I. To the Question

A. First Opinion about the Definition of Justice and its Distinctions

7. Here first about the definition of justice:

8. Its most general idea is posited by Anselm On Truth 12, that “justice is rectitude of will, kept for its own sake.”

9. This idea is made specific by justice as Aristotle treats of it in Ethics 5.3.1129b30-30a9, who adds (in addition to the above idea) that it is ‘toward another’.

10. And taken in both ways, it is clear that justice belongs to God.

For, in the first way, he has rectitude of will, indeed un-pervertible will, because the first rule is ‘kept for its own sake’ [n.8]. Now insofar as it is ‘kept’, it states a receiving or undergoing with respect to someone who does the keeping, but it is ‘kept for its own sake’, that is always spontaneously held for its own sake.

11. In the second way too the point is plain, because God can have rectitude toward another, and therefore in every act of his toward another there is rectitude.

12. This second rectitude is subdivided, because either it is as it were universal to another, namely as to legislator and law insofar as law is determined by the legislator (and this is called legal justice by some); or it is particular, namely in something determinate belonging to the law, that is, rectitude toward another.

13. And this second one is subdivided, because it can either be ‘simply toward another’ or ‘toward one’s self as other’. And this second member is plain from what is said in the material about penance [Ord. IV d.14 n.154, d.16 nn.18-24], that it is punitive justice not only with respect to another simply, but with respect to oneself as other, because punishment of oneself as guilty is conceded to oneself as minister of the judge.

14. The first of these, namely legal justice, could be posited in God if there were another law prior to the determination of his will, with which law (that is, with which legislator as other) his will would rightly agree. And it is indeed this law: ‘God is to be loved’ - if however it is rightly called law, and not a practical principle of law. At least it is a practical truth, preceding every determination of the divine will.

15. Now particular justice, justice ‘to oneself as other’, exists in God, because his will is determined by rectitude toward willing what befits his goodness. And this is as it were the rendering of what is due to himself and to his goodness as other - if however it could be called particular, because it is in some way universal, namely virtually.

16. And these two members, namely legal justice and particular justice toward oneself as other [nn.14-15], are as it were identical in God, because they are rectitude of the divine will with respect to his goodness.

17. If we speak then of the remaining part of justice, which is justice simply to another, it is divided into commutative and distributive - and thus is justice in us distinguished, as is plain from Ethics 5.5.1130b10-31a9. In distributive justice equality of proportion is required, not equality of quantity; in commutative justice, according to some, equality of quantity is required not equality of proportion (these are expounded in Aristotle ibid.).

18. To the issue at hand:

Commutative justice properly concerns punishment and reward, namely so that rewards may be rendered for merits (as by mutual exchange) and punishment for sins.

19. Distributive justice has regard to superadded natures and perfections, as it were, namely so that the perfection proportioned to nature be distributed to them. Just as in the case of our distributive justice, persons according to their ranks in a republic have proportionally distributed to them the goods pertaining to those ranks, so in the hierarchy of the universe a nobler nature has distributed to it by the hierarchy, that is, by God as prince, nobler perfections or perfections agreeing with that sort of nature, and an inferior nature has distributed to it the perfections agreeing with it.

20. The first of these justices [sc. commutative justice] cannot simply be in God with respect to creatures, because equality simply cannot be in him; but it can in some way be in him according to proportion, as between master and slave. For it befits a generous master to give a greater good than the slave could merit, provided however there is the following sort of proportion: that as the slave does what is his, so the master gives what is his, and does the same by punishing less than deserved.

21. But the second justice [distributive justice, n.19] can exist simply in God, because he can simply give to natures the perfections due to or agreeing with them according to the degrees that perfect them.

22. Thus, therefore, the whole distinction of justice in its genus [nn.10-17], in the way it can belong to God, can be reduced to the two members, so that justice in the first way is called ‘rectitude of will in its order to what befits the divine will’; in the other way ‘rectitude of will in its order to the exigencies of what there is in the creature’. This distinction can be got from Anselm Proslogion 10 where, speaking to God, he says, “When you punish the bad, it is just, because it befits their merits.” As to the second member he adds at once, “when you spare the bad it is just, not because it is appropriate to their merits but to your goodness.”

23. And a distinction so great is put between these members because God cannot operate against the first justice nor operate tangentially to it, but he can act tangentially to the second, though not universally, because he cannot damn the just or the blessed.

24. If it is objected that this and that justice cannot be different in God, because then one justice would be rule (as the first justice) and the other would be ruled (as the second); but in the divine will there cannot be any ruled rectitude. - And there is proof of this in us: the same thing inclines to the end and to what is for the end as it is for the end; therefore if what inclines to the end were simply perfect, it would simply perfectly incline to what is for the end, as is plain of the charity of the blessed; but the first divine justice is simply perfect; therefore no other justice beside it is required in the divine will.

25. As to the remark that sometimes God is not able to act tangentially to the second justice [n.19], it does not seem probable, because he can simply do, and thus will, whatever does not involve a contradiction; but he cannot will anything that he could not will rightly, because his will is the first rule; therefore God can rightly will whatever does not include a contradiction. And so, since this justice determines to something whose opposite does not include a contradiction, God can will and rightly well and act tangentially to this second justice.

26. As to the first of these points [n.24], the objectors would perhaps concede that there is not a double justice in God but only a single one, having however as it were different effects, as ‘willing in accord with what fits his own goodness’ and ‘willing in accord with the exigency of the creator.’

27. But the second argument [n.25] seems clearly to prove that whatever the first justice inclines the divine will toward, the second justice will be able to incline it toward, since it inclines determinately and by way of nature. But it does not so incline without the divine will being able to will against it and tangentially to it; and so there will not be a distinction between these willings as to ‘being able to act tangentially to it’ and ‘not being able to act tangentially to it’.

B. Scotus’ own Response

28. Without rejecting the distinctions, I say in brief to the question that in God there is only one justice in being and in idea. However, beside this justice, there can, by extension of the term, be a justice, or rather something just, in the case of creatures.

1. About the Justice that is in God

29. The first is made clear in that, since justice properly is habituated rectitude of will, and since it inclines as it were naturally toward another or to oneself as other, and since the divine will does not have a rectitude inclining it determinately to anything save to its own goodness as other (for as to any different object whatever, it is merely contingently disposed, such that it has power equally for this and for its opposite) - since this is so, the consequence is that the divine will has no justice save to render to its goodness what befits its goodness.

30. Thus too it has one act in being and in idea, to which this justice, which is in reference to its will, determinately inclines; but this act has regard by consequence to many secondary objects (and this in the way stated in Ord.1 d.35 nn.28-33), because the divine intellect, besides having one first object and one first act, has regard to many secondary objects. But the difference between there and here is in this, that there the intellect has regard to secondary objects necessarily, while here the will has regard to secondary objects contingently alone. And therefore, not only does the act here of will, as there of intellect, not depend on those secondary objects, but neither is it necessarily determined to them, as neither is the act of intellect necessarily determined to them.

31. Now if we want to distinguish the act one in being into many acts in idea, (just as there an intellection one in being is distinguished into many intellections in idea as it passes over many secondary objects) - I say that in respect of these acts there are no justices distinct as it were in idea; but neither is there one justice however distinct or indistinct, because a habit inclines to one thing by way of nature (and thus determinately), so that, by this fact, tending to the opposite is repugnant to a power habituated by the habit.

32. But to no secondary object is the divine will thus determined by anything in itself, so that it be repugnant to it to be justly inclined to the opposite of the secondary object; because as it can without contradiction will the opposite of the secondary object, so can it justly will the secondary object, otherwise it could will absolutely and not justly, which is unacceptable.

33. And this is what Anselm says Proslogion ch.11, “That alone is just which you want, and that not just which you do not want,” so that in this way, if there be posited in the divine intellect some habit intellective with respect to itself and other things, the divine intellect could be by reason distinguished so as to incline to many secondary objects more than [could the divine will] in the case at hand, because the intellect there is determinately inclined to many secondary objects, not so the will here.

34. However, it can be said that this single justice, which inclines determinately only to first act, regulates the secondary acts, although none of them necessarily, such that it not be able to regulate the opposite; and it does not, as it were, precede the will, inclining it by way of nature to some secondary act. Rather the will first determines itself to any secondary object, and thereby is this act regulated by first justice, because consonant with the will it is made adequate to - first justice inclining it, as it were, in favor of rectitude.

2. About Justice in Creatures

35. In a second way, ‘the just in creatures’ is called so from the correspondence of one created thing to another - the way it is just, on the part of the creature, that fire is hot and water cold, that fire goes up and water down, and the like, because the created nature requires this as something correspondent to it; and the way we could say in the case of polities that, though there were justice in the prince alone, yet there would be a just in some way in things to be ordered, namely so that these sorts of things may be disposed in this way and those sort in that way, because the things themselves, as they are of a nature to come into the use of citizens, demand this.

36. But the first intrinsic divine justice makes no determination for this just [in creatures], whether in respect of first act (in the way this act does not regard this object [the just in creatures]) or in respect of second act, because this divine justice inclines determinately as it regards this object (as was said [nn.31-33]).

C. Difficulties as to the Definition of Divine Justice, and the Solution of Them

37. Against these conclusions:

First, because this justice cannot be in any will unless this will be inclined agreeably to the dictate of prudence, and consequently to the conclusion of a practical syllogism; but the divine intellect does not syllogize since it does not proceed discursively.

38. Again, the divine intellect apprehends the doable first before the will wills it, and the will cannot disagree with the apprehending intellect; but the intellect apprehends this doable thing determinately, such that it does not apprehend this and that doable thing indifferently, because then it would have erred; therefore the will determinately wills this doable thing, such that it cannot will the opposite if it wills rightly.

39. Again, if it is just for Peter to be saved and God justly wills this, then it is unjust for Peter to be damned, and so, if God can will this, he can will something unjust.

40. To the first [n.37] I say that if in us there can be some moral virtue inclining us to agree with the conclusion of a practical syllogism, much more is there in us a practical habit of appetite that inclines us to agree with the first practical principle, because this principle is truer and consequently more right. But justice, which is in God single in reality and in idea (as was said [n.28]), inclines agreeably to the first practical principle, namely ‘God is to be loved’.

41. But if you take this justice strictly, that it does not incline agreeably to the conclusion of a practical syllogism, therefore it is not any special virtue - I concede that the justice that is in God is only as it were a universal and radical virtue, from whose rectitude all the particular justices are of a nature to proceed, though not by necessity.

42. To the second [n.38] I say that the [divine] intellect apprehends the doable thing before the will wills it, but it does not determinately apprehend ‘this is to be done’, which apprehending is called commanding; rather it offers it as something neutral to the divine will, from which will as a result, when the will determines through its volition that ‘this is to be done’, the intellect apprehends ‘this is to be done’ as true, as was said in the material about future contingents, Ord. I d.39, Lectura I d.39.

43. However, on the supposition that the intellect were to apprehend a ‘this is to be done’ about something before the will were to will it, just as it apprehends it about this, ‘God is to be loved’, the inference does not by natural necessity follow that ‘it apprehends this and the will cannot disagree, therefore the will by natural necessity wills this’. For the will cannot disagree as to the object (namely so that it will against or will for what the intellect shows to be willed), but in manner of tending toward that object it disagrees or, more properly, is distinguished, because the intellect tends toward the object in its way (that is, naturally) and the will in its way (that is, freely). And those powers always agree that always tend to the same object in their own ways of tending, as imagination and intellect do not disagree if the imagination tends to the object as a singular and the intellect to it as a universal.

44. To the third [n.39] I say it is like in polities, that the legislator has regard to the simply just in itself (which is the just of the public good), but does in a certain respect have regard to some partial justs, always to be sure in proportionate relation to the former just [of the public good] - and therefore in certain cases it is not just to keep just laws concerning these partial justs, namely when observation of them would tend to the detriment of the public just, namely the well-being of the republic. So God is determined simply toward the public good, not by commonness of aggregation, as in a city, but by commonness of eminent containing, which is the just that befits his goodness. But everything else that is just is particular, and now this is just, now that is just, according as it is ordered toward or fits in with this just [of the common good].

45. I say, therefore, that God can will Peter to be damned and justly will it, because this particular just thing, ‘Peter is saved’, is not required for the public good necessarily so that its opposite could not be ordered to the same public good, namely to fitness with God’s own divine goodness; for that goodness is indeed an end which requires for the end no entity with determinate necessity.