B. Rejection of the Opinions together

12. Against the conclusion, in which these two opinions come together, there seems to be the authority of Augustine [Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter n.34 where he speaks thus, “If it were possible that human nature, after it turned from God and lost the goodness of the will, could have had it again from itself, much more would the angelic nature have this, which, the less it is burdened by the weight of an earthly body, the more it would be endued with this ability etc.” - The argument then goes as follows: if the human will could of itself return to justice, much more the angelic will; therefore the angelic will, neither because of the immovability of its cognitive power (of the sort that the cognitive power of our will is not), nor because of its own full liberty (from the fact it is separate from body), is incapable of returning to justice after it has sinned; on the contrary, according to Augustine [Fulgentius], it is more capable than our will is.

13. Further, I argue against this common opinion.

First as follows: not only is the will of a damned angel obstinate, but also the will of a damned human being (and one should assign a common cause for both, according to what Augustine [Fulgentius] seems to say op.cit. a little after the cited passage, where he maintains that there is one common cause why God will together judge human spirits and damned angels - and he seems to maintain the same in City of God 21.11, 23); but neither of these causes [nn.9-11] can be posited as the cause of the obstinacy of a damned human being; therefore not of an angel either.

14. Proof of the assumption [sc. the minor premise, n.13]: because the conjoined soul does not have a cognitive power that immovably apprehends, as an angel does, according to the first way [n.9] - nor even does it have such liberty that it immerses itself in the object immovably, according to the second way [n.10].a Therefore one has to assign a cause for this obstinacy in the soul when it is separate; so either the soul is then obstinate before any elicited act (and consequently neither of the aforesaid causes is the cause of its obstinacy because, before it wills anything according to an act of an immovably apprehending intellect or from the full liberty it has when separate, it was already obstinate) - or it was obstinate through some act that it elicited when separate (which, according to the first way, follows the immovable apprehension of a separate intellect, or, according to the second, full liberty); but this second option seems unacceptable, because a soul does not demerit when separated, but only through the acts that it had on the way does it receive what it merited or demerited; so it has no act preceding the obstinacy by which to be rendered obstinate.b

a. a[Interpolation] according to perfect liberty, according to the second way; therefore it cannot rebound back - which is false.

b. b[Interpolation] Or thus: the sinning soul is obstinate in the instant of separation, because it is in the term - yet not by an act that it then elicits, because in the same instant in which it is separated the whole composite is corrupted, and in that instant it does not understand; nor even is it obstinate through an act preceding that instant, because then it was a wayfarer; therefore etc. Or thus: if the will of a man, because it has an immovable apprehension, renders itself obstinate, whether this is while it is in the body or while it is outside the body; not while in the body because then it does not have an immovable apprehension (since it is a wayfarer) - nor in the second way because in the instant of separation the soul is obstinate and damned (but it does not then have apprehension, because that is the instant of corruption); therefore etc.

15. A confirmation can be taken from Lazarus, whose intellect, when he was dead, had the apprehension of a separated soul and whose will had full liberty (because it was separated); and yet because of neither of these did he will immovably, because then he would have been impeccable if he was good (and then God would have done a prejudice to him when he resurrected him, because then he would have made him peccable from being impeccable), or obstinate if bad - but both of these are false (because he was still a wayfarer!), unless one imagines that God miraculously suspended him from an operation of the sort that follows a separated soul (in as much as he predestined to resurrect him), but this does not seem probable, because he is said to have narrated many things that he had seen.Vatican 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. ⁹

16. Further, second: a total cause does not cause differently unless it is itself, according as it is cause, differently disposed, and this when no diversity is posited on the part of the undergoing subject or on the part of any extrinsic impediments; but the will as naturally prior to its act, not as actually existing in act, is cause of its act (which is manifest from the fact it is a free cause of its act, which freedom does not belong to it save as it is prior to its act - because as it is in act it has the act as natural form; it is also plain that a thing, as it is under an effect as under a form, is posterior, as the composite is posterior to its form, Metaphysics 7.3.1029a5-7); therefore the will is not differently disposed in eliciting an act unless it is differently disposed as it is prior to act. But from the fact that it is posited as having an act inherent in it [nn.9-11], it would not be differently disposed as it is naturally prior to act, because although it would be as it is in act differently disposed, namely as to a certain accident, yet not as to its nature, according to which it is the sort of first act that the will is; therefore, as the will is understood to be in any act whatever, it will not be differently disposed in eliciting any act whatever; therefore through no act (or habit) that is posited in it as it is separated, and that cannot be posited in it as conjoined, will it be eliciting in a way opposite (a good act or a bad act) to the way it was eliciting before, and so, if before it acted contingently, by nothing of the sort - posited in it - will it elicit necessarily.a

a. a[Interpolation] Or thus: the will is not cause of its volition save as naturally prior to it, so if it is not differently disposed as it is naturally prior to it, it is not differently disposed as it is cause of it; but as it is naturally prior it is not differently disposed by the fact that it is under an act of willing, because it is thus disposed in first act; therefore it is not by that act differently disposed in causing - therefore it does not through the act that it is placed under become ‘impeccable’ or ‘impenitent’ [n.9]. Confirmation: a cause that in itself is uniformly disposed to several effects, by the fact that it causes one, it is not differently disposed as regard another, as is plain of heat with respect to several heatings; but the will is cause with respect to several volitions; therefore by the fact that it elicits one it is not differently disposed as to eliciting another. Therefore if it elicited the first freely, such that with respect thereto it was not impeccable, neither will it be impeccable with respect to another. - Second confirmation: the will of an angel, with respect to the act that is posited as the cause of its obstinacy [nn.9=11], is disposed contingently (and only necessarily disposed by necessity in a certain respect), because it is cause of the act as it is naturally prior to it - and as such it elicits contingently; but such an act does not more necessitate the will with respect to another act than with respect to itself; therefore etc. Third...

17. The reasoning is confirmed, because no second cause can be the cause for a principal cause of acting in a way opposite to the way belonging to the principal cause from its own causality; for thus the principal cause would not be principal cause, because it would be determined by the second cause to a mode of acting opposite to its own proper mode of acting; therefore since the will is principal cause of its act (because whatever is posited in the will with respect to its act will either not be the cause of thus eliciting the act, or, if it is the cause, it is a second cause in respect of the will, and not principal cause), it follows that the will is by nothing else determined to acting.

18. Further, as was said d.4-5 nn.45-46 and d.6 n.77, both the good angel and the bad had time such that they were not wayfarers for an instant only; but the bad angel had several sins in order - namely from the act of loving himself he elicited an act of loving the supreme advantage, and from that an act of excellence (whereby he willed to have that advantage not under the rule of the superior will but against it), and finally an act of hating God (who resisted him in that appetite [d.6 nn.37-40, 51-54, 63, 78]), and he did not have all those acts distinctly at the same time; therefore, when he was demeriting in the second sin, he was still on the way, and yet he had already sinned with the first sin from the first choice. Therefore not any sort of immovable apprehension or any sort of first sin, or full immersion in the object, made him impenitent; for whenever he sinned in one of those sins on the way, it was not the same as the preceding sin.