IV. Scotus’ own Response to the Second Question

49. To the second question [n.5] I respond that in God there is not any real relation to creatures.

50. The reason for this is taken from the perfect simplicity and perfect necessity of God: for because God is perfectly simple, there is nothing in him which is not him (according to Augustine City of God XI ch.10: “God is simple, because he is what he has”); also his perfect necessity is of itself such, because his being will not vary whatever hypothesis is laid down - whether possible or impossible - about anything other than himself, because other things are not necessary except secondarily.

51. From this it follows that there is no reality in him which necessarily corequires anything other than himself; for such a thing, necessarily co-requiring something other than God, would not exist if that co-required thing does not exist, and consequently something that was perfectly the same as God would not exist when something else -which was not necessary of itself - does not exist; but a real relation of necessity corequires for its ‘being’ the term of the relation; therefore in God there is no relation to anything other than himself.

52. Against this reason instances are raised:

First, because although the creature is not necessary in actual being, yet it seems that ‘something other than God’ is necessary in possible being, because the ‘possible being’ is necessary (which is proved by the fact that something seems possible by its possibility in itself before there is a relation of God to it, for there is no power in anything save with respect to something possible in itself; therefore a relation to a creature ‘insofar as it is possible’ does not co-require anything that is not necessary under the idea under which it is its term); but a relation in God to a creature ‘as possible’ seems to be the same as his relation to a creature as actual, by the deduction set down for the first opinion to the first question [n.11]; therefore there can be in God - while his necessity stands -some relation simply to creatures as possible, and the same relation as that which is to creatures as actual.

53. Again, if the creature has quidditative being insofar as it has exemplared being (according to one opinion), this being is necessary for the creature; therefore a respect to this being, as such, seems to be possible without possibility in that in which such respect is.

54. Again, if the philosophers were to posit certain things produced by God as formally necessary (as was said about the opinion of Aristotle and Avicenna in distinction 8 nn.251-253, 255, 248, 242), then the respect to those things could be the same as God and yet the necessity of the divine could still stand, because of the fact that the term of the relation, according to the opinion, would be necessary; therefore, by holding the position of the philosophers who yet denied a real relation in God, the reasoning already set down (from the simplicity and necessity of God) does not seem sufficient.

55. Again, fourth: in that case there should not be posited in a more necessary creature a real respect to a less necessary creature, and so in the celestial bodies there should be no real respect to generable and corruptible things.

56. To these objections [nn.52-55].

Although to the two first objections [nn.52-53] a response can be made in more or less a single way (to the first by the fact that possible being is only being in a certain respect,a and therefore there is no relation to it simply but in a certain respect, - and to the second in like manner, that exemplared being is only being in a certain respect, and therefore the disposition to such term would not be real, just as neither is the term real), yet one can say with one general response to all these instances, that the necessary of itself - as was said [n.50] - will not change according to anything perfectly the same as itself, whatever possible position is constructed about what is other than it; but whatever is in the perfectly simple is the same as it perfectly; therefore the necessary of itself cannot be changed according to anything that is in it, whatever is posited about something else. But nothing other than God is as formally necessary as God, according to any position, because if something else formally necessary were posited, it would not be without all dependence on the first necessary, and so would not be of itself necessary; therefore no reality in the first will change because of any position about anything of such a sort that it is not of itself formally necessary; but some change could come to be in some reality in the first because of a change in something other than itself, if some reality in it necessarily required something other than itself.

a [Interpolation] because this sort of being is not being simply, just as neither is ‘being a dead man’ being a man - nor does this possibility posit more in reality than blindness does in an eye.

57. And next to the two instances about potential and quidditative being (according to some) I reply [nn.52-54] that neither is the ‘possible’ of itself necessary in such being - even a necessary possible - in the way God is of himself necessary act; thus too neither are those quiddities of themselves necessary in their quidditative being, but they are necessary beings thus by participation; nor, third, would creatures - if they were necessary (according to the philosophers [n.54]) - be as necessary as the first, but they would have only a participated necessity. And so to posit that they do not exist would not be as impossible as that some reality in the first does not exist (because none of them is as necessary as any reality in the first is necessary), and yet from positing ‘the less impossible’ something more impossible would seem to follow! Therefore there could not be as regard any of these things, although they are in some sense necessary (though not of themselves necessary), any reality in that which is necessary of itself.

58. To the fourth [n.55] I say that if something ‘more necessary’ were also simple (that is, not composite, nor combinable with any non-necessary reality), the more necessary would exist when it does not have a respect outside itself to the less necessary; but this supposition is false, because although some celestial body were posited to be in itself necessary, yet it is not a simple that could not receive any non-necessary reality other than itself; but God, just as he cannot be what exists in order to something not of itself necessary, so he cannot have any reality in order to such a thing, because that reality would be himself.