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.Text cancelled by Scotus: “at any rate simultaneous in nature with that which is ‘intellection of this’. What does this help, if the relation is simultaneous in duration - because there are the same difficulties (of what it is and to what) which there would also be if it was posited as being simultaneous in nature!” 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.No response is given by Scotus. 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.