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.