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.