A. In What Way Unbegotten Agrees with the Father Alone

12. As to the first point I say I say that every name, composed of something with many senses and a privative particle [sc. as in ‘unbegotten’], is doubly many, both from the multiplicity of the opposite affirmation, and from the multiplicity of the privation -as is plain from the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.12.1019b19-23, ‘On Power’, where he distinguishes ‘impotence’ according to the multiplicity of potency, and, in addition to this, according to the multiplicity of privation, which is set down in ‘On Privation’, ibid., 22.1022b22-31; thus this name ‘unbegotten’ will be multiple, from the multiplicity of what is meant by ‘begotten’ and from the multiplicity of the privative particle.

13. As to the first point, what is begotten is properly said to be ‘produced by generation’ as the first term; but by extension, what is begotten is said to be ‘communicated by generation’, which is the formal term of generation (as Hilary On the Trinity IV ch.10 says, because the Son has nothing “save being born”); in a third way what is begotten is extended to what is produced or what pre-requires generation, although it is not per se the term of generation, whether first or formal.

14. Privation can also be multiply distinguished into privation properly said, namely when something lacks that which it is of a nature to have, and when it is so, and as etc. [sc. e.g. a blind adult dog]; and into privation more commonly said, when something lacks that which it is of a nature to have, though not according to the aforesaid conditions [sc. e.g. puppies born blind which acquire sight a few days later]; and still more commonly when it lacks that which it is of a nature to have, though not in itself but in its genus (as a mole is said to be blind, because vision - of which it is deprived by blindness - is not repugnant to the animal in its genus though it is repugnant to mole in itself). And in this way privation is said more generally the more the habit - of which it is the privation - is of a nature to belong to a more common thing agreeing with that privation; for example, something that would not have what is of a nature to belong to it according to the idea of body would be called ‘deprived’ in a more general way than if it did not have what is of a nature to belong to it according to the idea of animal - and in a still more general way if it did not have what it would be of a nature to have according to the idea of body - and in the most general way if it did not have what it is of a nature to have according to the idea of being.a, b

a [Note of Duns Scotus] Privation (namely lack of what is of a nature to be had): according to the idea of being, according to the idea of genus, according to the idea of species, most properly (when, as, etc.). The first privation exists in any created thing, because any created thing is limited, - the second is not, because it includes every perfection eminently. - But is the second privation of relation in God or in a divine person? That it is not: the essence in any person eminently includes it. - On the contrary: the Father is unbegotten [nn.5, 19].

b [Interpolation] An example of the first: as a stone is said to be inanimate and deprived of the soul that is of a nature to belong to it according to the idea of body, of which ‘animated’ is a difference. Example of the second: as an angel is said to be incorporeal. Example of the third: as any creature is said to be imperfect, not because it is of a nature to have every perfection in its genus but because having every perfection is not repugnant to being.

15. Negation is also distinguished by negation outside the genus, which contradicts the affirmation, - and it is true of anything of which the affirmative is false, whether about being or non-being [e.g. non-man is true of a horse and a chimaera]; the other is ‘negation in the genus’ and it supposes the nature of the genus of which it is said, - and it can be understood in many ways, according to the multiplicity, more common and less common, of genus.

16. To the issue at hand, then, when speaking of the multiplicity involved in this particle ‘un-’: although there is dispute whether it implies negation in the genus or privation, yet it seems they are the same thing in the issue at hand, taking negation according to genus in the most general way and privation according to genus in the most general way, because negation in a something naturally fitted to have what is negated is privation (according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 4.2.1004a9-16), so that privation adds nothing to negation save that it requires something naturally fitted in which to exist. Therefore negation in a genus - however genus is taken - since it is in something naturally fitted in some way (although not fitted in itself), will be privation in some way in genus, though not properly in such a thing according to its being such.a

a [Note by Duns Scotus] Privation is nothing formally but negation, and therefore it is not in a subject otherwise than as negation is; fittingness is in a subject, but does not per se belong to privation unless privation involves two concepts, - but each concept is separable from the other, and each is indicated or connoted by the privative name.

17. And if you object against this that there is no privation in divine reality, because what is deprived is imperfect, I reply that this conclusion holds of privation according to the proper idea of a deprived subject; for if the thing that ‘lacks’ were of a nature in itself to have what it lacks it would be imperfect - but if it is of a nature to have it according to the idea of genus, it is not imperfect. But that many privations are taken in this way too is plain not only from what the Philosophe says about ‘mole’ [n.14] but also by the common division of ‘common’ into habit and privation - as ‘animal’ is divided into rational and irrational; ‘irrational’ indeed states in an ox a privation, not of what is of a nature to be had in an ox in its species, but of what would be of a nature to be had in ‘what it is to be animal’; for the genus, as common to the privation and the habit, is that to which the fitness for each belongs.

18. But in the issue at hand, by extending what it is to be a genus (whether we understand it for the privation or for the negation in genus, by both of which I understand the same thing), I can take ‘quasi genus’ here for that which is common to the three persons, namely person or subsistent; and then we may say that the Father is in some way deprived in genus - or that in the Father there is some negation in genus - of something that is of a nature to belong not only to being but to supposit, which is common to Father and Son.

19. And then this name ‘unbegotten’ will be able to be taken for the issue in hand in four ways:

In one way most properly, insofar as it signifies a proper lack of what is properly signified by the name ‘begotten’, which is the first thing produced by generation, - and in this way it does not exist in divine reality, because nothing there lacks what is of a nature to be present. In the second way, insofar as it signifies a lack commonly of what is signified properly by ‘begotten’, and then it connotes a subsistent or person, and it signifies a lack ‘in genus’ of begotten properly taken; and in this way it seems to belong -by virtue of the terms - to the Father and the Holy Spirit, each of whom is a subsistent and is not begotten (it does not thus belong to the essence, because although the essence is being and non-begotten, yet it is not per se subsistent and person). In the third way - as it seems - it states a lack in genus, and this of ‘begotten’ taken in the second way, namely for what is communicated by generation; and in this way the essence is not said to be un-generable, by removal of aptitude for communication - but as the essence is in the Father it can be said to be non-communicated, and so unbegotten, if unbegotten is taken in this way. In the fourth way it signifies lack ‘in genus’ of what is begotten taken in the most common way, and then ‘unbegotten’ is the same as non-produced subsistent; and in this way it is taken by the saints, such that it is the same in divine reality as ‘unproduced’ properly taken; this is plain from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.26 n.47: “the Father alone is not from another, and therefore is alone called unbegotten,” and he means the same to Orosius [n.5].

20. I say therefore that ‘unbegotten’ in the usage of the saints, namely as it signifies the negation of begotten most commonly taken (that is of what is produced), by connoting a subsistent in divine nature, belongs thus only to the Father, as is plain from the authority of Augustine already cited [n.19].