Single Question. Whether the Three Persons are Equal in Power

1. 1. About the twentieth distinction I ask whether the three persons are equal in power.

I argue for the negative:

Because then, just as the Father can generate, so the Son could generate.

Proof of the consequence:

First because Augustine says Against Maximinus II ch.7: “If the Father cannot generate a Son equal to himself he is powerless;” therefore, arguing from the opposite, if he is not powerless but all powerful, he can generate a Son, and consequently ‘being able to generate’ belongs to omnipotence, - and thus if the Son cannot generate he is not equally powerful as, or equal in power with, the Father.

Second because the Son would not be omniscient if he did not know the generation of the Father; he would not then be omnipotent if he were not capable of that generation.

2. Further, Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity I ch.25 proves that there cannot be several omni-potents, because then one of them could make the other nulli-potent; therefore it seems one could give a similar argument in the case of the issue at hand, if one posited several divine persons who were equally powerful.

3. And just as this inference of Richard’s was made clear [in I d.2 n.179] in two ways, I make it clear too in rather similar ways of the issue at hand:

First, because one person could by his act of will produce everything possible, and, once they were produced into existence, another person could not produce them; for the same things cannot be twice produced in their totality [I d.2 n.181]. There is also a confirmation for this proof, that the Father has an act of will for creatures before the Son does - before in order of origin -, because the Son, according to Hilary [On the Trinity IX n.48], is potent “of himself but not from himself”; therefore the Father is understood to have produced things prior in origin to the Son’s producing them, and so at the moment when the Son is understood as needing to produce nothing is possible for him.

4. Second, because an omnipotent being can by his act of will prevent everything that is possible to some other omnipotent being, if there be some other, because there is no need for their wills to be agreed about things other than themselves, since their will for all those things is contingent [I d.2 n.180]; so here, it does not seem necessary for the will of one person to agree in the act of willing of another person.

5. But if you say that they have the same will and so they do agree in willing the same things, - on the contrary:

If the form that is the principle of acting is in several things, the principle is for each of them a principle of acting in just the same way as it would be if it were in one of them alone (just as if whiteness were in two surfaces, the two surfaces would have the principle of diffusing sight in the same way as they would have it if it existed in only one of them); but if will were in the Son alone it would be for him a principle of contingently willing the existence of a stone in such a way that the Son could then, by that will, equally will the stone not to exist; therefore, after one has posited this will as existing in the Father, the Son will still have the principle of contingently willing the stone to exist, and thus, whatever one posits in the Father, the Son can equally will the stone to exist or not to exist, - and thus, if the Father wish the stone to exist and the Son do not, one omnipotent makes the other to be nulli-potent, by preventing all the possible things that it has willed.

6. Again, a first cause causes more than a second cause does, according to the author of On Causes prop. 1 and according to Metaphysics 2.1.993b26-30 and Posterior Analytics 1.2.72a29-30; but the Father gives to the Son the virtue of causing and not conversely; therefore the Father is more powerful.

7. On the opposite side is what the Master puts in the text, Sent. I d.19 ch.1 n.168 and he adduces Augustine [rather: Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter ch.1 n.4.

8. Again, Augustine Against Maximinus II ch.14 nn.7 & 9, ch.18 n.3 proves this conclusion in three ways:

First by the authority of the Savior in John 16.15: “Everything that the Father has is mine;” therefore the Father’s power too.

9. Second by reason, because “if he could not give equal power he was not omnipotent, - if he could give it and he refused, he was envious.”

10. Third by a likeness, because “a carnal father would generate an equal son for himself if he could, or a greater son; therefore much more so in the issue at hand.”

I. To the Question

A. Determination of the Question

11. I reply by setting aside logical power or possibility (which refers to a mode of combining terms done by the intellect), and power said metaphorically (of the sort found in geometry, in the way geometers themselves imagine a point having power for a line and a line for a surface) [cf. Metaphyscis 5.17.1019b30-32, Ord. I d.7 n.27]:

12. Power (as said in I d.7 nn.28-29) is properly taken in one way as it is a differentia of being, the differentia opposed to act, in another way as it signifies the same thing as principle does (as the Philosopher speaks of it in Metaphysics 5.17.1019a19-20). And power taken in this second way is divided into active and passive, and in each way -however it is taken - it can be understood either for the relation itself that it signifies in the power, or for the proximate foundation of that relation.

13. As for the issue at hand. It is plain that one should posit active power in God, since he is an efficient principle (from I d.2 nn.43-58), and it is about this power that the Master is speaking in the present distinction.

14. Equality in power of this sort can also be understood in two ways: either as to the extent of possible objects to which the power is extended, or as to the intensity of the very power in itself. An example: a power to heat is said to be equal in extent if it is extended to an equal number of heatable things (and in this way all charity is equal and is extended to everything that can from charity be loved); it is said to be equal in intensity if the power is equally perfect and is capable of an act that is equally perfect, although not as many things be subject to it as to another power, as is plain from positing the case that was posited in I d.7 n.41, that heat possessed of a heating adequate to it would produce another heat.

15. And these two equalities frequently accompany each other; each can however be understood without the other. Now, when speaking of equality of extent, no difficulty arises save about the notional acts [sc. the acts that concern the production of the divine persons], and about the terms of those acts, because the two terms are not producible by all the persons, but the Son is producible only by the Father while the Holy Spirit is producible only by the Father and the Son.

B. Opinion of Others

16. [Exposition of the opinion] - Hence as concerns this point [n.15] one statement is as follows, that the power of generating pertains to omnipotence in the Father but not in the Son.

17. This statement is clarified in two ways:

First, because omnipotence is power for everything that does not include a contradiction; but that the Father generates does not include a contradiction, while that the Son generates does include a contradiction;     therefore etc     .

18. Further, second, because what holds of actions that are transitive, or pass onward to something external, is different from what holds of actions that are immanent; possibility in the case of a transitive action is judged from the idea of the action in itself and from its term, while possibility in the case of an immanent action is not judged exclusively from these features but also from comparison with the agent which such action is immanent in; since therefore generation is an immanent action, its possibility is to be judged not only from it in itself and from its term but also from its being compossible with the acting supposit which it should be immanent in; but generation is compossible with the Father and not with the Son, therefore the same as before.

19. A third clarification is added that that is said to be ‘potent’ which has power for everything for which it has the form, and is said to be ‘impotent’ for that action to which its form does not extend (as fire is said to be ‘impotent’ because it cannot cool things, for it does not have the form for cooling); but the Father has a form that agrees with generation and the Son does not; therefore the Father is impotent if he cannot generate but the Son is not impotent if he be unable to generate, - and so ‘being able to generate’ pertains to the omnipotence of the Father and not to the omnipotence of the Son.

20. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this:

Without comparing the ‘to generate’ with any supposit I ask: either this generating, as it belongs to the generated supposit as to a term, is something for which some active power is naturally fit, or it is not. If it is, then whatever does not have power for this generating does not have omnipotence (that is, it does not have power for everything for which power is naturally fit); if it is not, then nothing has this power for generating, and thus this power does not pertain to the omnipotence of the Father.

21. The confirmations too [nn.18-19] are not valid. Not the secondVatican editors: the text actually says ‘the first’ because it is first in the Lectura though second here, just as the text says ‘the second’ in n.22 because it is second in the Lectura but third here. The one that is first here [n.17] lacks an argument against it. ⁵⁵ [n.18] because omnipotence is capable of everything which is the term of power simply, and this either by producing it in that which it is of a nature to be produced in, if it is of a nature to be produced in something, or by producing it as subsistent in itself, if it is not of a nature to be produced in something. But there is no necessity that omnipotence be able to produce all such things formally in themselves; just as omnipotence can produce running in an animal (as in a man or a horse), which is what running is of a nature to be in, but cannot produce running in itself (as neither can it produce running formally), because this neuter word ‘itself’ would signify that such a form existed in itself formally. Although therefore the Son not be able to generate formally such that generation should be in himself, nor be able to be a principle of generation in himself, yet, if generation be a term of omnipotence, then one should say that the Son is able to be a principle of generation in that which generation is of a nature to be in, because otherwise he would not be omnipotent, just as neither would he be omnipotent if he could not cause understanding in an intellect capable of receiving understanding. But ‘to generate’ cannot in any way be from the Son, not even as it is in the Son - therefore if ‘to generate’ is a term of power simply the Son will not be omnipotent.

22. The third confirmation [n.19] is not valid, because what has a form that is limited with respect to acting is not omnipotent with respect to acting; for although fire be potent as to burning and heating, if yet it be not able to cool it will not be simply omnipotent, because its form - limited to one act - entails that it is not simply omnipotent; therefore that the Son does not have a form agreeing with every action, although the action is one which power is of a nature to have simply regard to, entails that the Son is not simply potent.

23. Again, this way [n.16] does not save the fact of how the Father and the Son are equally potent, because the Father has power for an act of generation (which, for you [sc. the holder of the opinion in question here, nn.16-18] is a term of power simply), for which action the Son does not have power, and so they will not be equally powerful as to extent.

C. Scotus’ own Opinion

24. As for this article [nn.15] I say differently that the first correlative for active power is the possible, - not taken generally, the way the possible is opposed to the impossible, because in this way God’s existence is possible; the possible then, as it is the correlative of active power, must be taken more determinately. But this correlative seems only to be what accords with how Avicenna takes the possible, Metaphysics VI chs.1, 3 (91va, 93rb) and elsewhere, VIII chs.4, 5 (99rb, 99vb), I ch.7 (73rab), in the way that what is opposed to the possible is the of itself necessary. And then, since anything intrinsic to God is in itself formally necessary (or exists by identity with the essence, which essence is formally necessary), nothing intrinsic to God will be the term of active power properly stated; and if so, since the three persons possess the same idea of principle with respect to everything other than the divine essence, because the principle of producing creatures is understood first to be communicated to the three persons before the principle is able to have the act of producing those other things, - the consequence is that the power of the three persons is equal as to number of possibles.

25. Now the assumption [sc. ‘the principle of producing creatures is understood firsts’] is made clearer in the question ‘On the Order of Extrinsic Productions to the Intrinsic Ones’ [II d.1 q.1 nn.8-11, 22].

26. It is also plain, in brief, from the fact that a principle necessary in respect of one production and contingent in respect of a second production is first a necessary principle of producing before it is a contingent one; now whatever be the principle of producing the persons, it is necessarily related to the production of them, but the principle of producing creatures is contingently related to the creatures themselves; therefore it is communicated to the three persons first before it can have an act with respect to possible things outside it.

27. Hereby it is apparent that power in the divine persons is equal not only as to extent but also as to intensity; for if power be taken for what is absolute (namely for the foundation of the relation of the principle), it is plain that it is in the three to the same magnitude, not only to same magnitude ‘in a certain respect’ but also to the same magnitude ‘simply’, as was said in the preceding question ‘About Equality of Magnitude’ [I d.19 nn.13-14]; or if it be taken for the relation (which is founded on what is absolute), then there is the same relation in the three and, if the relation has any magnitude, the magnitude of the relation is the same in the three, and so there is an equality of power in every way, both in extent and in intensity.

28. Now as to what is said about the first correlative of active power, which is the possible [n.24], one must understand it of the objectively possible (namely the object which is the term of the power), not of the subjectively possible, because the subjectively possible is not a convertible correlative in respect of active power; for not every active power has something that is thus [sc. subjectively] possible corresponding to it, but only that active power does which is transformative.Tr. An active power that transforms or changes things has a subject that it acts on and an object that is the term of its acting on the subject (as fire acts on a cold thing as subject and has heat as the object which it brings about in that cold thing and which is the term of its acting on that cold thing); but an active power can have an object it produces without having a subject which it transforms or changes in producing it, as is precisely true of the power of producing persons in divine reality or of producing creatures ex nihilo. ⁵⁶ The objectively possible then is, as correlative, equal to the active power, but the subjectively possible is not - and such an objectively possible is the possible that Avicenna was adduced for [n.24], namely the one that is opposed to the of itself formally necessary.

29. But that the objectively possible differs from the of itself formally necessary, or from the producer, may be confirmed from the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.1.1013a17, where he intends it to be the case that principle and cause are really convertible; but everything caused is other than its cause, therefore the possible too (that is, the thing that has a principle) is other - according to him - than the principle.

30. There is a confirmation too from the idea of active power set down in Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-16, 19-20, that it is “a principle of transforming that which is other, or insofar as it is other;” therefore much more is it a principle of producing what is other, because a caused thing cannot be as identical with the cause as the active can be identical with the passive in creatures.

31. But in that case there is a doubt how the power of generating may be called a ‘power’, since, according to what has been said [nn.24-30], it has no respect to anything possible.

I reply. The possible can be taken in a still more extensive way than as it is opposed to the of itself necessary, namely by saying that that is possible which is opposed to the by itself necessary - and in this way everything that is originated would be possible, but neither the saints nor the philosophers seem commonly to speak thus. And it is in this way that the Son could be conceded to be possible, because he is originated, and so the active power corresponding to this term is a ‘power’. However, the Son is more truly conceded to be something from a principle and not to be something possible; still there is conceded to be in the Father an active power of generating, because active power in creatures asserts a certain perfection - though the possibility corresponding to it, because it is repugnant to of itself necessity, asserts an imperfection; so the name for that which asserts perfection is transferred [sc. to God], but the name for the other correlative -which asserts imperfection - is not transferred in itself but in something more common than itself, so that in this way power is said to exist on the part of the producer and yet possibility is not said to exist on the part of the produced but only the idea of being from a principle.

32. Hence is apparent the irrationality of the saying that ‘under omnipotence, by virtue of the word, there is contained the power of generating, though not according to the usage of the saints’, because although the saints or the doctors sometimes say that ‘the power of generating is a power’ and that ‘to generate is the term of a power’, yet by virtue of the word neither is simply true but only when applying the idea of power to the idea of principle insofar as principle commonly has regard to that which can come from a principle.

33. By speaking in this way I reply to the question about the equality of power in the divine persons, - and I say that they are equal even in this way, because according to the Master in distinction 7 of this book [I d.7 ch.2 n.77] ‘by the same power by which the Father can generate the Son can also be generated’; but then this equality of power is not relative to the same thing; just as, if one were to posit an equality of power in color for affecting sight and in savor for affecting taste, these two would indeed have equal power yet they would not have the same power, nor relative to the same thing. Thus it is in the case of the issue at hand: when speaking of power in this way - extending it to the notional act - Father and Son are equal in power both in extent and in intensity, because the power that is in the Father for the act of generating is equally perfect in the Son and in relation to equal objects; yet it is not in this way altogether the same power the way a power is the same that has regard to what is possible - and in this respect one should concede that not every power is in the Son, or that there is not in him power for every possible, taking power in this extended way [sc. so as to include the notional act], although there is in him the omnipotence that means power as to all possible things.

34. And if you ask ‘if there is in the Father and the Son the same absolute reality on which a power equal in extent and in intensity is founded, even as to power that is inwardly directed, why is not every power the same in both of them?’ - I reply: I say that although the same absolute reality, which is the power, is in the Father and the Son, yet it is not in each of them under the idea of power as far as the notional act is concerned, because it is not under the idea of what is prior to act, and power or principle requires the order of priority to a term.

II. To the Principal Arguments

35. To the principal arguments.

To the first [n.1] I speak by denying the first consequence, as far as the form of the consequence is concerned.

When proof is given from Augustine Against Maximinus I reply that the argument does not hold on the basis of its internal logic (as on the move from a universal whole to a part of a universal whole, by supposing that ‘to be able to generate’ is a particular ‘being able’), but it holds because of many implicitly understood propositions. In fact the argument has to be reduced to many syllogisms as follows: Maximinus has conceded that the Father generates a Son, though not an equal Son, - Augustine argues ‘if he generated and could not generate an equal Son, then he was impotent’. Proof of the consequence: from the fact that the Father gave deity to the Son (even according to Maximinus, because otherwise there would properly be no generation), but a deity lesser (according to Maximinus) than the deity of the Father, then deity is not of itself infinite, because there cannot be anything greater than the infinite, nor can the infinite be lessened; and if deity is not infinite then he who has deity is not omnipotent; for nothing is omnipotent (since omnipotence requires infinite power) unless it have an infinite essence. Therefore the consequence holds, not because the singular instance [sc. being able to generate] is contained under the universal [sc. being omnipotent], but because the universal - which is the ‘to be omnipotent’ - is accompanied by infinity of essence and so by an ability to be communicated equally. And this inference similarly holds, ‘if the Father cannot understand, the Father is not omnipotent’; but it does not hold on the basis of its internal logic (as if the Father’s act of understanding were the term of omnipotence), but on the basis of these implicitly understood propositions: ‘what cannot understand does not have every perfection simply, and in that case it is not of infinite essence, and therefore not omnipotent either’.

36. When the argument is then made about omniscience [n.1], I say that knowledge does not require an order that is determinate to knowable things, nor an order of prior or posterior,a - and therefore knowledge is of necessity extended to every being, because every being is knowable; but power is not extended - as to extension to an object - to every being, but only to possible being, which possible being, in whatever way ‘possible’ is taken, is of a nature to be posterior; and so it is not extended to what is not of a nature to be posterior, and therefore not to that which is [not?] of a nature to be, in an infinite person, the same thing as that person.

a [Interpolation] because knowledge, whether in respect of what is prior, as of its object, or of what is posterior, can also be in respect of itself; but power requires an order determinate to a term, as of prior to posterior.

37. When the argument next from Richard is made [n.2], I say the argument is valid if it be supposed, per impossibile, that there are two Gods (as was made clear in I d.2 n.180), but it is not valid of two persons who are equal in power.

38. When proof is given, first, through the fact that ‘one person could make another person nulli-potent by willing all possible things and bringing them into existence’ [n.5], I say that he cannot will them save with the other person also willing them, and so they are not brought into existence by one person while the other person is not bringing them into existence, but just as the three persons are in the same moment of nature understood to have a sufficient principle for bringing these things into existence, so they are also in the same moment understood to have the act by which these things are brought into existence. But if two Gods were posited, one of them could by its own action bring everything into existence or produce everything into existence while the other could not produce them by the same action; therefore either he could not produce them by any action, and thus he would not be omnipotent, - or he could produce them by another action, and thus the same thing could receive existence twice, which is impossible.

39. To the second proof, that ‘one omnipotent could prevent everything that was willed by another omnipotent’ [n.4], I say the proof is good about two wills, because -per impossibile - what has its own will could use it contingently as to any object other than itself; but the proof is not good about two persons who have the same will, because by the same necessity by which there is one will there is also one use of the will, and so it cannot be the case that one person wills with this will and the other does not, just as neither can one person have this will and the other not have it.

40. When - against this response - an objection is made about the form that exists in the two of them, that ‘the principle of operating exists in each of them the way it would if it existed in one alone’ I concede that the Son does not as it were naturally or by coercion will with this will, as if the Father by willing has predetermined the Son to will the same thing and the willing is not in the Son’s power the way it was in the Father’s, but rather the Father and the Son are in the same moment of nature understood to have the same will and to have any act of will - as the act is of this object - in as equally free a way as if one of them did not have the will. This form, then, is as much a principle for operating uniformly for any person who has it as it would be if he alone had it; but it is not a principle of operating for one possessor of it and a principle of not operating for the other, with an operation that is the same as the will, just as this same will is not both ‘a will’ and ‘not a will’. Hence the necessity of the inference ‘if the Father wills this, the Son wills this’ is not against the freedom of the Son’s volition, just as neither is the inference ‘if I will, I will’ against my volition’s freedom; thus it is not in this case either, ‘if the Father wills a, the Son wills a’, because the Father’s and the Son’s act of will is the same.

41. As to the other argument about first and second causes [n.6], the response has been given in distinction 12 n.68, because the proposition in question gets its truth from the fact that there is a different virtue or power of causing in the prior cause than in the posterior - and that what the prior has is more principal; but the proposition is false of a principle belonging to a prior in origin and to a posterior, where they have the same power or virtue of causing in respect of a third - and of this sort is the power in the issue at hand, and so in this case the argument is not valid.