B. Rejection of the Opinion and Scotus’ own Response

95. Against this one can argue as was argued above about gift [in d.18, which is missing in the Ordinatio; see equivalent in d.18 of the Lectura and Reportatio], that no respect to creatures is a property of a divine person nor is per se included in any property of a divine person, and just as it was rejected there so it can be rejected here, - and this I concede.

96. And then there is no force [sc. to the question] save about the name ‘word’. For formally a respect of expressed knowledge to the one who expresses it is different from its respect to the creature that is declared; and not only this, but also the respect of the expressed word to the one who expresses it and the respect of the word as declaring something qua declared to the one who expresses it are two respects, because the first is real and the second of reason. But these two do not make anything per se one, because a true thing and a being of reason constitute nothing ‘per se one;’ and therefore if both these respects are signified by one name, they do not for this reason make a concept that is ‘one per se’, but one of them is precisely the property of the second person (namely the passive expression, which is a real respect), but the other - namely the respect of what is declarative - is only a respect of reason, or exists toward the declared Father or the declared creature. This was otherwise touched on above from the authority of Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.3 n.4 where he means that the word declares itself, - and the same ibid. XV ch.14 n.23: “The Father is perfectly a sayer of himself,” that is perfectly declares himself etc.;a from which two authorities is plain that the same thing can be referred to itself as declarer to declared, and consequently it is not a real relation.

a [Interpolation] “As if saying himself, the Father generates a word equal to himself in everything; for he would not have perfectly said himself if something less or more was in his word than in himself;” and ibid. VII ch.1 n.1: “With a Word, equal to himself, he always says himself.”

97. And then indeed it seems that the word per se and first signifies that real respect, because its abstract - as was said [n.85] - and its concrete first signify the same thing; but because word connotes perfect knowledge, by which knowledge it has a respect of reason to the things known through it, therefore it also connotes - as if still more remotely - the idea of what is declarative. And so the word will signify the property of the second person, although it connotes something absolute in that person (which is as it were the formal term of the production of that person), and through it as means it will connote, as if more remotely, a respect to all that to which the absolute can have a respect of reason, namely to all things it declares.