I. To the Question

30. This question could have a fourfold difficulty according to the fourfold distinction in divine things, the first of which is the distinction of essence from person, the second the distinction of person from person, the third the distinction of essence from attributes, and the fourth the distinction of essence from ideas. About the third and fourth distinctions I will not now speak, because it has not been shown of what sort that distinction is nor whether the things distinguished pertain to enjoyment [cf. 1 d.8 p.1 q.4 nn.1-26; d.35 q.un nn.12-16]. Therefore we must only look now into the first two distinctions.

And as concerns those two distinctions one must first see about the enjoyment of the wayfarer as to its possibility, second one must see about the enjoyment of the comprehender and that when speaking of absolute divine power, third about the enjoyment of the comprehender speaking about the power of the creature, fourth when speaking of the enjoyment in fact of the wayfarer and of the comprehender.

A. On the Enjoyment of the Wayfarer as to its Possibility

31. About the first I say that it is possible for the wayfarer to enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person, and this is even possible in the case of ordered enjoyment. My proof for this is that according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2: “if essence is said relatively it is not essence, because every essence which is said relatively is something after the relative has been removed;” from which he concludes: “wherefore, if the Father is not something for himself, he is not something which can be said relative to another.” The divine essence, then, is some conceivable object in whose concept relation is not included, therefore it can be thus conceived by the wayfarer; but essence thus conceived has the idea of the supreme good, therefore it also has the perfect idea of enjoyability; therefore one can also enjoy it in an ordered way.

32. A confirmation of this reason is that one can deduce from purely natural facts that the supreme good is one, and yet from those natural facts we do not conceive God as he is Triune; therefore about the supreme good thus conceived one can have some act of the will, and not necessarily a disordered act; therefore one will have an ordered act of enjoyment about the essence and not about the person as we now conceive the person. The converse, however, is not possible, namely that one might enjoy in an ordered way the person without enjoying the essence, because the person includes the essence in the idea of itself.

33. Second I say also that the wayfarer can enjoy in an ordered way one person without enjoying another. My proof is that with respect to the three persons there are three distinct articles of faith; therefore one person can be conceived to whom one article corresponds, and then in that person the idea of the supreme good is conceived; one can therefore enjoy the person thus conceived without enjoying another.

If you say the person is a relative notion, therefore it cannot be conceived unless its correlative is conceived, I reply: although the knowledge of a relative requires knowledge of its correlative, it is nevertheless not necessary that the knower and enjoyer of one relative know and enjoy the other relative, because it is possible to enjoy God insofar as he is Creator without enjoying the creature that is nevertheless the term of that relation. - Likewise, although the Father is said correlatively to the Son and therefore cannot be understood insofar as he is Father without the Son being understood, yet he is not said relatively to the Holy Spirit insofar as he is Father; therefore it will be possible to conceive the Father as Father and to enjoy him without conceiving and enjoying the Holy Spirit.

B. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender when Speaking of the Absolute Power of God

34. About the second article [n.30] it is asserted that it is not possible, when speaking of the absolute power of God, that anyone who comprehends should enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person.

The proof of this is first about vision [about enjoyment see nn. 40-41], namely that it is not possible absolutely for any intellect to see the divine essence without seeing the person:

The first proof is thus, that confused knowledge is imperfect knowledge; the vision of that essence cannot be imperfect; therefore the visual knowledge of it cannot be confused. But if it were knowledge alone or vision alone - about the essence and not about the person or of the essence and not of the person - it would be confused vision, because it would be of something common to the persons and would not be of the persons, which seems discordant.

35. The second is as follows: vision is of what is existent as it existent and as it is present to the seer according to its existence; and in this respect vision is distinguished from abstractive understanding, because the latter can be of what is not existent or of what is existent insofar as it is not present in itself; and this distinction in the intellect between intuitive and abstractive understanding is like the distinction in the sensitive part between act of vision and act of imagination. Intuitive knowledge of the divine essence, then, is other than knowledge which is abstractive, because the former is vision of his existence as it is existent and as it is, according to its existence, present to the knowing power; but the divine essence only exists in the person; therefore there can only be vision of it in the person.

36. Again, something in which there are many things distinct on the part of the nature of the thing cannot be known by intuitive knowledge unless all those things are also distinctly and perfectly seen. An example: whiteness is not seen distinctly unless all the parts at the base of a pyramid are seen, which parts are distinct on the part of the nature of the thing. But the persons are in their essence also distinct on the part of the nature of the thing; therefore the essence is not distinctly seen unless the persons are seen.

37. From this there is an argument to the intended proposition [n.34] as concerns the second distinction, namely the distinction of the persons among themselves [n.30], because if the essence cannot be seen save in the person - and it is not seen more in one person than in another, because it is seen with equal immediacy to be related to any person whatever - therefore it cannot be seen unless it is seen in any person whatever, and so it is not seen in one person without being seen in another.

38. There is also an argument that goes further to the enjoying proposed [n.34], because the will cannot abstract its object beyond what the intellect can display of it; therefore if the intellect cannot distinctly display the essence without the person or the person without the person, then neither can the will distinctly enjoy them.

39. And there is a confirmation for this too, that the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of the object unless a distinction either real or in idea is posited on the part of the object; but if the intellect apprehends the essence and person indistinctly, there will not be on the part of the object a distinction either real or in idea; therefore the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of a distinction in the first object. That there is not a real distinction on the part of the object is plain; the proof that there is not a distinction in idea is that the intellect does not distinctively comprehend, or does not distinctly apprehend, this and that; therefore it does not distinguish this and that.

40. On the part of enjoyment the argument is as follows: enjoyment gives rest to the enjoyer; one person does not without another give rest perfectly to the enjoyment of the enjoyer, nor does the essence without the person, because then the power that is at rest therein could not be made to be at further rest; nor can it be made to be at rest in anything else, because what is at ultimate rest is not able to be made to be at further rest, and consequently that power could not be made to be at rest in another person or to enjoy it, which is false.

41. Again, if it were at rest in this person alone, and it is plain that it can enjoy another person, then either the enjoyment of the other person can exist with the enjoyment of this person, or these enjoyments will not be compossible, so that one of them will not exist with the other; if in the first way then two acts of the same species will exist at the same time in the same power, each of which acts is equal to the capacity of the power, which is impossible; if in the second way then neither act will be enjoyment, because neither act will be able to be perpetual.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Again, in our soul there is by nature the image of the Trinity; therefore the soul cannot be made to rest except in the Trinity; therefore it cannot enjoy anything in an ordered way except the Triune God.” ¹²

42. [Scotus’ own opinion] - As to this article [n.34] I say that, speaking about the absolute power of God, there seems to be no contradiction in its being possible on the part of the intellect and on the part of the will that the act of each should be terminated in the essence and not in the person, or terminated in one person and not in another, to wit that the intellect should see the essence and not the person, or see one person and not the other, and that the will should enjoy the essence and not the person or enjoy one person and not the other.

43. Proof for this is as follows:Text cancelled by Scotus: “The Father is in origin perfectly blessed before he generates the Son, because he gets from the person produced no perfection intrinsic to himself. Blessedness is a perfection intrinsic to the blessed person. But if in the prior stage the Father is perfectly blessed, then in the prior stage he has the object as making perfectly blessed; but he does not seem in that prior stage to have an essence communicated as object to the three persons, but an essence absolutely, or an essence as it is in one person only; per se then it is not of the idea of the essence as it is the beatific object that it beatify insofar as it is communicated to the three persons, and so there seems to be no contradiction, either as to enjoyment or as to vision. Response: the Father has the essence for object as it is in the three persons, and yet he has it first according to origin, because he has it of himself as an object for himself, and this is to be first in origin; but there is no other priority there according to which his essence, as it exists in one person and not as it exists in another, is an object for himself, just as neither in any prior stage of nature is it an object for one person and not for another, but it is an object only for one person from himself and an object for another person not from himself. On the contrary: any of the persons whatever understands formally with the intellect as it exists in that person, not as it exists in another person, nor as it exists in all three, from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12; therefore in this way it seems that each person understands by perfectly understanding the essence as it exists formally in that person; therefore perfect understanding, which is beatific understanding, does not necessarily of itself require that the essence is understood as it exists in the three persons. Proof of the consequence: the intelligible thing is required for understanding no less than the intellect; therefore in one who understands perfectly of himself there is required no less that he have in himself the object as it is formally intelligible than that he have in himself the intellect whereby he understands. The reason is confirmed because if the Father were by the beatific vision to understand the essence as it is in the Son, therefore he would as it were receive something from the Son, or from something as it exists in the Son. The consequence is proved by the argument of the Philosopher in Metaphysics 12.9.1074b28-35, where he proves that God does not understand something other than himself, because then his understanding would be cheapened since it would receive perfection from the intelligible thing; therefore it is so here, nay rather, what is more discordant, the Father would as it were receive perfection simply, which is the beatific vision, from the three persons as from three objects, or from something as it exists in the three. And then two absurdities seem to follow: first that the Father does not have all perfection from himself, because of the fact that the whole and essential perfection simply is not in any person prior to the properties, but some part of it is as it were posterior to the persons themselves, namely the part that is from the object as it exists in the three. Again, if the intellect as it exists in something produced were the principle of the Father’s beatitude, the Father would not be blessed of himself, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12; therefore if the essence as it exists in the thing produced were the per se object of beatitude, the Father will not be blessed of himself. The proof of the consequence is that the object as object is no less required for beatitude than is the intellect. Response: it is required as present but not as existent within; the intellect is required as existent within, because by it one formally understands; not so by the object. An example: [the Archangel] Michael is not blessed except by his intellect existing within him; but he is blessed by an object that does not exist within him, and he would be naturally blessed if he naturally had the object present to him although not existent in him; not so with the intellect. On the contrary: of whatever sort something is of itself, it would be of that sort even if, per impossibile, any other thing whatever did not exist. Again, the Father would receive something from the Son, or from something as it exists in the Son, as from the object of his beatitude; that which exists of itself does not necessarily require for its being anything which is not of itself, and this with a necessity as great as the necessity with which a dependent thing requires what it depends on. This reason very well concludes that the Father has of himself, not only on the part of the intellect but also on the part of the object, the source whereby he is blessed, and consequently that he has of himself the essence as the essence is what makes him blessed; not, however, as it exists in the three, because in this way an object present of itself is required just as an intellect of itself is required, so that he might be blessed of himself. Here is a brief enthymeme: he is blessed of himself; therefore he has of himself the object as it is the beatific object; but he does not of himself have that object as beatific object as it exists in the three, because then as it exists in the Son it would per se as it were act on the beatitude of the Father. Response: in comparison with the Father, the essence as essence is the first beatifying object, although it at the same time necessarily beatifies in the three; thus too does it necessarily understand creatures, although it does not expect understanding from them but from the essence which it has of itself; thus the first object can, in comparison with the created intellect, be posited without the second object. The manner of positing it is as follows: etc. [as in the body of the text]. ¹³ some act has a first object on which it essentially depends, and it has a second object on which it does not essentially depend but does tend toward it in virtue of the first object; although, therefore, the act could not stay the same in the same way unless it had a relation to the first object, yet it could stay the same without a relation to the second object, because it does not depend on the second object. An example: the act of seeing the divine essence is the same act as that of seeing other things in the divine essence, but the essence is the first object and the seen things are the secondary object; now the seeing could not stay the same unless it was of the same essence, but it could stay the same without being of the things seen in the essence. Just as God, then, could without contradiction cooperate with that act insofar as it tends to the first object and not insofar as it tends to the second object, and yet it will be the same act, so he can without contradiction cooperate with the seeing of the essence, because the essence has the idea of the first object, but not cooperate with the same act of seeing or of enjoying insofar as it tends to the person, and, by parity of reasoning, insofar as it tends to one person and not to another.

44. From this comes response to the arguments against this way [n.34]. As to what is said first about confused vision [n.34], I say that the universal in creatures is divided among its singular instances; but this ‘to be divided’ is a mark of imperfection and so it does not belong to what is common in God, nay the divine essence, which is common to the three persons, is of itself a ‘this’. So that is why knowledge of some universal abstracted from singulars is confused and imperfect, because the object is confused, being divided among the things which are confusedly conceived in it. But the knowledge of the divine essence is distinct, because it is of an object that is of itself a ‘this’, and yet there is no need that in this distinctly conceived object the person be distinctly conceived or known, because the person is not the first term of enjoyment or of vision, as has been said [n.32].

45. To the second, when the argument is made about existent essence     etc . [n.35], I say that it is necessary that the term of vision be existent as far as it is existent, but it is not necessary that subsistence, i.e. incommunicable essence, belong to the idea of the terminus of vision. But the divine essence is of itself a ‘this’ and actually existent, although it does not of its idea include incommunicable subsistence, and therefore      it can as a ‘this’ be the terminus of vision without the persons being seen. An example: a white thing is seen intuitively insofar as it is existent and is present to vision according to its existence; but it is not necessary that the white thing be seen as subsistent or insofar as it has the idea of a supposit, because it does not have the idea of a supposit, nor does it have the supposit in which it exists or is seen. As to the form of the argument, then, it is plain that although vision is of the existent insofar as it is existent, and although it is existent only in a person, yet the inference does not follow ‘therefore it is of the existent insofar as it exists in a person’, but what should be inferred is only that it is of what subsists or exists in the subsistent.

46. To the third [n.36] I say that the first proposition is false except when the first thing seen in those things that are distinct on the part of the nature of the thing is itself distinct, as is clear in your example about the base of the pyramid, for whiteness and a seen white thing are distinguished into the parts in which they are seen, and therefore the white thing is not distinctly seen unless the parts in which the seen white thing is distinguished are distinctly seen. But in the intended proposition, although the divine persons are distinguished on the part of the thing, yet the seen essence is not distinguished in them, because it is of itself a ‘this’; therefore the essence can be distinctly seen without the persons that subsist in it being seen.

47. As to the further deduction about the will [n.38], although there is no need to reply to it, because the antecedent must be denied, yet one can reply that the consequence does not seem to be necessary. When it is said that ‘the will does not abstract more than the intellect displays’, I say that the intellect can show some first object to the will and in that first object something that is a per se object and not first (and here the whole of that in which the act of the power terminates is called ‘first object’, and what is included per se in the object that first terminates is called ‘per se object’). Now each idea there shown [the idea of first object and of per se object] suffices for the will to have its own act with respect to it; for there is no need that the will wills the whole of the first object shown, but it can will the first object shown and not will what is shown in that first object shown. Take the following sort of example: in bishop-hood is shown priesthood; such showing suffices for the will to have an act of willing or of not willing with respect to priesthood, so that it could from this showing have an act of willing with respect to bishop-hood and not with respect to priesthood; and yet there is only one showing, and a showing of one first object, in which first object however is included something as per se object. I say that the will does not abstract the universal from the singular, but there are many willed things shown by the understanding to the will, and this understanding is of several different things included in the first object, each of which, as thus shown, can be willed by the will.

48. To the confirmation, when it is said that ‘the object differs either in reality or in idea’ [n.39], I say that it differs in idea. And when the proof is given that it does not, ‘because the intellect does not conceive this distinctly from that’ [n.39], I say that a distinction of reason does not require that the intellect possess them as distinct objects, but it is enough that it conceive them in the first object.

49. To the point about rest [n.40] I say that the Father rests in his essence as it is in himself; nor does it follow that ‘therefore he cannot rest in it as it is in the Son or the Holy Spirit’, for rather he rests in the essence as communicated to them and does so with the same rest with which he rests in the essence as it is in himself. For that which rests first in some object rests in it as to whatever it is according to that mode of it; so here, if the blessed were to enjoy the essence first and then the person, they would not rest with a further rest beyond what they were resting with before but with the same rest, because the object is complete in giving rest as it exists in any one of them and was not first complete as it existed in that one.

50. Using this in answer to the fifth argument [n.41] I say that there will not be two acts there, because whatever act there is of enjoyment or of vision there is of the first object under one formal idea; but that one act can be of everything or of the object per se by virtue of the first object, or it can be only of the first object itself; there will not then be two acts, at the same time or in succession, of the same species.Text cancelled by Scotus: “To the other point about the image [in footnote 7 above] the response is clear from what has just been said.” ¹⁴

C. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender when Speaking of the Power of the Creature

51. As to the third article about the power of the creature [n.30] I say that the intellect cannot by its own natural power see the essence without seeing the person, because, since the intellect is of itself a natural and not a free power, when the object acts the intellect acts as much as it can; therefore if the object on its own part acts by manifesting the three persons to the intellect, it is not in the power of the intellect to see part of what is shown and not to see some other part of what is shown.

52. Likewise neither is it in the power of the will to have ordered enjoyment thus by not enjoying thus, because just as it is not in the power of the will not to enjoy in an ordered way (for if it was not enjoying, though unimpeded in this respect, it would be sinning and deserving not to enjoy), so it is not in the power of the will to enjoy something in an ordered way and not to enjoy whatever it can enjoy; and therefore it is not in its power, while remaining in an ordered state, not to have enjoyment under any idea under which it can have enjoyment.Text cancelled by Scotus: “But about the absolute power of the will there is more doubt. However it can be said there that it is not in the power of the will to enjoy in this way and not to enjoy in this way, because although it is in the power of the will that some act be brought to be or not be brought to be, yet it is not in its power that the act once brought to be should or should not have the condition that naturally belongs to the act from the nature of its object. An example: although it is in the power of the will to elicit or not to elicit a sinful act, yet if the act, once brought to be, is disordered, it is not in the power of the will that the act so brought to be should or should not be disordered; now the act of enjoyment, as far as the nature of its first object is concerned, is naturally of the three persons in the essence, because on the part of the object - barring some miracle - it will of itself be of the three persons; therefore it does not seem to be in the power of the will that an act brought to be should or should not be of the essence as it exists in the three persons. If you say that this reason concludes that it is not in the power of God that an act be of the essence and not of the three persons, I say that the conclusion does not follow, for the elicited act is in the power of God as to any condition that might naturally from the object be within his competence, and yet the act as to that condition is not within created power. An example: it is in the power of God that an act elicited by a sinful will be referred back to God because God refers it back to himself, but it is not in the power of the will, once the act has been brought to be, that the will use that act for God because the creature is enjoying the act; but it cannot at the same time enjoy a thing other than God and use that same thing for God. - The example does not, however, seem to be a good one, because that act of the sinner is referred back by one power and not by another. Let the example be dismissed then, and let the reason be held onto, because an accident necessarily consequent to an act once it has been brought to be cannot not be in the act as long as the act persists, and this accident is something subject to the divine will, though not to the created will which elicits it; so let it be said of a condition which, in respect of a secondary object, the act is of a nature necessarily, as far as depends on itself, to have, though not essentially to have; therefore that the condition not be present in the act is something subject to the divine will.” ¹⁵

53. On the contrary: whatever is not necessarily concomitant to an act is within the power of the will that elicits the act; or in this way: whatever the act of will does not necessarily regard, the will itself, which elicits the act, also does not necessarily regard; or in this way: whatever can be separated as it is the terminus of the act of will can also be separated in respect of the power as eliciting the act.

D. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender and of the Wayfarer when Speaking of the Fact of it

54. As to the article about the fact [n.30] I say that in fact there will be one vision and one enjoyment of the essence in three persons. And this is what Augustine says On the Trinity I ch.8 n.17: “Neither can be shown without the other,” and he is speaking of the Father and the Son; but the remark is to be understood of ordained power, of which Philip spoke when wanting the Father to be shown to him [John 14.8], as if he could in fact have seen the Son without the Father. And Augustine treats there of the words of

Philip and Christ’s response. Augustine also means this in On the Trinity XV ch.16 n.26: “Perhaps we will see the whole of our knowledge in one view all at once.” And the fact that he says ‘perhaps’ does not refer to the beatific object but to the other things to be seen in it.

55. Likewise about the wayfarer I say that in fact necessarily the habitual, though not the actual, ordered enjoyment is of the three persons together; for no wayfarer or comprehender can have ordered enjoyment of one person without enjoying the other (that is, unless he habitually enjoys the other, namely that he is in proximate disposition to enjoying that other), if this person is conceived distinctly from that; and therefore enjoyment of one persons does not stand with hatred of a second person, because, as the Savior said, John 15.23: “he who hates me hates my Father also.”