II. To the Principal Arguments

48. To the first principal argument [n.1] I say that ‘valid being’ is either called so because it has of itself firm and true being, whether of essence or existence (because one is not without the other, however they are distinguished), or ‘valid being’ is called so because it is what is first distinguished from figments, namely to which the true being of essence or of existence is not repugnant.

49. If valid being is taken in the first way, I say that man is not of himself a valid being but from his efficient cause - from which he has all true being, both of essence and of existence. And when you say that then there is never a valid being unless it has been efficiently caused, - I do in this way concede it: and when it has been efficiently caused it is existent, therefore there is never a valid being save an existent one, - I concede it; therefore there is no definition of it save as it is existent, - I deny this inference, because definition is a distinct knowledge of the defined thing according to all its essential parts. But there can be distinct knowledge of something although it is not a valid being; for it is only necessary that a valid being be the term of a definitive cognition, and then the inference does not follow ‘a valid being is definitively understood, therefore the valid being exists’.

50. If valid being is understood in the second way, I say that man is of himself a valid being, because being is not formally of itself repugnant to him; for just as whatever something is repugnant to, it is repugnant to it formally from its nature, so what it is not repugnant to formally it is not repugnant to because of its nature; and if being were of itself repugnant to man, it could not be repugnant to him because of some additional respect. And if from this you infer ‘man is of himself a valid being in this way, therefore he is God’, the inference is not valid, because God is not only he to whom being is not repugnant but he is of himself being itself.

51. As to what is said here that man is formally a valid being by some relation, which is the validity of him [n.1], it was rejected in distinction 3 in the question ‘On the vestige’ nn.310-323. And it seems very absurd because - according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2 - if nothing exists to itself, nothing exists to another; and this they themselves concede, because a relation cannot be founded in a relation but in an absolute.

52. I ask then about the foundation of such relation, which is said to be the validity; let it be called a. If it is to itself, then it does not essentially include in its understanding a per se respect, because nothing that essentially includes a respect is to itself formally. This a insofar as it is to itself is either valid, and then I have the intended conclusion, - or it is not valid, and then the respect will be founded in a non-valid being; and a respect for them is the same as the foundation, therefore the respect is the same as a non-valid being. And the consequent is very much unacceptable, if ‘valid’ is taken for that which being is not repugnant to, because it would follow that the validity will not be founded on a non-valid thing, which is ‘nothing’ - and so the respect will be a ‘nothing’, and then a valid being will be from two nothings.

53. To the second argument [n.2] I concede that from eternity God has understood stone, and not as the same as himself, - and this intellection was real and metaphysical, not logical. Yet it does not more follow - from this - about the stone that it is essence rather than existence, nor when comparing it to the divine intellect rather than to mine; the inference does indeed follow ‘therefore the thing was always understood’, but to argue ‘therefore the thing was in some real being’ is the fallacy of in a certain respect and simply.