B. Second Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

24. It is said in another way [Richard of Middleton] to the first question [n.1] that in God there is not any relation to creatures from time, but in the creature alone there is a relation to God from time, - and thus the relation by which God is said with respect to the creature is only in the creature, and not in God. Which seems to be taken from Augustine in the cited chapter [nn.11, 4] and from the Master here in the text.a

And to the second question [n.5] it is said that no such relation can be real, because a real relation is not without order; God has no real order to creatures, because he is above order.

a [Interpolation] There is a confirmation in that action is in the patient (from Physics 3.3.202b5-6), and yet it does not denominate the patient but the agent; thus too God is denominated by the relation that is in the creature.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

25. Against the first [n.24]:

Because then relation would be in that in which there is no foundation; for the foundation of the relation by which God is said with respect to the creature (if he is so said) is not in the creaturea but in God; therefore that relation will not be in the creature.

a [Interpolation] because the power, which founds the relation, is not in the creature.

26. Further, the opposite relations of cause and caused cannot exist in the same thing, because they are more repugnant than the relations of producer and produced, -which however cannot exist in the same supposit, although they are in the same nature.

27. And if you say that here the opposite relations are in the same supposit but do not denominate it, - this seems altogether irrational, that some form is in some subject and the subject cannot be said to be of the sort that that is which is of a nature to be constituted by the form.

28. The response that is given to the second question [n.24] seems to beg the question and to be a fault in the consequent.

Proof of the first, that since God is prior to the creature with a multiple priority -extending the name of ‘order’ so that not only is a posterior said to be ordered to a prior but also a prior to a posterior (although in a different way), one must prove that this priority (which can be called order) is not a real relation in God; this point therefore is begged. Nor does it follow from the known fact ‘that God is above order’, taking order as it is of posterior things ordered to a prior; for from this there only follows ‘that he is not posterior’, and from this it does not follow that he has no order, taking order generally.

29. But that the argument is a fault in the consequent is proved by the fact that order is a certain relation; but not every relation is an order (because it is not the case ‘common relation, founded on one of them’, as with equivalent relations), but only nonequivalent relations state an order. Therefore by arguing from a negation of order to a negation of relation is to argue as if the antecedent were first denied and afterwards the consequent.