Footnotes

¹Cf. Scotus Rep. II A d.4 single question; for questions 1 and 2 Scotus Lectura II d.4-5 qq.1-2.

²Ord. 2 d.3 nn.324-331.

³Aquinas ST Ia q.62 a.4.

⁴An example from Rep. II A d.6 q.1: “The intellect can know the antecedent and not know the consequent - as that every mule is sterile and yet not that this mule is, because it does not know the consequence.”

⁵Alexander of Canterbury On St. Anselm’s Likenesses ch.64: “If you want to be equal to Peter in glory, you will be; ‘in glory’ I say, because you cannot will to be Peter in person; for if you will this, you would will yourself to be nothing - which you will not be able to will.” Scotus here responds to an authority he did not cite above earlier; it is found, however, in Rep II B d.6 q.1.

⁶“For a miser, when he wants to hold onto his coins and prefers bread, which he cannot have unless he gives a coin - he first wants to give, that is to abandon a coin, than not to want to hold onto it. Because not for this reason does he want to give, that he does not want to hold onto the coin; but for this reason he does not want to hold onto the coin, that in order to have bread he necessarily has to give...Therefore not wanting to hold onto something is not always prior to wanting to abandon it, but sometimes to want to abandon is prior.”

⁷Other than the usual seven (pride, avarice or greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia), which, in the first way, would have to be the opposites of the four cardinal virtues - imprudence, injustice, intemperance, cowardice - and the three theological virtues -infidelity, despair, hatred.

⁸Scotus here responds to an argument not given above but contained in the Lectura 11 d.6 n.21. It has no particular reply there but only the general one that the answer to objections is plain from what has been said. The fourth argument given above in the Ord. here is not responded to by Scotus.

⁹Vatican editors: Scotus seems to be referring to stories that appeared in the 11th or 12th centuries, found in an ancient manuscript from Perugia. They were printed in Italian by a certain Razzi in 1613 and reprinted in Orvieto in 1859 under the title of Life and Praises of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha, and St. Lazarus bishop and martyr.

¹⁰“But because one is little able to keep the precepts of love by one’s own strength unless one is helped by him who commands that one do what he commands, ‘lead me,’ the psalmist says, ‘in the way of your commandments, because I have wanted it;’ my will is too little for me, Lord, save in that I have willed that you yourself lead me.”

¹¹Tr.: that is, if ‘definitively there’ and ‘operation’ meant the same, the argument ‘an angel is definitively there because he operates there’ would reduce to ‘an angel operates there because he operates there’.

¹²Tr.: that is, an angel who, for example, moves a heavenly body is not said to assume the heavenly body he moves, for the heavenly body’s motion is the proper end of that body.

¹³The Vatican editors put quotation marks round much of what follows because Scotus is following Henry’s words very closely.

¹⁴Here Augustine says, about Luke 16.19-31, that Abraham, because of distance in place, did not know that the rich man had five brothers but had to learn it from Lazarus.

¹⁵The Vatican editors quote from Rep IIA d.9 q.1-2: “There is a difference in certitude, because certitude is greater when something is caused by itself than when it is caused by another, because certitude when something is heard from another is no greater than is the believability of the speaker; but proper vision is greater, just as I believe more when I see a man in church than if someone tells me this... For vision is caused in the seer before speaking in the speaker, such that hearing follows vision - not as an effect follows its cause but as two ordered effects do, one of which (as vision) is more immediate to the cause.” They also quote from Lectura 2 d.9 n.81: “But when one angel hears from another angel and gets from him knowledge of some proposition (because he does not speak about a simple concept but about some true proposition), he does not then have evident knowledge but believes the speaking angel who causes the knowledge, because the speaking angel precisely has the act and the conception about some proposition (as that the Son of God is incarnated); however he [sc. the hearing angel] has the certitude of believability, because he knows that he who is speaking is truthful - and this is only the knowledge of faith.”

¹⁶No response to this doubt is found in the Ordinatio, or in the Reportatio or the Lectura.

¹⁷Not in the Ordinatio but the Lectura 2 d.9 n.92, d.18 nn.66, 70-72.

¹⁸Vatican editors: A point made by Pliny Natural History 2.14 and Roger Bacon Multiplication of Species 2.2.

¹⁹Vatican editors: There would be equivocation if the first object adequate to the power were understood to include the singular and the universal; but the equivocation can be avoided if one glosses it by saying that the first object adequate of itself is neither the singular nor the universal, and that as neither singular nor universal it moves the angelic intellect.

²⁰A point not found in n.22 above but rather in the Lectura 2 d.9 n.24.

²¹Scotus Metaphysics 7 q.15 nn.28-29: “Every actual entity is the idea for acting immediately on an intellect that has the capacity, not for any action immediately, but for action from such entity; thus the intellect of an angel has a capacity for action from any actual entity, both quidditative and individual, but ours now [sc. in this life] is not capable of action from an individual entity... And therefore the angelic intellect can be moved by any entity because it is more perfect than ours - nor is ‘being actable on by more things’ more imperfect when perfection is not possible save by being acted on; just as something transparent is not less perfect because it can be illumined by any light source than one that can be illumined only by the sun.” know them; and therefore a power that can know more things (even through receiving) is more perfect than a cognitive power that cannot know as many things - just as it is plain that our intellect is more perfect than any sensitive power because it can know more things. Hence generally in the case of cognitive powers that lack knowledge of some objects, it is a mark of greater perfection to be able to know more things, and consequently to be capable of being acted on by more objects - although in the case of the divine intellect (which actually knows everything) it is impossible for it to know anything de novo, as to be acted on by any object or to receive knowledge of it.

²²Scotus Exposition on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 11 s.3 ch.2 n.60: “Each of the sciences considers the proper subject according to that science, namely by demonstrating the proper features of the proper subject.”

²³“Either we will say that the ‘intelligible forms’ are things per se existing, each of which is a species and a thing per se existing, but the intellect sometimes looks at them and sometimes turns away from them and later turns back to them... Or [we will say that] from the acting principle there flows into the soul form after form according to the request of the soul...and when later the soul turns from the principle, the flowing ceases; which if it were so, the soul would have to learn again every time just as at the start. We will say, therefore, that the last part of this division is true... , and so that ‘learning’ is nothing but the perfect aptitude of joining oneself to the agent intelligence until understanding comes to be from it. For when what coheres with the sought-for understanding passes ‘into the mind of him who is learning’ and the soul turns itself to look at it (now this looking at is the turning of the soul to the principle giving the understanding), the soul is wont to be conjoined with the intelligence and the virtue of simple understanding flows therefrom, which is followed by the flow of ordering; but if the soul turns away from the first principle, the forms come to be in potency, but in proximate potency. For when Plato is said to be ‘knowing intelligibles’, the sense is that, when he wishes, he will recall the forms to his mind; and the sense too of this is that, when he wishes, he can be joined to the agent intelligence so that understanding is formed in him by it. For this way of ‘understanding in potency’ is the virtue which acquires understanding for the soul whenever it wishes - because, whenever it wishes, it will be joined to the intelligence from which flows into it the understood form, which form is understanding most truly attained.”

²⁴Hilary, Tractate on Psalms, psalm 134 n.17: “For there are angels for little ones who behold God every day. These spirits therefore are sent out for the salvation of the human race. For our infirmity, without the gift of the angels to be our guard, would not withstand so many and so great wickednesses of celestial spirits. God then produces these winds [sc. the good angels] from his storehouse, giving through them aid to human infirmity, so that these divine protectors for us against the worldly powers of the present darkness might keep watch in inheriting salvation for us.”

²⁵The Vatican Editors point out that the absence of the twelfth distinction was supplied in various ways by different editors, who excerpted passages from Scotus’ other works and from the Additiones Magnae complied by William of Alnwick.

²⁶The distinction Scotus means here is between the light at the light source (lux) and the light illuming the air (lumen). The first is the light we see, as the burning candle, the lit light bulb, the shining sun, etc.; the second is the light we see things through, as the air illumined by the light source. The two are the same, for both are light, and also not the same, for one is seen and not seen through, while the other is seen through and not seen.

²⁷“Sight comprehends visibles in three ways, namely directly, by reflection from clean bodies, and by refraction on the other side of transparent bodies that differ in transparency from the transparency of the air.” 4.1 n.1 “The acquisition of seen objects is diversified in three ways, either directly, or by reflection on polished bodies, or by penetration, as in rare bodies whose rarity is not like the rarity of air...”

²⁸The description here (whatever is said about the proposed reason) is correct. A ray of light coming from the air and falling on water at an angle is bent inwards, as it were, toward the perpendicular, and vice versa when coming from water into air.

²⁹The Vatican editors remark that the proof in these two paragraphs, nn.31-32, was omitted or forgotten here and placed by Scotus after n.39 (the same sort of thing has apparently happened elsewhere). The Vatican editors have restored it to its place here.

³⁰“For as to our saying that a ray descends or goes out or enters, these words are taken transumptively, because a ray has nothing of this... But that a ray shines back is also transumptively taken; for when a body is illumined and is polished, another body opposite to it is said to be illumined by it, in such a way that the first body is not moved toward the second by local motion.”

³¹For this term see the figure and footnote to n.49.

³²See the figure at n.49.

³³In this figure (provided by the Vatican editors) the asterisk marks the place of the planet in the deferent sphere; cd is the center of the deferent sphere; cm is the center of the world; the shaded areas are the two heavens, possessed of thicker and thinner walls, within which the deferent sphere carrying the planet revolves. In this figure the planet is at the aux (that is, the point of the sphere furthest from the center of the world). It would be at the opposite of the aux (and so closest to the center of the world) when the sphere has revolved 180°.

³⁴Scotus’ response to these arguments is actually to the order they have in the equivalent place of the Lectura, as that the first one he answers here is actually second in the Ordinatio though first in the Lectura. Further the one he answers fourth here [n.31] is the first in the Ordinatio and lacking in the Lectura. The last argument in the Ordinatio is also lacking in the Lectura and is not answered here at all.

³⁵The opinion of Thomas Aquinas (ST Ia IIae q.110 a.3, Sentences 2 d.26 q.un. a.3) as well as of Albert the Great (Sentences 2 d.26 a.11), which Scotus, like Giles of Rome (Quodlibet 6 q.5), here speaks of as definitely abandoned by theologians.

³⁶“A sinner is a non-enemy by remission of guilt, but a friend by infusion of grace” 4 d.16 q.2 n.2. God so acts now by his ordained power, but he could by his absolute power [d.7 nn.52-56, 1 d.17 n.164] act in the other two ways listed here in n.23.

³⁷The responses are not given, but see n.23 again. The Vatican editors also refer, among other places, to 4 d.16 q.2 n.11, “The divine will can will affirmatively for this man at moment a and negatively for him at moment b without any change in the divine will.”

³⁸The relevant passage from Henry is given by Scotus in the Lectura 2 d.28 n.21. The Vatican editors give it as follows: “Therefore one must say that man’s free choice, even while he is in mortal sin, can be considered in two ways: in one way on the part of his freedom in itself, in another way as he is exposed to the temptations that come to him. I say that in the first way he can simply guard against falling into another mortal sin, in the sense that he falls by no necessity into it; but if he does fall, he falls voluntarily such that, if he did not fall voluntarily and he did fall, then by falling he did not sin. I say in the second way that he cannot guard himself for long without it being necessary either that he fall soon enough into mortal sin or that he receive grace from God by which to be able perfectly to guard himself and be liberated from mortal sin. But whichever of these happens to him, it happens to him only by consent of his will. For whoever is in mortal sin, whether one or many...is, after he is in sin, either well disposed, as far as concerns himself, with respect to the sins he has committed...by detesting them to the extent he can in his present state, or not well disposed. If he is well disposed, it cannot be that he should for long be thus well disposed about his moral acts without God moving his free choice by some motion of prevenient grace [gratia gratis data] to assenting simply to the good. And if he does not resist, God at once confers sanctifying grace freeing him from all sin; but if he resists, he at once sins mortally by contempt and ingratitude for the divine call. And as I said about someone in mortal sin, so I say about someone only in original sin, supposing however it is possible for him to sin venially before he sins mortally.”

³⁹Henry Quodlibet 8 q.5, “Now about the process of grace in an adult before baptism, or after baptism in a state of actual mortal sin, one must hold that God anticipates the sinner with prevenient grace [gratia datis grata] as soon as he comes to a use of free choice such that he is able, by deliberation, to do something. And if through his free choice he disposes himself well to prevenient grace, he disposes himself by congruity to God’s bestowing on him justifying grace... If he thrusts this prevenient grace from him, he makes himself unworthy to be further helped, but to be justly more hardened thereby in his sin. If however he accepts it, he disposes himself by justice of congruity to sanctifying grace, which God then and there confers on him, and by which he is cleansed from sin.”

⁴⁰Lombard, Sentences 2 d.30 ch.8 n.2, “Original sin is called the kindling of sin, namely concupiscence... which is called the law of the bodily members, or the languor of nature, or a tyrant..., or the law of the flesh. Hence Augustine [Sermon 30 ch.5 n.6] ‘Now this languor is a tyrant’ that gives motion to evil desires;” Sentences d.31 ch.3 n.2, “Concupiscence itself is the law of the bodily members or of the flesh, which is a certain diseased affection or languor that stimulates illicit desire, that is, carnal concupiscence, which is called the ‘law of sin’ [Romans 7.23].”

⁴¹Vatican editors: this is false and contrary to Anselm.

⁴²The way also adopted by Scotus here, and which (say the Vatican editors) is close enough, in its main points, to that of Aquinas and several other doctors.

⁴³The Vatican editors regard this interpolation as neither a confirmation nor as consonant with the views of Scotus. They even advert to a marginal note added in one of the manuscripts to the effect that the interpolation is heretical and is believed to have been added by the enemies of Scotus. However, the interpolation can perhaps be saved if it is understood to be arguing, as it does at the end, that the mere gift of original justice to Adam does not entail debt in his progeny, but only a gift does that includes the antecedent willing by the giver to give the same gift to everyone else because of Adam, so that, if Adam sinned, it would not be given them (which is the burden of Scotus’ argument in n.65). The argument in the interpolation, therefore, proceeds by extreme assumption as it were: suppose all Adam’s descendants created at once along with him (which is physically impossible but possible by imaginary hypothesis), then they could not have lost original justice merely because Adam lost it, but only because God willed to give them original justice through giving it first to Adam (first in order, if not in time). Then Adam’s loss of original justice by his own act would entail loss and debt on the part of everyone else, since the giver’s antecedent will was to give them justice through Adam and not independently of him.

⁴⁴Actually the second argument in the Ordinatio and the first in the Lectura and Reportatio. The first argument in the Ordinatio is responded to next, n.77.

⁴⁵The form of this hypothetical syllogism appears fallacious, because it affirms the antecedent of the conditional by first affirming the consequent. The syllogism can be made valid if the conditional is understood to be a bi-conditional (‘if and only if’), as the term ‘precise cause’ seems to require, and as the example form Aristotle also seems to require. For the absence of one feature (breathing) could only be caused by the absence of another feature (not being an animal, or not having lungs) if the latter feature were the precise and only cause of the former feature. For if some other feature could also cause the former, then the absence of the latter feature alone could not explain the absence of the former.

⁴⁶Summa IIa q.116: “Some say that the essence of all actions, both natural and vicious, are as immediately from God as are the essences that he creates... But others say that the actions of created agents, at least those that are bad, are not at all immediately from God, because he does not make them except by the fact he makes and holds and conserves in being all active and passive causes, or all causes cooperating and concurring in any way to the production of such actions. Because therefore this second way seems to me it should be altogether held, for I do not see that God could otherwise appear altogether guiltless in the case of our guilt and vices, for this reason - without prejudice to any better opinion - I will subjoin the things that seem capable of being adduced for this side. That therefore the aforesaid actions are from God not in the first way but in the second is proved thus: first, that they are totally and immediately from second causes; second, that they are from free will; third, that they are vicious; fourth, that they are culpable, or that the agent or recipient is guilty because of them.”

⁴⁷This reply is placed after n.161 in the mss., following the parallel positioning in the Lectura and not the changed position in the Ordinatio. Further, the fourth argument in the Ordinatio [n.5] is not here responded to, and neither it nor its response is found in the Lectura.

⁴⁸Augustine, On the Nature of Good ch.7, “Therefore are sinners brought to order when undergoing punishment; which order is a punishment for the reason that it does not suit their nature, but is justice for the reason that it suits their guilt;” ch.9, “Nature is in better order when it suffers justly in punishment than when it rejoices without punishment in sin.”

⁴⁹The term ‘synderesis’ was first introduced to the West by Jerome, on Ezekiel 1.6-7, “And the philosophers set down a fourth power of the soul, which the Greeks call ‘sunteresis’, and this spark of conscience is not extinct in Cain even as a sinner after he was ejected from paradise.”

⁵⁰Quodlibet 1 q.14, “One must simply say that that power is preeminent over another whose habit, act, and object are preeminent over the habit, act, and object of that other. Now so it is in the present case, that the habit, act, and object of the will are altogether preeminent over the act, habit, and object of the intellect. Therefore one must absolutely say that the will is preeminent over the intellect and is a higher power than it is.”

⁵¹Quodlibet 9 q.5, “I say that although the will is in no way moved by the practical intellect as to its act of willing...yet it is moved by it as to some passion, which passion is as it were a weight in the will as the will is free, inclining it into a mode of habit so as to will [accordingly].”

⁵²Henry, Quodlibet 1 q.18, “The objection about the gloss on Romans, that ‘everything which is not of faith (that is, of conscience) is sin’, proceeds correctly save that ‘conscience’ is not there taken properly but in extended sense for a thinking of reason.” Romans 14.23, “Everything that is not of faith is sin.;” gloss, “What is done against faith (that is, so as to be believed against conscience) is evil.”

⁵³Aristotle Ethics 3.2.1111a3-6 has this list of circumstances: “who, what, about what or in what, sometimes also by what (as by what instrument) and for what end (as health) and how (as calmly or vehemently).” Ps.-Augustine Principles of Rhetoric ch.4 lists the circumstances as: “who, what, when, where, why, how, by what instruments.”

⁵⁴Aquinas On Evil q.2 a.5, “So if we speak of moral acts according to their species, then in this way not every moral act is good or bad but some are indifferent... Now some objects there are that do not involve either anything agreeing with reason or anything disagreeing with reason, as picking up a sod of earth from the ground., and acts of this sort are indifferent. But if we speak of moral acts as they are individual, then in this way any particular moral act whatever must, because of some circumstance, be either good or bad . So, therefore, acts good and bad in their kind are mediate opposites and there is some act that - considered in its species - is indifferent. Now this [individual] goodness and badness are proper to individual acts, and so no individual human act is indifferent; and I mean by ‘human act’ one that comes from deliberate will. For if some act is done without deliberation, coming from imagination alone, as stroking one’s beard.this sort of act is outside the genus of morals; hence it does not participate in moral goodness or badness.”

⁵⁵The seven are: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

⁵⁶Bonaventure, Sentences 2 d.34 a.1 q.3, “One must say that it is possible to speak about evil in two ways, either about that which is bad or about bad under the idea of bad... If intention is compared to bad under the idea of bad, it can be so in two ways: either such that it intends to do this as bad simply or as bad for itself, and no one intends in this way, because nothing is desired by the will save under the idea of good simply or good for itself; or such that it intends this as bad simply but as good for itself, and in this way bad can be done by intention and is sometimes so done, though not by all but by the malicious, who, because of the corruption of their inner palate, taste bad things as good.”

⁵⁷In the passage referred to Aristotle is explaining how the incontinent can know and yet act against their knowledge, and he gives the case where someone has two universal propositions, ‘such things should not be tasted’ and ‘everything sweet is delightful to taste’, and one particular proposition, ‘this thing is sweet’. The incontinent man acts on the particular proposition and the second universal, not the first. But he still knows the first universal. The view Scotus is criticizing seems to require that, in the case of a will where reason is not in error but knows hatred of God is evil, either the will simply cannot hate God or, if it does hate God, reason must first have been so blinded that it no longer naturally knows that hatred of God is evil, which is absurd and contrary to Aristotle.

⁵⁸Master Lombard, Sentences 2 d.43 ch.1 n.11, “This distinction of wording [Matthew 12.31-32, about the sin against the Holy Spirit] is not so to be taken as if there are different offenses according to the three persons, but a distinction is being drawn there between kinds of sins. For the sin against the Father is understood to be what is done through infirmity, because Scripture frequently attributes power to the Father; the sin against the Son is understood to be what is done through ignorance, because wisdom is attributed to the Son; the third sin (against the Holy Spirit) is expounded here -n.2: Those are rightly said to sin against the Holy Spirit who think their malice overcomes the goodness of God, and who cling to their iniquity with such stubborn mind that they propose never to abandon it and never to return to the goodness of the Holy Spirit...who delight in malice for its own sake. - He then who sins through infirmity or through ignorance easily obtains pardon, but not he who sins against the Holy Spirit.”

⁵⁹Cf. Bonaventure Sentences 2 d.44 a.1 q.1, “When I say ‘power to sin’, I am asserting two things: I am asserting both some power and a power orderable to such an act. If then we are speaking of the power to sin as it is a power, since this power is free choice, then without doubt it is from God. But if we are speaking of the power’s ability to be ordered to sin...then it is possible to speak in two ways of this ability: either in respect of the deformity or in respect of the substrate action. If in respect of the substrate action, then such ability is from God, as the action substrate to sin is also from God. But if we are speaking of it in respect of deformity, then, since the deformity is nothing other than a privation and a defect, such ability is nothing other than an ability to defect; and so, just as the defect of deformity is not from God, so neither is from God the ability to defect, but it exists in the rational creature itself, because the rational creature is from nothing.”