D. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

49. To the arguments for the first opinion [nn.40-42].

When argument is made from Augustine about the priority of unbegotten to paternity [n.40], I reply: sometimes privation does not connote affirmation, and yet a privation is never present unless such a positive is formally present in the deprived thing; an example: being blind only connotes the eye (which is the common subject of blindness and sight), and yet it is never present in the eye by reason of the eye alone but through some positive entity which the privation follows, - to wit some mixture in the eye along with which there cannot be sight. So can it be said here that although unbegotten connotes some subsistent person in the divine essence, yet this affirmation is not the whole reason for the inherence of this negation ‘unbegotten’, but there must be in the thing some positive property that in some way precedes unbegotten by which it is present, although it not be connoted by ‘unbegotten’ as some proper subject. And in this respect, the statement of Augustine must be understood that insofar as it is about the per se idea of unbegotten it does not connote the Father; however it cannot be in the thing unless this affirmation (or some other, absolute or relative) is as it were the reason for its inherence.

50. To the second [n.41] one statement is that the proposition is true of the thing first in order, that it exists to itself, of which namely the ‘being’ is not ‘to be to another’.a It is not so in an order of persons having the same nature in such a disposition or in the issue at hand, because here ‘to be the first person’ is an order to the second person; and therefore the order to the second person precedes as it were the negation of being from a principle, just as the formal constitutive feature of some positive entity precedes in it the negation of some entity repugnant to it.

a [Note of Duns Scotus] Or thus: [the proposition is true] where the nature of the first thing is not the same as the nature of the second; therefore negation of being from a principle at once follows the nature of the first before order to the second thing is understood. But where there is the same nature of the first thing and of the second, the negation of being from a principle does not follow the nature, but something proper; that can only be here - according to the common opinion - a relation [n.30].

51. To the third [n.42]. If things were there as they are according to the imagination of the gentile philosophers, then the divine essence would be determined of itself to this subsistence, and it would constitute ‘this’ not through some negation but through itself (according to them), because it would be in every way determined to this, as in the case of creatures ‘this nature’ is altogether limited to this supposit; but now by positing that there is origin there, the essence need not be in every way determined to one person, and therefore it need not by itself constitute some person. And when the argument says ‘to posit origin takes nothing from the essence, nor from that by which it is constituted’, - it is true that it takes nothing away; but it posits the opposite of the hypothesis by which the essence of itself would constitute a person, namely indetermination of the essence to a single subsistence, because the hypothesis would take away perfection from the essence (because it would seem to posit a limitation), but the opposite of the hypothesis - positing an origin - does not take away perfection; but it does take away the impossible mode ‘constitutive of a person’ that would be true on the hypothesis.a

a [Note of Duns Scotus] For the first opinion ‘an incommunicable property constitutes this sort of unbegotten’:

     On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7: “Even if he had not generated, nothing would prevent him being said to be ‘unbegotten’ - even if someone generates a son, not by that fact is he unbegotten, because men who are begotten beget others;” later ch.7 n.8: “Nor for this reason is someone a father because he is unbegotten, nor unbegotten because he is a father;” later: “There is one notion by which he is understood to be begetter, and another by which he is understood to be unbegotten;” later: “When the Father is called ‘unbegotten’, what is shown is not what he is but what he is not;” later; “ When he is called ‘unbegotten’, he is not called so in relation to himself, but it is shown that he is not from a begetter.”

     Again, about the respect to a prior.

     Again, the absolute is prior; therefore the more it has of the idea of an absolute, the more it is prior.

     Again, ‘not to have through production’ precedes being produced, because it pertains to the idea of the proximate power, or it is the removal of an impediment. - Response: the proximate power does not in any way precede generation in the thing, but only according to concepts absolute in idea (as was said in distinction 27 [of the Reportatio])

     Mode: an essence is non-communicated in something before it is communicated (add if you will: ‘the essence in itself is not communicated’).

     On the contrary:

     Negation does not constitute the first person, because it does not constitute the second; ‘unbegotten’ is a negation. Proof of the minor, because the notion is different; and as such it does not state the essence only, nor a positive thing different from the two. - An instance: the conclusion is that it is not a notion. Response: Henry [of Ghent] (on the contrary: insofar as it is a notion it states a dignity; response: ‘personal dignity’, everything other than itself - above [note to n.28].

     Confirmation from a similarity about the inspirit-able. - It is not similar, because it is in something not constituted by order to a posterior, the former is negation of order to a prior.

     Again, negation is incommunicable and proper (because neither is it one, just as not a being either) only because of position.

     Again, the first person is not without the second.

     Again, Augustine [Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter ch.2 n.7: “Not because he is not begotten, but because he has begotten a single Son.”

     Again, paternity is prior, - therefore it is a property of a person; otherwise it is a property of nature. - Proof of the antecedent: in the case of the same thing affirmation is the reason for the being of negation; not conversely, because although the negation infers it, yet it presupposes it. I concede the conclusion.

     Mode: essence of itself determines for itself first its first production, such that essence is a principle of generating, not as with some property nor as under some property nor as in some person, (so that it retains something prior, in some way, in the thing), but it is only thus as it is of itself a principle (whereby it is principle), by which - that is - as it founds it actually; it founds it actually, because (distinction 28, last question) generation is altogether the first determination of essence, and it follows that what produces it is altogether unproduced (for he is truly father who does not have a father, - hence Damascene, ch.8).

     To the arguments ‘for the opinion’:

     Augustine makes a comparison three times: he asserts the third; he understands the second perhaps ‘because it is per se in the first mode’; the first is posited under an ‘if’, as the statement of heretics (Alexander in another way: “Augustine did not have regard to the nature of being but of understanding;” Praepositinus: “If you note the property of the word, the locution is false;” Henry: “If the person were absolute;” otherwise: nothing prevents ‘unbegotten’, - it follows by reason of the form).