II. Scotus’ own Response

4. One can say briefly to the question [n.1] that this proposition, common to many opinions - namely that ‘as a thing is understood so also is it named’ [n.2] -, is false if it is taken to be understood precisely, because something can be signified more distinctly than it can be understood.

5. The point seems to be shown by this, that since substance cannot be understood by the wayfarer save in the common concept of being (as was proved in I d.3 nn.128-129), then, if it could not be signified more distinctly than it is understood, no name imposed by the wayfarer would signify anything of the genus of substance, but that, just as some property is precisely understood by the wayfarer which he uses to impose the name (and this property is commonly expressed by the etymology of the name), so it is precisely such property that would be signified by the name; for example, by the name ‘stone’ (or ‘lapis’) nothing of the genus of substance would be signified but only something of the genus of action, to wit ‘striking the bone of the foot’ (or ‘laedens pedem’), which the etymology expresses and was the origin of the imposition of the name.

6. And so it can be argued about all other names imposed on things in the genus of substance, because none of them signifies anything save some accidental property that was understood by the one who imposed the name - or instead one must say that the name signifies the thing more distinctly than that thing was understood by the imposer of the name.

7. But how this may be possible can be understood as follows, according to the way of Augustine On the Trinity VI ch.6 n.8, by which he proves there is composition in every creature. For many accidents are conceived by anyone, accidents coming together in the same thing, for example such and such a quantity and quality - and the proof that neither of these is the other is because each of them remains without the other; there is also proof that for both of them something else is the common subject, because each of them can be destroyed while the other is not destroyed; therefore something is shown to be the subject of them, for example of the quality and the quantity, - but that which is the subject is not conceived in a quidditative concept save in the concept of being, or of ‘this being’. Also, since it frequently happens that such and such a quantity and quality are conjoined in something and are not conjoined in other things, and this not from the nature of quality and quantity, as was just shown above, - the conclusion follows that this is from the nature of a third thing which both the quantity and quality have for foundation; but the sort of quality and quantity conjoined in this whole are not the sort that are conjoined in that whole; for from the fact they are conjoined in diverse ways in diverse things the conclusion follows that the substrate of these is diverse from the substrate of those, and from this the conclusion follows that this third thing [sc. the substrate in the first case] is other than that third thing [sc. the substrate in the other case].a But on this thus distinct third thing (whatever it be that goes along with the things conjoined in it, which are the things understood) some name is imposed; this name seems to be the proper sign of ‘this’ thing, under the idea in which it is a ‘this’, such that he who imposes the name intends to signify the essence of it in the genus of substance; and just as he intends to signify the thing, so the name he imposes is a sign of the thing, and yet he does not understand distinctly the thing he intends distinctly to signify by this name or this b sign.

a [Interpolation] therefore some third thing is known to be substrate, and likewise that it is different from the subject of other accidents; nor yet do I know distinctly what the subject is in itself, save that it is a being or a thing, qualified by such and such accidents; hence the further conception that I can have of it, as to what it is, is that it is something possessing such and such accident and relations. As to the issue at hand, then, it is not [the same as] such and such accidents.

b [Interpolation] and thus it is perhaps that, after the fall, names have been imposed.

8. There would also be an example of this: if someone were to impose Hebrew characters not knowing Hebrew letters in particular - yet if, knowing that some letter is first and another second and another third, he were to impose them like this, ‘some letter or other is first, and whichever it is, I will that it be signified by such and such a name and such and such a character’, those characters would be signs of those Hebrew letters, which some Hebrew would distinctly know when such signs were put in front of him, while a non-Hebrew, although he would understand what was signified by those shapes, would yet not know distinctly what was signified but only under the idea of first letter or second.

9. Therefore one can say briefly that, at a minimum, many names are imposed that signify God in general, because God can thus be naturally conceived by the wayfarer, as is clear from distinction 3 [I d.3 nn.58, 61]; or if it is true that ‘something can be signified more distinctly than it can be understood’ [n.4], then God can be named by the wayfarer with a name that signifies ‘this essence’.Vatican editors: which essence, however, cannot be naturally conceived by the wayfarer, I d.3 nn.56-57. ⁹⁸

10. But however it may be in these cases, it is likely that God is named by some such name, and this whether the name is imposed by God himself, or by an angel who knows him, or by a wayfarer. For it is likely that there are many names in Scripture that signify the divine essence distinctly, - as the Jews say of the name of God with which they call him, the ‘Tetragrammaton’ [JHVH], and as God seems to say, Exodus 3.14: “These things shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you, this is my name;” and in another place, 3.15: “I am the God of Abraham etc., this is my name;” and 6.3: “my great name Adonai I have not made known to them.”

11. God, then, is nameable by the wayfarer with a name properly signifying the divine essence as it is ‘this essence’, because the wayfarer can use that name and intend to express what is signified by the sign, whether he himself imposed the sign or anyone else who knew the thing signified; and also such sign or name can be used as a name by a wayfarer even if he could not have imposed it as a sign. And if the proposition is true that

‘no name can be imposed on anything more distinctly than the thing is understood’ [n.5], yet this proposition is false that ‘no one can use a name that signifies a thing more distinctly than he himself can understand it’; and     therefore one must simply concede that the wayfarer can use many names expressing the divine essence under the idea of divine essence.