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Thirty Fifth Distinction
Single Question. Whether in God there are Eternal Relations to all Knowables as Quidditatively Known
1. About the thirty fifth distinction I ask first whether in God there are eternal relations to all knowables as quidditatively known.
That there are:
Augustine 83 Questions q.46 n.2: “Ideas are eternal and immutable forms in the divine mind;” not absolute forms, so respective ones, - and only to things other than himself as quidditatively known; which is why they are distinguished according to the distinction of these other things.
2. Again, Avicenna Metaphysics VIII ch.7 (100vb-101rb) concedes that in God there is a relation of God, as intellecting, to the understood forms.
3. Again, God knows distinctly things other than himself, therefore through some distinct principles of knowing; and these cannot be absolute, therefore relative.
4. Again, according to Augustine On Genesis V ch.14 n.31: “All things in God are life;” and thus does he seem to say On John tr.1 nn.16-17: “All things in him were life,” and this, “eternal life, not created but creative.” This is not true when speaking of these objects formally in themselves, - therefore of the very formal reasons by which they are known.
5. On the contrary:
Then those relations would be real, which is contrary to what was said in distinction 30 nn.49-51. Proof of the consequence [n.1], because God understands things other than himself before he understands that he understands them, because the reflex act presupposes the direct act; therefore the relations that would be in God to other things would be in God from the nature of the thing and not by act of the intellect considering that intellection; but what is there from the nature of the thing, and not in the object as it is known, is real.
6. Further, a reason by which eternal relations to all known things would exist in God would be as equal reason for eternal relations to all willed things as willed, and then those relations would be real, because he wills things other than himself before he understands that he wills them, - and thus the relation of his will to other things will be real, because not in the object as it is known.
I. To the Question
7. On the supposition that God is a thing that understands (from distinction 2 nn.75-78), and that his own essence is the first object in his reason (from the question ‘About the subject of theology’ [Prol. nn.152, 200-201]), and that his intellect is of all intelligibles, not quasi in potency but in act and all at once (from distinction 2 nn.98-101), and this distinctly (because to understand confusedly is a mark of imperfection in a thing that understands, ibid. nn.105-110), - one must note about this question that for the intellection of something three things seem to come together, namely the knowable object, the intellect itself, and the reason of knowing.
8. But in the intellect as it is a power there is no need to posit a distinction that it understand distinctly, because our intellect - altogether indistinct according to idea of power - can understand many things. Therefore if there is a distinction [sc. in God’s intellect for understanding many things], let it be looked for in the object, or in the reason of knowing the object, or in the intellection itself.
A. Opinions of Others
1. First Opinion
9. The position then is that the relations to things other than himself are eternal in God, known by simple intelligence, and that the relations are in the essence as it is the reason of knowing, because of the fact that nothing is a reason of knowing several things save as that reason is appropriated in some way to those several known objects.
10. There is a also a confirmation, that knowledge happens by likeness; therefore the reason of knowing should have some proper reason of likeness to the thing known.
11. So because of this determination and this assimilation of the reason of knowing to the object, eternal relations are posited as reasons determining the essence as it is a reason of understanding, and by these the essence is distinctly like the known objects.
2. Second Opinion
12. Another position is that these relations are in the divine essence as it is the altogether first know object; the divine essence indeed is understood ‘by an intellection altogether first’ as completely without distinction, but so that creatures may be understood the intellect first compares the essence - known first - to creatures under the idea of its being imitable, and then, by understanding the essence as imitable, it understands creatures through that first object, thus considered under such a relation of reason.
13. And this opinion differs from the first [n.9] as the two ways of speaking differ, one of which would posit ‘the same species’ to be the reason of knowing both the principle and the conclusion, only however as under distinct relations of reason corresponding to those known things under their proper ideas - but the other would say that ‘the known principle itself’ is the reason of knowing the conclusion, and this not as a principle absolutely understood, but in comparison or relation to the conclusion.a
a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] A third opinion posits almost the same, and it posits ideas or ideal reasons in the act of understanding. And they [proponents of this opinion] have the following reasoning.
Our understanding, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.6.1016b18-21, has a respect to the intelligible as measured to measure; therefore if it were infinite as the divine intellect is, it would have a respect to infinite intelligibles, and so there would in our intellect be infinite respects to infinite intelligibles; but because it is finite, it has respect to one intelligible; therefore since the divine understanding is infinite, there will in its ability for understanding be infinite relations to infinite intelligibles.
Rejection of the Opinions
1. Against the Common Conclusion
14. Against these opinions, - and first against the conclusion in which the opinions agree, namely that these relations of reason must necessarily be posited in God so that creatures be understood distinctly, according to reason, by God, in idea of objects.
The first argument is as follows: these [ideal] reasons are knowable by the divine intellect. I ask, by what reason of knowing? If by other reasons, determining the essence as it is the reason of knowing [n.9] or determining the essence as it is the first object with respect to secondary objects [n.12], there will be a process ad infinitum, because other reasons will again precede for understanding those reasons, and thus those other reasons are never intelligible by God because he will have to understand other infinite reasons an infinite number of times before those reasons. Therefore a stand must be made that those reasons can be understood by God through his essence is it is taken bare, either as it is understood through reason [n.9] or as they are understood through the essence as through the first known object absolutely [n.12]; and the reason by which they will be able to be known by the essence whereby it is essence bare will be as equally reason whereby those other secondary objects will be able to be known, because those reasons thus seem to have the natures of distinct objects just as also do the other things.
15. But if you say that these reasons of knowing are known by the divine intellect through the objects themselves toward which they are, so that the essence under those reasons is the reason for knowing other objects, and they - known together with the essence under diverse reasons - are the reason of knowing those reasons, as the extremes of a relation seem to be the reason of knowing the relation. - This seems to cheapen the divine intellect, because then it will be passive with respect to the other objects known through those reasons by which it will be actuated for knowledge of those reasons.
16. Further, second: any object of which there is ‘some reason of knowing determinately’ that can be a thing limited to it, can have ‘some reason of knowing determinately’ that is a thing unlimited to that and to that; but if the essence were limited with respect to some one determinate knowable, it would be the reason of knowing that object determinately without any respect real or of reason; therefore if it is posited as an unlimited reason with respect to several knowables it can be of itself the reason of knowing any and all of them, without any relation real or of reason.
17. Proof of the major: unlimitedness does not take perfection away from anything, but, with the perfection that was to something remaining in place, it posits as it were a similar perfection to it; and therefore, as was said in distinction 7 nn.20-21 and distinction 28 nn.106-107, a thing indeterminate out of unlimitedness (namely which is indeterminate to several positive things) is of itself determinate to each of them, with determination being repugnant to indetermination to contradictories.
18. Proof of the minor: the essence is posited as the proper reason for knowing itself, and this whether as first object or as reason of knowing the object. And this belongs to the essence purely under an absolute reason, without any real respect, because a real respect does not exist in the same person to itself. Also without any respect of reason, proof: because the intellection is not collative or comparative or negotiative; therefore no relation of reason is caused by it in anything.
19. Further, third: to one operation should be given a principle ‘by which’ that is per se one and an object that is per se one, and this especially in the simply first operation, of which sort is the divine intellection; but a relation of reason and a real being make nothing ‘per se one’, because they cannot even have the unity of the second mode of per se (Metaphysics 5.6.1015b36-16b3), which is less than essential unity is (for a relation of reason cannot follow a thing from the nature of the thing, and therefore it cannot be a property of it); therefore the essence - whether as object or as reason of understanding -and the relation of reason are not ‘one per se’ object, nor one reason of understanding. Therefore one must grant a second thing precisely in reason of first object or as reason ‘by which’. Not precisely the relation of reason, because this is not the first object known by which, when known, something else is known to which the respect is; nor even is it the reason by which the divine intellect may have intellection of this sort of object, because to understand a stone is a perfection simply, so that the divine intellect would not be altogether a perfect intellect if it did not understand a stone; but no relation of reason seems to be a reason of inherence of any perfection simply. Therefore one must grant precisely the essence - which is under this relation - to be as it were the first object, which, when known, a stone would be known, or to be as it were the formal reason of understanding a stone.
20. And from this further: in vain is such a relation determining the divine essence itself posited; for under a respect of reason it is an infinite form, because the intellect, however it compares the essence and thereby causes in it a relation of reason, does not compare it save as it is formally infinite, and so as it is under such reason it is formally infinite - and consequently it is, as it is under that reason, as indeterminate as it is in itself; and it can, as it is under the first reason, found another (because of its infinity) just as it can in itself; therefore it is not determined by a relation of reason.
2. Against the First Opinion
21. Again, against the first opinion [n.9] specifically, it seems to follow that the relations are real, because the reason of understanding as it is reason naturally precedes intellection, - and consequently as to nothing of it as it is the reason of understanding is it caused by intellection, nor does it follow intellection; if then the reason of understanding a stone is under a relation of reason, that relation of reason is not produced in the essence by intellection of a stone, because it naturally precedes the intellection. Therefore the relation is produced by some other intellection. But only that which is essence as essence precedes it; but by this it is not produced (which they concede - where it seems less to be so - ‘about the divine persons and about the principles of producing them’); therefore the relation will be in the essence as it is reason, and not by some action of the intellect.
22. Further, according to some of them [sc. of those who hold the two opinions, nn.9, 12], a distinction of reason in the principles suffices for a real distinction in what is from the principles; therefore this distinction of reason as it is the reason of understanding a and b will suffice for a real distinction between a and b (and conversely), so that one reason will suffice for the distinction of a and another for the distinction of b.
23. Further, an external thing is immediately understood [sc. according to the first opinion], because the whole distinction that is posited precedes intellection; nothing internal then as it is a secondary object is term of intellection.
24. Against the second opinion [n.12]:
Every relation of reason, which is in the object from the fact that it is compared by the intellect to something, is in the object precisely as a diminished entity, have being in the intellect as a known in a knower; and it could be in the object if per impossibile it did not have the being of existence, provided however it have being in a like way in the comparing intellect. Therefore those relations would be or will be in the divine essence precisely as it has diminished being in the intellect, as it compares it to the creature, and not as the essence is something in itself; and further, they would be in the essence if per impossibile the essence did not exist, provided however it be compared to those terms by some thinking intellect; and further, if per impossibile there were two Gods, the relations would be in the intellect of this God comparing that God to the creature, and not in that God in himself.
25. In addition, God is naturally imitable by the creature before he is understood to be imitable; for because he is imitable, therefore he is truly compared as imitable by creatures, as it seems, and not conversely; therefore, before the comparison of the essence as imitable is made by the intellect, there is imitability in the essence. But according to some of those who follow this way [n.12], aptitudinal relation is the same as actual (because of which identity in God they say that there is no new relation, nor another old one, of the creative and the creating [n.11]); therefore these relations in the essence as in the compared object will not be first outwardly directed, but there will be other and prior relations, as it seems, because they will be before any act of the comparing intellect.
26. Besides, although the essence ‘as known’ is the reason of coming to the knowledge of a stone, yet it seems afterwards that the divine intellect could know a stone in itself and not precisely by the fact that it compares its essence to a stone, because thus can we, without such comparison of something else to it, understand a stone. In the case of this understanding of a stone, I ask what the relation of reason to a stone is in? Not in the essence as in the object compared, because in this object as such ‘to understand’ does not exist as compared object; therefore one has to look for the relation of reason in intellection [sc. the third opinion] or in the reason of understanding [sc. the first opinion], and then return will be made to one of the other opinions [sc. the first or third].
C. Scotus’ own Response
27. One can say to the question [n.1] that relations of the third mode differ per se from the others of the other two modes, because in the third mode there is no mutuality as there is in the other two modes, - and from this follows (as was deduced in distinction 3 question 1 n.31) that the term of the relation is something absolute as absolute. As therefore the object of our intellect is the term of the relation of the intellect insofar as it is purely absolute, and thus the intellect is measured by it, so - it seems - since the divine intellect simply is measure of all understood things other than itself, it follows that the other things are referred precisely to divine intellection, and this will be the term of the relation under the idea of a pure absolute; this is confirmed by the fact that the altogether first divine intellection, which is beatific, is of the essence as it is essence, without any respect real or of reason, and this because of the perfect real identity of the intellect with the essence as object.
28. One need not then, because of the intellection of any object precisely, look for a relation, either in both extremes or in one of them, - therefore one must, because of the fact that a relation exists in both or one of them, add something else; but that addition seems to be only either a mutual co-requirement, if the relation is mutual, - or a dependence in one of the extremes, if it is not mutual; but here, when God understands something other than himself, no mutual co-requirement can be posited in either extreme, as it seems, - therefore it is enough precisely to posit a relation in one of the extremes, where there is dependence; that is the object as known.
29. In addition, the will when loving or enjoying the end, does not produce something other than itself in willed being by loving the end in an order to something else or by comparing it to another lovable thing, but rather by comparing another thing to the end, so that the relation caused by the comparison of the will seems to exist in another thing ‘willed for the end’; but no comparison by the will seems to be in the willed end; therefore, by similarity, there does not seem to be in the intellect knowing the first object, and knowing, from that knowledge, a secondary object, a relation produced in that first object to the secondary object, but conversely.a
a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Besides, this first intellection is direct and has a real mode, the second is of reason; for if I understand man absolutely, this intellection is real and has a real mode; but if I understand humanity afterwards by comparing it to Socrates, this is a comparative intellection and is of reason. So if these dispositions are understood by non-reflex intellection, then they are real.
30. Besides, as was argued [nn.18-19], it does not seem one can lay down what the act of intellect is by which the relation would be produced; not by first act, because of the absolute perfection of that act; if by second act, then the relation is not the principle of that second act, and in that second act the creature is perfectly known; therefore in no act will such relation be as it a were a reason prior to the creature in idea of object.
31. The conclusion of the three reasons given can be conceded against both common opinions reported above [nn.14, 16, 19], and the reasons now given here can be conceded [nn.27-30]; and in this respect one can concede that there are eternal relations in God to known things, but not naturally prior to those known things in idea of objects.
32. Things can be set down as follows: God in the first instant understands his essence under a purely absolute reason; in the second instant he produces a stone in intelligible being and understands a stone, so that there is there a relation in the understood stone to the divine intellection, but no relation yet in the divine intellection to the stone, but the divine intellection is the term of the relation to it ‘of stone as understood’; in the third instant, perhaps, the divine intellect can compare its own intellection to any intelligible which we can compare to, and then by comparing itself to the understood stone the divine intellect can cause in itself a relation of reason; and in the fourth instant there can be as it were reflection on the relation caused in the third instant, and then the relation of reason will be known. Thus no relation of reason therefore is necessary for understanding a stone - as if prior to the stone - as object, nay this relation ‘as caused’ is posterior (in the third instant), and it will still be posterior as known, because in the fourth instant.a
a [Interpolation] According to this way [nn.31-32] it is plain of what the idea is; because it is of every secondary object (whether it be producible or co-producible), and one is singular and universal, and the others (universally) of an inferior and superior, - as you advance from the intellect [sc. the process described in n.32].
33. And this fourth way [nn.31-32] can hold the proposition - which seems probable - that ‘a relation is not naturally known save when the term is known’ (but neither does the intellect make comparison with anything, save when the term is naturally first known), which proposition cannot be held by the other way [the second, [n.12], because it must say that by the relation by which it compares this intellection, it compares the essence to something not naturally first known.
34. This opinion ‘about the relations to the divine intellect as absolute of things other than God as these are understood’ is confirmed and understood in a similar way to the one above - in distinction 30 nn.31-39 - ‘about the relations to God of understood creatures’.
D. Instances against Scotus’ own Solution
35. There is argument against this view [nn.31-32], and it does seem to destroy Augustine’s intention 83Questions question 46 n.1, where he says that “there is so much force in the ideas that, unless they were understood, no one could be wise;” but according to the present position [n.32] the perfect wisdom of God to creatures will be in the second instant and it will naturally precede both the being of the ideas and the being known of them. In the same place too Augustine says that “by the vision of the ideas the soul is made most blessed;” which would not be true about the first beatitude, which is in the Creator, - nor of the second beatitude, which is in creatures.
36. There is further this argument: things which are divided among inferiors that are of the same idea are not reduced to something one in the superior; just as, although the cognitive powers in us be reduced to one cognitive power in angels, because of the unity of idea of all the cognitive powers, - yet the intellect and will, which in us are of different ideas, are not reduced to one power in an angel. Therefore there will be in God an intellect under the idea of such power distinct from the will under the idea of such power, and the intellect ‘as it is in God’ will be passive; therefore one must give it some form before it is operative in act, and consequently, so that it may have a distinct operation, one will have to give it a distinct form; no distinct form can be given to it if the ideas are posited as following the understanding of creatures.
37. Further, if, because of the unlimitedness of the divine essence, it is posited to be ‘as altogether absolute’ the reason of knowing all creatures, since it is thus unlimited insofar as it is object just as it is insofar as it is reason, the consequence is that it alone will be known under the idea of object; or if a plurality on the part of the objects is posited (notwithstanding the infinity of the one object), by parity of reasoning it seems one can posit a plurality on the part of the reason of understanding.
38. To these instances [nn.35-37]:
The opinion of Augustine, in that question [n.35], can be collected from his description of the idea: “an idea is an eternal reason in the divine mind, according to which something is formable as it is according to its proper reason.”
39. Proof of the first part: God causes or can cause everything, - not irrationally, therefore rationally; therefore he has a reason according to which he forms things. But not the same form for everything, - therefore he forms individual things by their proper reasons; but not by reasons outside himself (because he does not in his effecting need anything other than himself), therefore by reasons in his mind. But there is nothing in his mind save what is immutable; therefore he can form every formable thing according to a reason proper to it, eternal in his mind; such is posited as an idea.
40. But according to this description it seems that ‘an understood stone’ can be called an idea; for an understood stone itself has all those conditions, because it is the proper reason of ‘something extrinsically makeable’ - just as ‘a box in the mind’ can be called the reason according to which ‘the box in matter’ is formed. And this ‘eternal reason’ is in the divine mind as a known in the knower, by act of the divine intellect; but whatever is in God, according to any existence (whether real or of reason) through act of the divine intellect, is eternal, as was made clear in distinction 30 nn.41-43, because no relation can be new in God by act of the divine intellect.
41. This also seems to agree with a saying of Plato’s (from whom Augustine takes the name of idea). For he himself posited the ideas to be the quiddities of things; per se existing indeed, and badly posited, according to Aristotle - in the divine mind, according to Augustine, and well posited; hence Augustine sometimes speaks of the intelligible world according to him. Just as, therefore, the ideas would be posited as the quiddities of things, according to the imposition of Aristotle, so they are, according to Plato, posited as they state quiddities with cognized being in the divine intellect.
42. On the basis of this position, one should not labor over any relations formally (whether in the essence as object, or in the essence as reason, or in the essence as divine understanding [nn.12, 9, 26]), as that to which relations are called ideas; rather the known object itself is the idea, according to this view.
43. And then the authorities adduced from Augustine can be conceded [n.35]:
That “save when the ideas are known, no one can be wise,” namely as to all fullness of wisdom. For although God principally is wise by the wisdom of his essence as object, yet he is not so in every way if he does not know the creature - which creature ‘as understood by him’ is an idea, and so when the ideas are not understood he cannot be completely wise; for he is posited as being wise most perfectly in the first instant, but not ‘altogether wise’ in the first instant without the second [n.32]. But if the ideas were posited as certain relations of reason in God, it does not seem that he is formally wise by intellection of them, because they would also be there as reasons of understanding before they were understood.
44. Likewise the other authority of Augustine, “by vision of these the soul becomes most blessed” [n.35]: if the ideas are posited to be quiddities as known, the authority must be interpreted about the beatitude that can be had in creatures as objects, because it is certain that there is only most perfect beatitude in the absolute essence (according to him in Confessions V ch.4 n.7: “blessed is he who knows you and them, but he is not more blessed because of them”). But ‘most blessed’ needs to be understood, that the soul is blessed by total possible beatitude; not indeed formally blessed in them, but in the object (knowledge of which is presupposed to ‘knowing’ them), and as it were concomitantly in them, in which there is some beatitude, though not first.
45. And if Augustine speaks otherwise elsewhere about the ideas, as if they were reasons of knowing something, since however he says only that they are reasons ‘according to which the things which are formed are formed’ [n.1], that saying of his (if it is said elsewhere) can - I say - be interpreted: ‘according to which’, not that the ‘according to’ indicates the formal reason of understanding, but ‘according to which’ as according to the objects; not first, not moving the intellect, but according to secondary objects, which are terms of the intellect.
46. To the second [n.36]:
How the intellect is passive in itself and how it is passive with respect to its own intellection was stated in distinction 3 nn.537-542. But when it is posited that the intellect is passive in us and quasi passive in God, and that a form or quasi form, as that by which the intellect operates, needs to be assigned here, - one can say that it is the essence under the reason by which it is essence, which is, under the absolute reason, the reason of knowing not only itself but everything else, under whatever reason it is knowable.
47. And understanding it in this way: for by the fact that the divine intellect is in act through its essence as the essence is the reason of understanding, it has a sufficient first act for producing everything else in known being, and, by producing it in known being, it produces it as having dependence on itself as intelligence [n.32] (and by this it is intellection of the fact that that other thing depends on this intellection as something absolute), as will be said in the case of other things, that the cause under a purely absolute reason is the first act from which the effect proceeds, and the produced effect has a relation to the cause - sometimes as to what is absolute, but sometimes there is a mutual relation of effect to cause and cause to effect; however never on the part of the cause is there required a relation before the effect is posited in being.
48. This is now in brief made plausible by the fact that nothing which has a more perfect being in any genus depends on that which has a less perfect being (in anything of that sort); therefore the actual relation does not depend on anything that is only a potential being and not an actual one, - therefore every actual term of a relation is some being in act. In whatever instant of nature, then, that the cause is referred in act to the effect, it is then actual being in the term; but that ‘absolute’ can be the term without a respect to it [sc. without a relation of the absolute to the effect], - therefore it is thus simultaneous with the respect because it is naturally prior to it; therefore there cannot be any relation in the cause naturally before the ‘absolute’ exists to which this relation must exist.
49. And so [according to n.48] I understand that in the first instant there is a under the reason of the absolute; in the second there is b under the reason of the absolute, possessing being through a; in the third b is referred to ‘a under the idea of the absolute’, if the relation is not mutual - or a and b are [mutually] referred when the relations are mutual. Here, then, in the first instant the intellect is in act through the essence as purely absolute, as if in first act, sufficient for producing anything in intelligible being; in the second instant it produces a stone in understood being, so that it is the term and has a respect to the divine intellection; but there is no respect back the other way in the divine intellect, because the respect is not mutual.
50. What has been said, that the relation cannot be in the cause before it is in the caused [nn.48-49], has objections to it, about which elsewhere [II d.1 q.2 nn.1, 8].
51. According to this view [nn.48-49] one can say that infinite intellect itself alone, without any respect of it to anything else or conversely, is of all objects, - just as the absolute has being first through the absolute before a relation is understood from this side and from that; which is proved by the fact that in the moment of nature in which* a is posited to be understood through the understood essence, the essence is posited to understand the being of a, and yet no relation - even of a itself - is then understood, because the absolute precedes relation; therefore this proposition is false ‘intellection is not distinctly of this object unless simultaneously in nature there is some relation of the intellection to this object, or conversely’ (yet it is true of ‘simultaneously in duration’, if this existed), nor must one posit a relation in the intellection or in the object.2 The proof of this is that ‘intellection of itself’ is without all relation (as was concluded in the solution [n.18]), therefore no relation is required because ‘intellection is of this’; if a relation is required because of something else, then either relation either of corequirement or of dependence. God’s understanding does not have a co-requirement for a stone (as is plain), nor dependence on it, nor conversely. Proof: the object is nothing; again, it does not have a real relation (as is plain), nor a relation of reason, because it is understood before it is compared to anything else; again, if it has a relation of reason (or being in a relation, as is possessed here [sc. above at *]), it is understood under the absolute reason before it is understood under any reason of respect to understanding. Therefore just as, when an ass is posited, not for this reason does my intellection have any real being or being of reason (absolute or relative), but only in potency, - so, when this intellection is posited, not for this reason does the object have any being save in potency; nor is there any difference save that the intellection is said now to be actually of this object, but the object is not said now to be the object of my intellection. What is the reason for the difference? - Response.3
52. To the third, about unlimited object [n.37], I reply: the object insofar as it moves and insofar as it is first term (and this doubly, necessarily required or co-required for act) is equally unlimited, - therefore nothing else is thus object; yet something else is an object as secondary term. Nor need ‘the unlimited object’ be precisely term in whatever way it is act, as it is precisely mover and reason of the act, because something can follow the first term and be the second term. Nothing can be secondarily mover to act; the reason is that however much it precedes act, it does not precede in whatever way it is term, nor is it co-required for act; but ‘what is secondarily term’ follows act, as being measured and caused by it, - the way intellection in us follows the object.
II. To the Principal Arguments
53. To the principal arguments [nn.1-4].
To that from 83 Questions [n.1], it is plain how Augustine speaks about the idea [n.38].
54. To Avicenna [n.2]: I concede that in God there can be a relation of understanding, either as what it is ‘to understand’ is the term of the relation of the intellect (as ‘to be lord’ is a new appellation), or as ‘to understand’ states a relation of reason, but then it is not this in the first instant, nor in the second, but in the third.
55. To the other4 the answer is plain from what has been said, that the same ‘unlimited reason of understanding’ can be the proper reason of understanding any of the them - to which it is unlimited - just as if it were limited to that one alone, and especially in respect of the act which is ‘to understand’, in which there is not always required a reason univocal with the thing known (otherwise nothing could be known by a cause, nor a conclusion by the principle), but a more eminent reason suffices, containing perfectly a virtual likeness of the thing known.
III. To the Arguments for the First Opinion
56. And as to what is argued for the first opinion, that the indeterminate reason needs to be made determinate [n.11], - I say that it is determinate of itself, with a determination opposite ‘to the indetermination which is to contradictories’ [n.17], although it is not of itself determinate with a determination of limitation; nor is this necessary so that by it the object may be determinately understood.
57. And if you say ‘whatever exceeds the middle term is not a reason for understanding this thing in particular unless it is determined to it by something else’, - I reply that always, when arguing from the antecedent to the consequent along with distribution [sc. of the terms], there is a fallacy of the consequent, from the form of arguing. But it holds by reason of the matter when the consequent cannot exist unless it is counted up in several things; and, because of this, the form of arguing by Augustine in On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.7 ‘if two men, then two animals’ holds, but this is from the imperfection and limitation of the consequent to the antecedent. Hence this inference does not follow ‘if the Father, then God, - if the Son, then God, - therefore if the Father and the Son are two, then two Gods’. So I say that to the intellection of ‘this thing’ one must give a reason by which it is understood, and a reason that is proper (either formally, or eminently containing whatever there is of perfection in the proper reason), and for understanding ‘that thing’ one must have a proper and determinate reason; but to infer ‘therefore for understanding one thing and another thing one must have one determinate reason and another determinate reason’ is a fallacy of the consequent, because this consequent - namely to have a determinate reason of understanding - is unlimited as to other antecedents [sc. so it is not distributed, or counted up, as they are]
58. As to what is added there for the first opinion, that the reason of understanding is an ‘intelligible’ likeness [n.10], - I reply: not a formal likeness, but either that or something else analogically alike, that is, containing the formal likeness perfectly, according to everything of perfection that is in it as it is the relation or reason of understanding - and so it is in the issue at hand.