3. Rejection of the Conclusions of the Opinion

20. As to the reasons for this conclusion [nn.9-15], they do not prove it as regard principal judgment [n.18], because Christ did not, through the act of redemption, merit principal lordship with respect to man [n.9].

21. Proof: for Christ as he is redeemer possessed the idea of a cause that is meritorious for us; but a cause that is only meritorious cannot be a principal cause; for it only causes because it is accepted by some more principal cause, which principal cause, because of what it has accepted, does the principal causing. Therefore, let it be that, because of the redemption, we are bound to the Trinity as to supreme Lord by some new right, beyond the right of lordship that the Trinity has from creation (which would be true if redemption, as accepted by the Trinity, were as great a good for us as creation) - still, it does not follow that it is by reason of the redemption that we are obliged to Christ as supreme Lord according to his human nature.

22. Likewise as to the second point [nn.10-12, 19], because, insofar as he is redeemer, he does not introduce as principal introducer but only as meritorious cause.

23. Against the second conclusion [n.13]: an absolute naturally prior to something else can without contradiction exist without that something else; the vision of the divine essence is something absolute, at least as to any relation to joy, and is naturally prior to that joy, for an object does not cause delight if it is not first apprehended. Therefore, the vision of the essence could, without contradiction, exist in someone without delight.

24. Nor would the Philosopher deny this save because he would posit a simply necessary conjunction of causes in the universe, such that (according to him) it is simply necessary for the first cause to act along with second causes, according as it can act along with them. But by acting along with an intellectual nature (to the extent it can act along with it), an intellectual nature that already sees the divine essence, delight follows, because by acting along with the proximate cause of that effect it is, as far as it itself is concerned, necessitated to that effect.

25. But theologians deny this proposition: ‘whatever a second cause, as far as concerns itself, is necessitated to, the first cause is necessitated to’; because they deny that the first necessarily acts, as far as it can, along with the second.

26. The reasoning [n.14] is not valid; for it only proves that the idea of delightfulness, which is goodness, cannot not be delightful. But the conclusion does not hold that ‘therefore it cannot not cause delight’, because ‘the delightful’ asserts something in itself, or if it states a respect, only an aptitudinal one, which necessarily follows the foundation; but ‘to cause delight’ states a contingently causable later effect, especially because of the divine will’s contingent determination for acting along with the delightful thing itself.

27. To the confirmation from John 17 [n.15], I reply (without the authority’s gloss [sc. Aquinas’ gloss there]), according to the Philosopher in Metaphysics 12.7.1072b26-27, “An act of intellect is life;” therefore an act of an eternal intellect is eternal life - if actually so, actually; if aptitudinally so, aptitudinally. But now the vision of the divine essence, if it were conceded to the damned, although it would not be eternal actually, yet it would be so aptitudinally (as far as concerns the side of the possible act or power), or it would be apt to be eternal, and therefore to be eternal life; but if you infer from this, ‘therefore it would be beatitude’, the conclusion does not follow.

28. Rather, if you say that Christ says that ‘in this is beatitude [sc. and not ‘eternal life’], that they know you etc.’, then you do not accept the text of the Gospel but a certain gloss of a more particular understanding of the letter of it. So if you wish to weigh the word precisely without any gloss, the solution is that the word is ‘eternal life’; but if you wish to argue through certain glosses that it is speaking of beatitude, then it is permitted for me likewise to add a gloss that does not distract the text: ‘to know you’ by loving and enjoying.