogether the same in the thing and in reason; therefore Anselm’s rule is nothing other than ‘God is God’.

196. On the contrary. In [Monologion] ch.16: “If it be asked what that nature is, what better response than that it is justice?” Therefore anything at all is said of it in the ‘what’. The perfect quidditative concept is only one, or at any rate there is no formal distinction between ‘what’ and ‘what’. - Again, ch.17: “The nature itself in one way and in one consideration is whatever it is essentially.”

197. Response. ‘What’ by identity, not formally; proof of this gloss: ch.17 says: “justice signifies the same as the other things, whether all together or singly.” It is not understood here that they signify the same ‘formally and first’, because then they would be synonyms; therefore they connote the same, or signify the same really, not formally. Again, Damascene [n.198]. To the second [quote from Anselm, n.196]: he adds an example about man, who “is not in one way or in one consideration said to be these three: body, rational, man.” As to why, he posits two reasons: “in one respect man is body, in another rational;” second reason: “each of these is not the whole thing that is man.” It was in opposition to these two reasons that the remark ‘in one way and in one consideration’ was made.The Vatican editors note : “It was by opposition to ‘body’ and ‘rational’ (because they are not in man in one way or one consideration) that Anselm said on God’s behalf ‘in one way and one consideration’, and not that it really is so.” ⁸⁹

198. This opinion [of Scotus, nn.193-194] is confirmed by the authority of Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.4 cited previously [n.158], and ch.9, where he himself means that, among all the names said of God, the most proper is ‘Who is’, because he says God is ‘a certain sea of infinite substance’; but the other names - as he said in ch.4 - state things that ‘circumstance the nature’. This would not seem true unless there were some distinction on the part of the thing; for God is not ‘a sea of infinite substance’ because of the fact that many relations of reason can be caused in respect of him - for thus can they be caused by an act of intellect in respect of anything.

199. Note on behalf of the saying of Damascene, that ‘sea of perfections’ can be understood in one way for an act containing, both formally and in itself, all perfections under their proper formal reasons; thus nothing formally one is a ‘sea’, because it is a contradiction for one formal reason actually to contain so many reasons. In this way, then, nothing is a ‘sea’ unless it is identically one, that is: “God, wise, good, blessed’, and all the rest of this sort. Damascene is not taking ‘sea’ in this way.

200. In another can be understood [sc. by ‘sea of perfections’] something formally one, containing all perfections in the most eminent way in which it is possible for them all to be contained in one; but this way is that they are not only contained identically, because of the formal infinity of the container (for thus any [perfection] contains them all), but that further they are contained virtually, as in their cause, - and further still, in something as first cause containing them of itself, and as most universal cause, because containing them all. In this way ‘this’ essence is a ‘sea’, because in the case of any multitude one must come to a stand at something altogether first; in this [divine multitude] there is nothing altogether first save ‘this’ essence, therefore it is not only formally infinite, but it virtually contains the others; nor only some of them (as perhaps the intellect contains wisdom and understanding, and the will love and loving), but all of them, nor containing them by some other virtue of something else, but by itself. Therefore it has infinity formally and primarily, namely as well from itself as in respect of everything, an infinity universally causal and virtually containing, - and thus it is a ‘sea’, thus containing all of them as they can be contained eminently in some formally one thing. “All the rivers flow into the sea; whence they come thither do they return” (Ecclesiastes 1.7).

201. Therefore this proposition ‘God is wise’ is more per se than this other ‘the wise is good’. The other [sc. perfections other than the essence] have formal infinity, and if they have causal or virtual infinity (which needs to be preserved because of their nearer or remoter order to the essence), yet they do not have causal infinity with respect to all, nor do they have it with respect to any from themselves, but from the essence. - All these points [nn.199-201] are plain in the example of being and its properties (if they be posited to be the same, as is necessary [sc. for the purpose of the example]), if infinity is avoided.

202. On the contrary: the truest unity is to be posited in God; formal unity is truer than mere identical unity.

Response: formal unity is posited, but not of anything whatever in respect of anything whatever. If the major be taken in this way it is false of person and person, and the gloss would be: ‘[the unity] which is possible is true’; but, as it is, formal identity of anything whatever with anything whatever is not possible, but only real identity. From this middle the argument is made to the opposite, that every unity simply of perfection is to be posited there [sc. in God]; such unity there is identical unity, without formal unity, because it is simple and unlimited, but formal unity does not posit un-limitation.

203. The opinion [n.198] is confirmed by Augustine On the Trinity VIII ch.1 n.2, where he proves that in divine reality ‘two persons are not something greater than one, because they are not something truer’. What consequence would that be? If it were only a distinction of reason between truth and wisdom and greatness, the argument would not seem to be different from an argument that proved ‘wisdom, therefore wise’, or conversely [n.191].

204. To what purpose, too, do the doctors who hold the opposite opinion [to that of Scotus] fill up so many pages demonstrating one attribute from another if there were between them only a difference of relations of reason? For God would seem thus to be perfectly known - as to every real concept - as he is known under one attribute just as if he were known under the idea of all the attributes, because the knowledge of several relations of reason does not make a more perfect knowledge, nor does it do anything for having a more perfect real knowledge of anything.

205. Likewise, third, in line with the aforesaid authority of Damascene [n.198], to what purpose do they [sc. those who hold the opposite opinion to Scotus] assign an order to the attributes, as if the essence were the foundation and certain attributes were closer to the essence and certain closer to the emanations? If they are only relations of reason, what is the order in comparison to the emanations?

206. Likewise, Augustine Against Maximinus II ch.10 n.3: “If you can concede God the Father to be simple and yet to be wise, good,     etc .” (and he enumerates there many perfections), “how much more can one God be simple and yet a Trinity, so that the three persons are not parts of one God.” - He argues there that if in the same thing without composition or division into parts there can be many perfections simply, therefore      much more can there be in the deity three persons without composition and division into parts. What argument would that be if the attributes only stated relations of reason and the persons were distinguished really? For this inference does not follow:

‘relations of reason do not cause composition in anything, therefore neither do real relations’.

207. Also the same Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.3 n.5 says that all those predicates [the ones listed in n.206] are equal. But nothing is equal to its own self. For what does it mean to say that something under one relation of reason is equal to itself under another relation of reason?

208. Hilary too in On the Trinity XII n.52, addressing God the Father, speaks thus: “Of Perfect God, who is both your Word and wisdom and truth, there is absolute generation, who in these names of eternal properties is born.” He says then that these properties are eternal, and that in this the Son is born of the Father, that is: the Father, possessing them first, communicates them to the Son. But if they were only distinct in reason, they would not seem be first in origin in the Father before the Son was produced. For whatever is produced there in being of reason by an act of intellect seems to be produced by the whole Trinity (and so is not in the Father as he precedes the Son in origin), as if necessarily preceding the origin.

209. But this formal non-identity stands along with the simplicity of God, because there must be this difference between the essence and the property, as was shown above in distinction 2, the last question [I d.2 nn.388-410] - and yet for this reason no composition is posited in the person. Likewise, this formal distinction is posited between two properties in the Father (as between not-being-born and father), which, according to Augustine On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7, are not the same property, because it is not the case that ‘he is Father by the fact he is ungenerated’. If then there can in one person be two properties without composition, much more, or at least equally, can there be several essential perfections in God ‘not formally the same’ without composition, because the properties in the Father are not formally infinite, but the essential perfections are formally infinite, - therefore any of them is the same as any of them.

210. [Doubts] - Against this solution [nn.191-209] there are three doubts.

For first it seems that the divine simplicity is not saved, because from the fact the essence is posited as the foundation and the attributes as circumstances of the essence [n.198] it seems that the attributes are disposed as acts and forms with respect to the divine essence.

211. The second doubt is that when Augustine (On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.9 ‘On Great Things’ and ch.2 n.3 ‘On Little Things’) denies the identity of paternity and deity -for he says he is ‘not Father by the fact he is ungenerated’ just as neither ‘is he the Word by the fact he is wisdom’ - he there concedes the identity of greatness and goodness, and of the essential perfections, because he says ‘he is great by the fact he is God’     etc . Therefore     , just as he there denies identity, so he concedes it here; but he only denies formal identity there, so he concedes it here.

212. The third doubt is that, just as goodness would not be really infinite unless it was really the same as wisdom, so it seems that the idea of goodness is not formally infinite unless it is formally the same as the idea of wisdom. Therefore, for the same reason as you posit true identity between the former, you should posit the formal identity of reason with reason.

213. To these doubts. - To the first [n.210] I reply that form in creatures has something of imperfection in a double way, namely because it is a form informing something and because it is part of a composite, - and it has something which is not of imperfection, but is consequent to it according to its own essential reason, namely that it is that by which something is the sort of thing it is. Example: wisdom in us is an accident, and this is a matter of imperfection - but that it is that by which something is wise, this is not a matter of imperfection but of the essential idea of wisdom. Now in divine reality nothing is a form according to that double idea of imperfection, because it neither informs nor is it a part; yet there is wisdom there insofar as it is that by which it - what wisdom is in - is wise, and this not by any composition of wisdom with anything as a subject, nor as the wisdom is a part of some composite, but by true identity, by which wisdom, because of its perfect infinity, is perfectly the same as anything with which it naturally exists.

But you will object: how is something formally wise by wisdom if wisdom is not the form of it?

214. I reply. The body is ensouled as it were denominatively, because the soul is the form of it - man is called ensouled not as it were denominatively but essentially, because the soul is something of it as a part; there is no requirement, then, that, for something to be the form informing something, it be itself of such a sort in itself, because the form is not a form informing the whole, although the whole is formally said to be such through it. If therefore some form were the same as something by a truer identity than is its identity with the thing informed, or with the whole of which it is a part, that true identity would be enough for the thing to be of such a sort by such a form; so it is in the intended proposition. - And then if you ask whether by first act there could be some abstraction of the form, - I say that there is not there abstraction of the form insofar as by it something is of such a sort taken precisely, without consideration of its identity with that which is of such a sort in itself.

215. To the second, which seems to possess difficulty from the words of Augustine [n.211], I say that in five ways is God wise and great by the same thing, and yet he is not God and Father by the same thing; in one way because wisdom and greatness are perfections of the same idea, that is, of quidditative idea, because whatever is perfected by those perfections is perfected not as by reasons of the supposit but as quidditative perfections, - but paternity and deity are not thus of the same idea; wisdom and goodness are also in another way of the same idea, because they are perfections simply, - not thus paternity and deity; in the third way, because greatness is the same as deity anywhere, - paternity is not but only in one supposit; in the fourth way, because goodness and wisdom and the rest of this sort are the same as it were by mutual identity, because each is formally infinite, because of which infinity each is the same as the other, - but paternity and deity are not thus mutually the same, because one of them is not formally infinite, but only deity is formally infinite, and because of this infinity paternity is the same as it; and, from this, fifth, he is good and wise by the same thing, ‘by the same thing’ - I say - by identity adequate in perfection, because each is infinite; paternity does not thus have adequate identity with deity, because it is not infinite.

216. To the form [of the argument, n.211] I concede that he is good and wise by the same thing in the way that he is not God and Father by the same thing, because by the same thing he is good and wise, namely by the same thing anywhere and by the same thing as by mutual identity; but paternity and deity are not the same anywhere. Likewise, by the same thing - that is by perfection of the same idea - he is good and wise, because he is quidditatively good and wise; he is not God and Father in this way by the same thing, because each ‘by which’, there, is not the essential perfection of that of which it is, because although the quiddity of paternity remains there, yet the quiddity is not the quidditative idea simply of any supposit, but the personal idea of the same is.

217. To the third [n.212] I concede that the idea of wisdom is infinite, and the idea of goodness similarly, and therefore this idea is that by identity, because an opposite does not stand with the infinity of the other extreme. Yet this idea is not formally that one; for this does not follow ‘it is truly the same as the other, therefore it is formally the same as the other’; for there is a true identity of a and b, without a formally including the idea of b.

III. To the Principal Argument

218. To the principal argument that is taken from the authority of Augustine On the Trinity XV [n.212], I respond that in the creature there is no prediction through identity which is not so formally,Note by Scotus: “On the contrary: entity is unity or truth; if they are properties of being, they are also the same as themselves.” ⁹⁰ and therefore never has a logic of true predication formally and by identity in creatures been handed down; but in divine reality there is true predication by identity, in the abstract, and yet it is not formal.

219. The reason for this difference is this - as I think - that, when conceiving something abstract with ultimate abstraction, a quiddity is conceived without relation to anything that is outside the proper idea of the quiddity; therefore, by thus conceiving the extremes, there is no truth in the uniting of them unless precisely the quiddity of one extreme is the same precisely as the quiddity of the other extreme. But this does not happen in creatures, because there, when abstracting the relations that are in the same thing (to wit, the reality of genus and difference) and considering them very precisely, each is finite and neither is perfectly the same as the other; for they are not in any way the same among themselves save because of a third thing with which they are the same, and therefore, if they are abstracted from that third thing, there does not remain a cause of identity for them, and therefore not a cause either for the truth of the proposition uniting the extremes. This proposition, then, is false ‘animality is rationality’, and conversely, and this in any predication whatever, because the extremes are not only not formally the same but they are not truly the same either; for this quiddity precisely is potential to that quiddity, and is not the same as it save because of identity to the third thing from which they are abstracted; therefore the abstraction takes away the cause of the truth of the affirmative proposition uniting them.

220. The opposite is the case in God, because by abstracting wisdom from whatever is outside the idea of wisdom, and abstracting goodness similarly from whatever is outside its reason formally, each quiddity remains, precisely taken, formally infinite, and from the fact that infinity is the idea of their identity - in such very precise abstraction - the idea of identity of the extremes remains. For they were not the same precisely because of their identity to a third thing from which they are abstracted, but because of the formal infinity of each.

221. And a sign that this is the idea of predication through identity is from the fact that this proposition is not conceded ‘paternity is not-being-born’ (nor this proposition ‘paternity in divine reality is active inspiriting’), whether as true formally or as true by identity; but this proposition is conceded ‘paternity is deity’, and conversely. The reason seems to be that, by abstracting paternity and not-being-born from the essence or the supposit, neither is formally infinite and therefore neither includes in its thus abstracted idea the idea of its identity to the other, and so neither, as so abstracted, is truly predicated of the other; but by abstracting deity and paternity to whatever extent, one of the extremes still remains formally infinite, which infinity is a sufficient reason for the identity of the extremes, and therefore the idea of identity remains, and consequently the idea of the truth of the composition of the affirmative proposition. But in this proposition ‘deity is goodness’ there remains infinity not only in one extreme but in both, and therefore there would be truth here because of the identity included virtually in each extreme.

222. From this, and from the response to the saying of Augustine adduced before in the second doubt [nn.215-216], what was supposed before in the question ‘about genus’ is clear, namely how there remain only two modes of predicating in divine reality [nn.130-131], - because although by identity the relations pass into the essence, yet not in the way the essential predicates do, because all essential predicates state rather quidditative perfections, but the personal idea does not state a quidditative perfection; and therefore all the essential predicates are reduced to one mode of predicating among themselves more than the personal predicates are reduced to one mode of predicating along with them, so that, according to this, it can be said that two modes of predicating remain in divine reality, not only because of the modes of conceiving the predicates, but also in some way because of the reality of the things that are predicated.