Question Five. Whether Beatitude Simply Consists in the Act of Will that is Enjoyment

267. Whether beatitude simply consists in the act of will that is enjoyment. That it does not:

268. The act of enjoyment does not distinguish the blessed from the non-blessed because, by the definition of ‘to enjoy’ [n.181], the act belongs to the wayfarer.

269. But I say that the wayfarer has only desire, which is relative to what is not had, and therefore he does not enjoys.

270. On the contrary: the wayfarer no more wills God a good not present in him than the comprehender does; therefore he no more has an act of love of friendship with respect to a good not possessed by the beloved than the comprehender does; but ‘to enjoy’ is an act of friendship, not concupiscence.

271. Again, if someone who does not have charity see the divine essence bare (which does not involve a contradiction) he can enjoy it; and yet without charity he cannot be blessed, Augustine On the Trinity 15.18 n.32, “[Charity] alone is what makes division between the sons of the kingdom and the sons of perdition.”

272. Again, all things lower than intellectual nature are in their own way (that is, in a certain respect) made blessed in completing an act of concupiscence; therefore the will too [is made blessed] in a like act, though a more perfect one; but enjoyment is not any act of concupiscence.

273. Again, possessing succeeds to hope, therefore possessing is an act of will; therefore beatitude is in that act, because the will is of itself the power according to which intellectual nature is beatified; but possessing is not enjoyment.

274. To the contrary:b

[That it does] because beatitude is not actively elicited by the will; first because the will would beatify itself; second because a reward is conferred on the rewarded by the rewarder; third because a gratuitous act of love is of itself meritorious (for it is of the same idea as what is meritorious, because it makes itself worthy with him whom it thus loves, though no one may merit because of his state); fourth because nothing that is or can be a merit as concerns what is from itself is essentially a reward; fifth because a more intense act of enjoyment is preserved if it is from God. Proof in general: because the passive capacity in creatures is for a greater perfection than is their active virtue; proof in particular, about the soul of Christ [sc. who received by incarnation, not by act of will, supreme beatitude].

b.b [Text canceled by Scotus]: On the contrary, Augustine Christian Doctrine 1 [n.181], “The supreme reward is that we enjoy him.”

I. To the Question

A. Two Possible Conclusions

275. There are two conclusions for the question: first, that the beatitude simply of intellectual nature consists in the sole act that is enjoyment; second what enjoyment it consists in, because not in every enjoyment.

1. About the First Conclusion

276. The first conclusion is made clear by division thus: in genus there is only a twofold act of will: ‘to will’ and ‘to will-against’.Or, more colloquially, ‘to will’ and ‘to refuse’. Not to will at all, or to be indifferent, which is possible, is not an act but an absence of act. ⁵⁰ ‘To will’ too is double in genus: either because of the thing, or the good of the thing, willed; or because of the thing, or the good of the thing, that wills.

277. The first ‘to will’ is said to be the willing of the love of friendship, the second the willing of the love of concupiscence; and only the first is enjoyment, for to enjoy is to inhere with love [n.181] because of the thing itself, namely the thing loved.

278. Against this second distinction an objection is made through Augustine, On the Trinity 9.12 n.18, “The appetite of the seeker becomes the love of the enjoyer” [n.197]; the appetite of the seeker belongs to the love of concupiscence;     therefore etc     .

279. I reply: the wayfarer, as to the willing of concupiscence, wills a good for himself and, as to the willing of friendship, he wills well-being for God. The first appetite, in respect of a good to be possessed [sc. the love of concupiscence, or ‘the appetite of the seeker’], becomes the love of satisfaction for him in the good possessed, and so it becomes ‘the love of the enjoyer’ - it does not, however, become the love by which he formally enjoys, but it becomes his love who, by the other love [sc. the love of friendship], enjoys the same object in itself that, by this love [sc. the love of concupiscence], he loves for himself. The second appetite [love of satisfaction], that is, imperfect love, becomes the perfect love of the enjoyer by which, namely, he enjoys.

280. Having set down the division [nn.276-277] I give proof of the principal conclusion, not including nor excluding the passions (about which there will be question later, nn.413, 426, 431-433), but only speaking here of these acts of will [n.277].

281. It is plain that beatitude cannot consist in any willing-against; first because willing-against has evil for per se object, which cannot be the beatific object; second because the beatific act is first and immediate in respect of the ultimate end, and so is not had by virtue of any prior act of will. But it is plain that willing-against is not first with respect to the ultimate end; indeed it is not simply first among acts of will, but is either not had or not commonly had save by virtue of some willing, according to Anselm Fall of the Devil 4, “No one deserts justice save by wanting something else that does not stand with justice,” as he exemplifies about a miser and coin and bread.“For a miser, when he wants to keep the coin and prefers bread, which he cannot have unless he gives the coin, first wants to give it, that is, to give up the coin, before he does not want to keep it.” ⁵¹

282. Second, beatitude does not consist in an act of concupiscence:

First because although [such act] could be good when duly circumstanced, yet it is not good by reason of itself or by its object, even by God, because it can be immoderate. This is plain from Augustine 83 Questions q.30, “Perversity lies in using what is to be enjoyed” (just as above, in Ord. II d.6 nn.34-73, it was said that the angel first sinned by immoderate concupiscence of the beatific object for himself), as Anselm maintains in Fall of the Devil 6, where he maintains that the [fallen] angels desired what they would have had if they had stood; but they desired nothing before, or more than, beatitude, because to that does the affection of advantage first and supremely incline. Now an act of friendship in regard to God is good by reason of itself and of its object, at least because it cannot be immoderate by excess, though perhaps by deficiency.

283. Second, because an act of concupiscence is not and cannot be the first act of the will in regard to the end, for every act of concupiscence is in virtue of some act of friendship; for I desire a good for this [person] with concupiscence because I love him for whom I desire it.

284. Third, because an act of friendship is in the will according as it has an affection for justice; for if it had only affection for advantage, it could only supremely will things of advantage, according to Anselm [ibid. n.282, chs. 12, 14. But an act of concupiscence is present in the will according as the will has an affection for advantage, because it is necessarily present according to that affection, even were that affection alone present; but the affection of justice is nobler in idea than the affection of advantage, because the former is ruler and moderator of the latter, according to Anselm [On Concord q.3 n.11], and is proper to the will insofar as the will is free, because the affection of advantage would belong to the will even if the will were not free.

285. Then, fourth, because the act of friendship tends to the object as it is good in itself, but an act of concupiscence tends to it as it is good for me; but nobler is an object in itself than as had by something else - at least this relation of the object to the haver, which is in an object as desired by concupiscence its formal idea, diminishes the objective perfection that this good has as it is in itself.

2. About the Second Conclusion

286. The second main conclusion is plain, for a wayfarer can enjoy God since he can inhere in him by love because of himself [n.277].

287. If you say ‘not by love but by desire’ [n.269], this is false, because although God is not had by the [wayfaring] lover, and therefore could be desired as something to be had, yet not by desiring some good to be had by God that God does not have, but his infinite goodness only is pleasing to me, which, by accepting and being pleased with, I will every good to be present in that is present in it.

288. The proposed conclusion is also plain from Augustine 83 Questions q.30 [n.282], that virtue consists in enjoying what is to be enjoyed.

B. A Difficulty

289. But there is a difficulty here as to how beatific enjoyment and non-beatific enjoyment are distinguished.

1. First Solution

290. Not in species it seems, because when per se sufficient causes are of the same species the effects are too. So it is in the issue at hand, because the same will, the same charity, the same enjoyable object, and under the same idea on the part of the object. In accord with this, then, it would be posited that they only differ as greater and lesser in the same species.

291. Against this is objected that then the wayfarer would be blessed, though less blessed than the comprehender.

292. I reply: the consequence is not valid, because ‘beatitude’ is not imposed to signify the nature as to its species the way the name enjoyment is. Hence it is well conceded that both [sc. wayfarer and comprehender] enjoy, but one more, the other less; however, the name ‘beatitude’ is imposed to signify enjoyment in a determinate degree, so as not to be below that degree. And this degree the wayfarer never has, neither as to more nor less.

293. But [sc. to the contrary], diverse comprehenders have it thus [sc. more and less], and so one of them is more blessed than another.

294. ThisParagraphs 294-296 are an added extra in Scotus’ own ms. ⁵² is shown as follows, that if there are only there degrees of the same species, let the lowest degree of a blessed be taken and the highest degree of a wayfarer; if they are equal, then the wayfarer is blessed.

295. But this act [sc. of the wayfarer] does not fall short of that act [sc. of the blessed] to an infinite degree, as is plain. Posit then that it fails short to four degrees. It is possible for the enjoyment of the wayfarer to increase through four degrees, because knowledge also can. Since then too knowledge of the same species may have as many degrees as enjoyment also has, yet, once intensification of the knowledge is posited, the enjoyment of the knower can be intensified proportionately; therefore, it is still possible for the wayfarer to be blessed; therefore, it is also possible for a wayfarer to reach that degree [of enjoyment] and be blessed.

296. A similar argument can be made about a given degree of beatific enjoyment, from which the supreme degree of a wayfarer (suppose the blessed Mary) is distant by a certain number of degrees; yet if it is of the same species within the species of beatific enjoyment, let a descent be made to lower and lower degrees - a length there will be some beatific enjoyment equal to the non-beatific enjoyment, or less than it.

2. Another Solution

297. It can be said in another way, and more probably, that beatific and non-beatific enjoyment differ in species - formally indeed in themselves, but causally from their causes, or the disposition of their causes.

298. For if it be posited that the intellect is cause, though a partial cause, of volition, and the intellection of the wayfarer and the vision of the blessed differ in species, then the effects that necessarily require these diverse causes differ in species; for never does an individual of the same species necessarily require a cause of a different species from the cause that another individual requires.

299. But if intellection be said to be a cause sine qua non, it is at least essentially required, and then, as before, diverse things of the same species do not necessarily require in their causes any of a different species. So this opinion too [n.297] has to concede that volitions are distinguished in species by their objects, and yet the object, according to them [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet I q.15], is a cause sine qua non. But then the distinction of enjoyments can be saved by distinction of visions, just as an effect varies by the differing closeness of the agent to the passive subject (for an agent that is opposite to the passive subject in a direct line acts differently from one that is opposite to it in a reflex or broken line), and cognition here is as it were the coming close of the object to the will.

3. Conclusion

300. Holding to this second way then [nn.297, 299] one need not concede that, by God’s absolute power, can be caused in the soul of a wayfarer, at least of one not seeing God bare, any enjoyment equal to the lowest enjoyment possible for any blessed; because the supreme of the lowest species cannot be made equal to the lowest of the higher species, for the whole of the former is below the whole of the latter.

301. But it is difficult according to the first way to prevent in the soul of the wayfarer (while his obscure knowledge persists intense to such and such a degree) the possibility of some enjoyment being there equal to some given beatific enjoyment.

II. To the Initial Arguments

302. The answer to the first main argument [n.268] is plain from the second article [nn.286-287].

303. To the second [n.271] it is said [Godfrey of Fontaines, Henry of Ghent] that if someone without charity see God, he would not have supernatural enjoyment because neither any first supernatural act, without which he is not able to be acted on nor to act, and consequently he would not have beatific enjoying either [cf. Ord. I d.1 n.88].

304. Another answer was stated in Ord. I d.1 nn.141-142, that a habit is not that whereby the haver can simply elicit the act; and so, after the presence as it were of the object is posited, the will can proceed to some act about the object, and the supernatural act [n.303] comes from the object and the presence of the object, but not from something that is in potency eliciting it. Nor yet is that enjoyment beatific, because it is not as great as is of a nature to be had by such a will about an object thus shown to it; for a greater enjoyment would be had if the charity were present by which the act is in some way intensified, as was said in Ord. 1 d.17 nn.202-205. But beatitude of will is not in any act save the highest that the will can have about an object represented to it in such a way.

305. To the third [n.272] I say that the will alone among all appetites can will a good for something because of the thing willed. And so there is no likeness here between other appetites and it, as neither is there generally when what the argument is about is the sole thing such. On the contrary, the argument is to the opposite when it is about something pertaining to the perfection of this sole thing; for it agrees with things more imperfect than itself in some respect and differs from them in some respect proper to itself: it is more perfect according to what is proper to it than according to what is common, because the common cannot be more perfect than any imperfect thing that incudes it. And so, if excelling perfection, as beatitude, belongs to that sole thing, the conclusion that beatitude agrees with it not according to that in which it is like the inferiors is more drawn than the opposite conclusion is.

306. To the fourth [n.273], not everything that succeeds to the theological virtues in the wayfarer, or to their acts, is of the essence of beatitude, but only the most perfect unique act; therefore, let it be that possessing is the act of will that succeeds to hope, it does not follow that beatitude consist in it, but it suffices if it be concomitant to beatitude.