Question Three. Whether Beatitude Consists per se in Several Operations Together

138. Whether beatitude consists per se in several operations together.

139. That it does:

Augustine On the Trinity 13.5 n.8, “The blessed is he who has whatever he wills etc.” [n.3]; but man wills rightly not only one operation but several, because if he rightly wills enjoyment, he rightly wills vision, without which there is no enjoyment. Also, if he rightly wills vision he rightly wills enjoyment, because according to Anselm Why God Man? 2.1, “intellectual nature has received intellect for this purpose, to discriminate good from bad so that by his will he may love good and hate bad” (Anselm’s opinion, not his own worlds).

140. Again, from the same authority [Augustine] as follows: if by one operation he can have whatever he wills, therefore either through an operation of the will, and then it follows that Augustine’s description is equivalent to this: ‘the blessed is he who wills whatever he wills’ (because ‘to have’ is ‘to will’, since every operation of the will is a ‘to will’); but the wayfarer wills whatever he wills, therefore he has whatever he wills, therefore he is blessed. And if ‘to have’ is by act of intellect, then it follows that the blessed will understand whatever he wills, and then it follows, as before, that the wayfarer will be blessed, because he understands whatever he wills. One must say, therefore, that ‘to have this’ does not consist in one or other act alone, nor consequently in any single operation.

141. Again, beatitude consists in whatever the blessed is from the non-blessed per se distinguished by. But the blessed is distinguished by act of intellect, because the blessed sees, the non-blessed does not see, the beatific object. He is also distinguished by act of will, because if causes be distinct, acts are too; an act of intellect seems to be cause of an act of will, because when that cause is in place, the act is in place, and when that cause is removed, the act is removed.

142. On the contrary: in any essential order a stand is made at some one thing; therefore in the order of ends there will not only be one act for one extrinsic end, but also among intrinsic ends there will be thus some one supreme end; therefore, from the idea of intrinsic end, there are not two operations.

143. Response: to one simply first thing in one order there can be two things immediate to it, and consequently each is equally first - though not simply first but first in second place (example about efficient causes and effects).

144. On the contrary: On Generation 2.10.336a27-28, “The same thing, insofar as it is the same, is of a nature to do the same thing” [cf. Ord. II d.1 n.54]; therefore, to the same efficient cause only a single effect is of a nature to be proximate; therefore, by similarity, in the case of ends.

145. Response: unless an essential order of species prove that two species cannot be equally proximate to a first essence (and so unless the impossibility of a plurality be proved from the products themselves), it does not appear how this result could be produced from the unity of the producer, because it is not always necessary to assign two causes for two effects if every multitude is to be reduced to one thing as to the cause of the multitude.

146. An argument to the contrary in another way is that in things essentially prior in some order there is not a lesser unity essentially but rather a greater one; and, as it is, some simply extrinsic end under the end is attained through the single intrinsic end corresponding to it.

I. To the Question

A. Opinions of Others

1. Opinion of Richard of Middleton

147. Here is said [by Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.49 princ.1 q.6] that “beatitude consists in the act of intellect and will together.”

148. The reason for this is that “beatitude consists in the perfect union of the beatifiable person with God; now this includes union according to every power according to which the nature is able to be immediately one with God. Of this sort [of power] are both intellect and will, because just as God (under the idea of supreme truth) is the immediate object of the intellect, so is he (under the idea of supreme good) the immediate object of the will.”

149. Again, “the virtue through which anything is moved to its term is the same virtue by which it rests in its term; but intellectual nature is moved to God through both intellect and will; therefore it rests in him through both powers. But beatitude is perfect resting of intellectual nature in God.”

150. I add a third reason: when several things are required for the perfection of something in first act, several things, proportionable to those first ones, will also be required for the perfection of the same thing in second act; but intellect and will are required for the perfection of intellectual nature in first act, because intellectual nature would be perfect in first act when it lacks neither; therefore second acts corresponding to the first ones are required for the perfection of it in second act; beatitude, therefore, which is completive perfection of intellectual nature in second act, will include these two second acts.

151. The proof of the major is that nature cannot be perfectly at rest unless whatever belongs per se to its natural perfection be at rest; for grant that some such not be at rest, then nature, according to something or other intrinsic to it, is not at rest; therefore it is not perfectly at rest; therefore the resting perfection of the whole nature includes per se the resting of any first act belonging per se to that nature.

2. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas

152. Another opinion [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.49 q.1 a.1] is in the opposite extreme, that beatitude consists only in a single operation, because, from the definition of the Philosopher, Ethics [1.13.1102a5-6, 6.1098a16, 18-20, 10.1100a1-5], “happiness is the best operation according to the best virtue and in a perfect life;” and then it is impossible for there to be several operations of the same thing that are simply best, because neither are they of the same species, since one such perfect operation suffices in one thing.

153. It is plain too that the operations of intellect and will would not be of the same species, nor can there be several best operations of another species, because “species are disposed like numbers,” Metaphysics 8.5.1044a10-11. And especially is this true of the species proximate to the first, because this species is only one; for it is first in genus with respect to the others, just as the ‘simply first’ is first outside the genus.

154. Likewise it is not possible for there to be several best virtues of the same nature, whether ‘virtue’ is taken there for natural potency (because the supreme power of one nature is single), or whether virtue is taken there for an acquired or supernatural habit; for always, this way or that, the best is only one.

B. Scotus’ own Response

155. To the question it can in a way be said (by mediating between the opinions) that, by speaking of beatitude not as it states an aggregation of all goods belonging to beatitude [n.152, Aquinas ibid. a.5; Boethius, Consolation III pr.2 n.3; Richard of Middleton ibid. n.147], but as it states that by which the beatific object is immediately attained ultimately [n.148], a distinction can be drawn as to beatitude of intellectual nature and beatitude of power. Because although nature is only beatified through a power yet, as nature, it is a beatifiable power, whose beatitude is not simply beatitude of nature, for things do not go simply perfectly well for the nature in that but in something else more noble than it, though things do, from this, go simply well for the power.

156. According to this, then, it can be said that the beatitude of intellectual nature consists in a single operation alone, because only in a single operation do things go simply perfectly well for it such that nothing is lacking to it - not as if this include everything belonging to the ‘going well’ of nature, but as it state in ‘going well’ the fulfilment of everything. The proof of this is that just as the beatific object, single in thing and idea, is that in which, as in the extrinsic perfecting cause, things go perfectly well for this nature and do so only insofar as the beatific object is attained by this nature simply immediately by operation - so such operation will be simply one.

157. In a second way [n.155], when saying that every power is beatifiable that can immediately attain the beatific object [n.155], one must draw a distinction in ‘immediately’; for either this excludes a medium of the same order (which, namely, would be for it a medium for attaining [the beatific object] in its own order, as operation is a medium for the power in attaining the object), or it excludes a medium of another order (because, namely, nothing would attain the object more immediately or perfectly than it, or be for it the reason for its attaining the object or not). An example of this distinction: a prior and posterior cause immediately attain the same passive subject, such that neither agent cause is a medium through which the other cause attains the common passive subject; yet the prior cause attains it more immediately, because more intimately and perfectly, for the whole attaining by the posterior cause is in the virtue of the prior cause.

158. In the first way [n.157, ‘excludes a medium of the same order’], one must concede that both intellect and will are beatified, because the term more immediately of the operation of each power is the object itself, such that neither is medium as regard the other in idea of object, nor in idea of attaining the object as it is attained by the act. And thus, the total extensive beatitude that is possible in an intellectual nature (because it is the beatitude of its two powers, each of which is beatifiable in its own way) - this, I say, consists in several operations.

159. And in this way, if there could be ten powers in intellectual nature, each of which would, through operation, attain God immediately, the total extensive beatitude would consist in ten operations. Nor is this a problem unless it be said that God is the beatific object under a single idea alone, and cannot be attained under that idea save by a single power and a single operation, and so a power attaining that idea according to another operation, though doing so immediately, is yet not beatified save in a certain respect.

160. And according to this, it would have to be said that beatitude, simply and as a whole according to its powers, consists, like beatitude simply, in a single operation of that very nature.

161. Speaking of immediacy in the second way [n.157, ‘excludes a medium of another order’], it is plain that beatitude consists only in a single operation, because only a single power in nature most perfectly attains the object. Speaking thus, then, about the beatitude of nature, namely the beatitude by which things go simply best for nature itself, at least on the part of the object and of the best object (and as the best that nature is conjoined to), beatitude is only in a single operation of a single power -

162. - likewise too when speaking of the beatitude of the power as it includes immediacy in both ways stated [n.157].

163. In no way, then, can beatitude be said to consist in two operations save by positing that, for the beatific operation, a single operation suffice without another,That is, beatitude could consist in two operations if each of the two operations was individually sufficient for the beatific operation, so that, though in fact both go together, each would be enough by itself. ⁴⁵ which however is a doubtful matter.

C. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Richard

164. To the arguments for the first opinion:

To the first argument [n.148]: the minor is not true save of one immediacy without the other, and from this does not follow save that beatitude is only in one or other of them, to the extent beatitude includes each immediacy. Likewise, beatitude of nature only consists in that by which nature most immediately attains the object; but that is single, though some power of it may, through another operation, attain it most immediately with the immediacy possible for that power.

165. To the second argument [n.149] it can be said that ‘to tend to the end’ only belongs to appetite properly, and this as the ‘to tend’ is compared to motion; because although the intellect tend to an object present, here however, when taking the ‘to tend’ equivocally, it yet never tends to anything as to acquiring, namely through motion, a term of motion.

166. In another way, having conceded that there is a tending to the beatific object through both powers, namely by a certain imperfect operation that can be had about something absent, the point can be conceded: one tendency is that whereby nature tends to it principally, and thus does a single resting follow it, which is the resting of nature principally; but the other tendency is a less principal tendency of it, and in this way does the resting follow. Also, when comparing the powers with each other, these tendencies are not to the object with a double immediacy most immediately, but only one is, and so that one will be the immediate resting which follows. The beatitude then is the beatitude of nature, to the extent that beatitude includes a double immediacy of operation to object.

167. To the third [n.150] I say that the total resting of nature, speaking of extensive totality, requires that whatever is restable in nature be at rest; and in this way the beatitude of man is not without resumption of, and reunion of the soul with, the body, because some appetite is in the soul for the body as for its proper perfectible object, or at least because conversely there is some appetite in matter (as in what is properly perfectible) for form, namely for the soul. But among these restings there is one resting of the nature simply, which namely is the resting of what is simply noblest in that nature, insofar as it is restable.

168. I say therefore that, just as there are some many things pertaining to the first act of something, so there can be many restings of those many, and one total resting, with extensive totality, of the whole, which includes those many restings. But there is of them all a single resting, which is the ultimate rest in the object, which also is alone the simply total resting of nature, speaking of intensive resting.

D. To the Reason for the Opinion of Thomas

169. The reasoning for the other opinion [n.152] can be conceded when understanding the conclusion of the single beatific operation (as to each immediacy) simply; when speaking too of the completive beatific operation of the whole nature. But if it be understood of the beatitude of the whole with extensive totality, the reasoning is not compelling, because many operations, one of which is simply nobler than the other, can come together in the best in this way, namely extensively.

II. To the Initial Arguments for Each Part

170. To the first main argument [n.139] I say that the ‘whatever’ is not taken there for all desirable things separately, but for one desirable thing in which all are unitedly contained; and thus, in having the beatific object, by whatever act it be said to be had, ‘he has whatever he wants’, because he has it eminently in that act on account of which alone it is rightly to be wanted; and in this act he has every act rightly to be wanted. When, therefore, you take under the minor that this and that operation are rightly to be wanted in themselves, it is plain that it is not rightly taken under the major.

171. To the next [n.140] I say, as will be said in the following question [nn.271, 304], that ‘to have’ is taken there for an act of willing, not for any act of willing whatever, but for the perfect act of willing, which follows bare vision; and he who by such act has whatever he wants, that is, has the one thing that is eminently everything wantable, is blessed. But it does not follow that ‘therefore whoever wants whatever he wants is blessed’, because a definition or description proper to something can be given through a lower level predicate but not through a higher level one, because a higher level one belongs to more things; hence in the form [sc. of the argument] a consequent is drawn from a lower to a higher level along with distribution [sc. at that higher level -which is fallacious].

172. As to the third [n.141], I deny the major, because many aspects in something can be distinctive of it from something [else], nor yet is each of them of the essence of that something insofar as it is distinct, but only that which first and essentially distinguishes it - and if you take this to be the understanding from the fact that ‘per se’ is stated in the major, namely essentially and per se in the first mode [cf. footnote to n.117], I concede the major; and then the minor is false, because by act of will alone is the blessed distinguished in this per se mode from the non-blessed - about which more in the following question, ‘On Enjoyment’ [nn.297-299].

173. As to the argument for the opposite [nn.142-146], it can be conceded when one understands it about beatitude simply of the nature, and about any operation simply beatific, namely in each way of immediacy in immediately attaining the object. And this appears probable since, when people posit beatitude to be in each operation or in both, they say that one of them is per se ordered to the other [nn.155-163]; and consequently, neither are each nor both one ultimate perfection simply of the nature, since even a single one of them is simply the ultimate perfection of the power.