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.