A. To the Principal Arguments

56. To the principal arguments. To the first from the Ethics [n.23] I say that good is in one way convertible with being, and that in that way it can be placed in any category; but good in this sense does not have the idea of enjoyable object, and therefore it is not necessary that the idea of enjoyable object should exist wherever good taken in this way is found. For the idea of enjoyable object is not the idea of good in general but of perfect good, which is good without any defect, or is so at least in appearance or according to what has been prefixed by the will [n.16]; and the category of relation is not of this sort.

57. To the second [n.24] the reply is that the things that regard in a uniform way the essence and the person are only the essential features, if the ones that belong only to the person are precisely the personal features; but things that under one idea regard the person and under another idea the essence are essential and personal features. ‘Good’ is related in the first way while ‘one’ is related in the second, namely ‘indivision’, which under one proper idea pertains to the essence and under another proper idea pertains to the person.

But on the contrary: the cause of this fact is what the argument [n.24] is looking for; for it runs: since these two things seem to be equally convertible with being and equally transferred to divine reality, therefore each of them will be equally essential features only, or each of them will be essential and personal features.No reply by Scotus to this argument is given in the Ordinatio. Replies are, however, given in the following interpolations: “Therefore there is another response, that it is necessary for the object of enjoyment to be some quidditative good and not some perfection of a supposit, because the perfection of a supposit, as it is distinguished from quidditative perfection, is not the formal idea of acting, nor is it the formal idea of the term of any action; but quidditative perfection is only a perfection abstracted from a supposit, which of itself indifferently states or regards any supposit. And therefore it is necessary that goodness, as it terminates the act of enjoying, be only a quidditative perfection; but unity can be both the quidditative idea and the idea of the supposit, because it does not of itself state the idea of the principle of an act nor the formal idea of the term of any act. The good, then, is not the term of enjoyment when taken in any way at all but when taken quidditatively, because it is a quidditative perfection, which is an essential feature and not the idea of the supposit. But unity is in one way the essential idea and is in another way the idea of the supposit; in the second way it is not the formal idea nor the formal term of the act of enjoyment.” An interpolation in place of this interpolation (from Appendix A): “But relation is not another thing or another goodness than the essence, therefore [the argument] is not valid. Therefore it can in another way be said that in the consequent of the first consequence only one sense can, by the force of the words, be held to, namely that this predicate, which is the being another thing than the essence, is present in the property; and thus the sense is false, because in this way a false thing, that which is inferred in the second consequence, well follows. And therefore I likewise deny the first consequence, since the two propositions in the antecedent are false and the consequent is false. To the proof of the consequence I say that ‘the same’ and ‘other’ are not immediate in any predicate as said per se of a subject, nay not even contradictories are as it were immediates; for man is not per se white nor per se not-white. Yet between contradictories said absolutely of anything there is no middle; thus if a property is a thing, it is ‘the same’ or ‘other’, it is true that it is the same, but with ‘per se’ it is not valid that it is ‘per se the same’ or ‘per se other’.” Two further interpolations follow on these interpolations (from Appendix A). The first interpolation: “Therefore I say that being in its first division is divided into quidditative being and into being have quiddity, which is subsistent being. But now whatever is a formal perfection is quidditative being and quidditative entity; for formal perfection is what in any being is better existing than not existing. But nothing is such unless it is a quidditative entity insofar as it abstracts from subsistence. But subsistent being that possesses quiddity is what contracts that perfection, and it is not formally that quidditative perfection. But now it is such that one, which converts with being, is both quidditative being and subsistent being; and so it is both essential and notional. But good - as we are here speaking of it - in the way it states the formal idea of terminating an act of will, is quidditative essence; and therefore it is only essential. Etc.” The second interpolation: “To the third it can be said that, although necessarily an act of will follows an act of intellect, yet the mode of the will does not necessarily follow the mode of the intellect, because the intellect can make many formations about things that are not in the things, because it can divide what is united and unite what is divided, and thus it can form diverse ideas. But the will is borne toward the thing not according to the mode the thing has in the intellect but according to the mode of the thing. However, after a preceding showing by the intellect, only enjoyment states an act will that is terminated in some object, beyond which act it is not appropriate to proceed. But in the terminating of something there are two things to consider, that which terminates and the idea of terminating, - just as light does not terminate but is the reason for terminating, while color terminates. In the same way the reason for terminating in respect of the act of enjoyment is the divine essence as it is a certain absolute form, on which the ideas of true and good follow, because on the idea by which it terminates the intellect the idea of truth follows, and on the idea by which it terminates the will the idea of good follows; but that which terminates is the essence existing in the three persons. Then to the remark ‘we enjoy God under one idea’ [nn.34, 30]: that idea is the divine essence, what terminates is the essence existing in the three persons; one person cannot terminate without another - and he is speaking about ordered enjoyment. Responses to the arguments are plain from what has been said. The concept of essence is other than the concept of relation. The mode of the will does not follow the mode of the intellect, as has been said. Hence the intellect can form many ideas, and the will does not have to follow them. Hence the respect of an idea is a respect of reason, but it is not the object of enjoyment. That ‘God can make a creature see the essence and not the person’ [nn.51, 30], the proof is that the vision of the essence and of the person, and of the attributes and of the creatures or the ideas, in the essence, whether they are two acts or one, come freely from God, and both, each, namely per se, are the same. Because, once the first has been produced, the other is producible freely and not by any necessity, therefore one is producible without the other. The consequence is plain. The proof of the antecedent is that it is not repugnant by way of contradiction for the vision of the essence to be created and no vision with respect to the persons or with respect to the creatures in the essence to be created; the proof is that since the essence is an absolute and first and distinct object, different from creature or relation or person (On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2: ‘everything that is said relatively is something’, etc.), it can, as taken precisely and distinct from all the aforesaid objects, none of which it includes quidditatively as an essential or integral part, be the total object of an act of a created and limited intellect, whether intuitively or abstractly, although not of a created and unlimited intellect (but that is because of the infinity of the intellection, not because of the distinction of the object from other things). Thus it is plain that the intellect can distinguish this object from all others, and can therefore have an act only about it. Again, the intellect can abstractively understand it taken precisely, and therefore it can likewise do so intuitively. Again if, once the essence is seen, it cannot not see the attributes, then it cannot not see the infinite perfections glittering within it and so comprehend them, which is false. Through this is made plain the solution to the argument ‘he who sees something white sees all the parts of it’ [n.36], because those parts are something in that white object, because they are integral parts, - just as, when seeing a man, perhaps animal that is included in him is seen, but not risibility. On the contrary: the essence as distinct from the will presents itself to the blessed intellect, therefore it does so naturally; therefore as to the persons and the glittering creatables. ¹⁶

58. To the third [n.25] I say that the ‘insofar as’ can denote only the fact that what follows is taken according to its formal idea or, in another, it can denote in addition that what follows is the formal idea of the inherence of the predicate in the subject. In the second way reduplication is taken most properly, because the reduplicated thing, whether it is taken for the whole of what it itself first is or for anything that is included in the understanding of it, taking reduplication formally to be always that for which it is taken, is marked out as being the formal idea of the inherence of the predicate in the subject.

To the proposed case, then, I say that if reduplication is taken in both ways in the major, the major is true and the minor is false; but if it is taken in the first way and not in the second, the minor is true and the major is false.

And when the proof of the minor is given [n.26], I say that in the first way of taking it [sc. ‘insofar as’] we will see the three insofar as they are three, that is, the formal idea of the Trinity will be seen, but the Trinity itself is not the formal idea of seeing or the formal cause of the inherence of the predicate, namely the predicate ‘enjoyment’ or ‘vision’, but the unity of the essence is. And when proof is given further through the act of faith [n.26], which is of the three insofar as they are three, or triune insofar as triune, I say that the case is not similar, because the divine essence does not cause in us immediately the act of belief as it will cause in us immediately the act of seeing, and that because of the imperfection of our understanding for the present state, because we understand the distinct persons from creatures and distinct acts. And therefore, as far as concerns our knowledge now, the Trinity can be the formal idea of knowing; but then the Trinity will be precisely known as it is and will not be the formal idea of knowing,

Again, to the same: the same principle has one mode of acting. But the divine essence presents itself naturally to the divine intellect, therefore to whomever it presents itself it presents itself naturally, and presents all the things that are in God.” because then it will be seen through the idea of the essence in itself precisely as through the idea of the first object.