D. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

147. To the arguments for the opinion [nn.83-90]. To the first [n.83] I say that the likeness would entail many false things, because it would entail that just as we assent necessarily to the conclusions because of the principles, so we would assent necessarily to the things for the end because of the end, which is false. Therefore I say that the likeness holds as to two things, namely as to the order of these things and of those by comparing them among themselves, and as to the order of them by comparing them to powers that tend toward them in ordered fashion; I understand it thus, that as there is an order between those true things in themselves, so also between these good things, and just as those true things in ordered fashion are thus known, so also these good things would be thus things in ordered fashion to be willed. But there is no likeness as to the order of necessity in one and in the other, by comparing them to powers absolutely. For it is not necessary that the will keep the sort of order in its own acts that willable things naturally have of their nature; nor is the assent alike on this side and on that, because necessity exists in the intellect on account of the evidence of the object necessarily causing assent in the intellect: but there is not some goodness of the object that necessarily causes assent of the will, but the will freely assents to any good at all, and it freely assents to a greater good as it does to a lesser.

148. To the second, when the argument is about participation [n.84], I say that the major is false because the will wills nothing necessarily; and therefore it need not be that it necessarily will that thing by reason of which it wills everything else, if there were anything such. The minor is also false, because by virtue and by participation of the ultimate end it wills whatever it wills, because ‘by participation or by virtue of something the will wills other things’ can be understood in two ways: either by virtue or participation of it as of an efficient cause or as of something that contains it virtually, or by virtue of it as of a first object, because of which when willed it wills other things. If it is understood in the first way, the minor when assumed with the major is not to the purpose, because that by virtue of which as efficient cause something is willed need not itself be willed, just as that which is the efficient cause of something seen need not be seen; for it need not be that I first see God with my bodily eye if I see a color, which is a certain participation of God as efficient cause. If it be understood in the second way, namely of participation of it as first willed object, then the minor is false; for it is not by virtue of God willed that I will whatever is willed, because then every act of the will would be actual using, by referring it to the first willed object.Interpolation: “When you prove ‘they are good by participation’, I say that there is equivocation over the term participation, namely effectively, and thus it is true, or formally, and thus it is not true.” ⁴¹

149. To the third [n.85] it is in one way said that, although there is no defect there of any good nor any malice and therefore perhaps the will would not be able not to will it, because the object of not willing is the bad or the defective, yet it is able not to will that perfect good, because it is in the power of the will not only to will thus and thus but also to will and not to will, because its freedom is for acting and not acting. For if it can by commanding move other powers to act, not only thus and thus but also to determinately acting and not acting, it does not seem to have less freedom in respect of itself as to determination of act.Interpolation: “Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.3 n.6, everyone wants to be happy; therefore everyone necessarily wants the ultimate end wherein is beatitude.” ⁴²,Text cancelled by Scotus: “Against this response I prove that if the will is able not to will, it can refuse to will, because if it cannot refuse to will, this is because it necessarily has in itself something to which that refusing to will is opposed. But this something can only be actual willing; the proof is that no habitual or aptitudinal inclination to willing is opposed to a very refusing to will. Even if it be granted that it is a not-refusing to will, this does not avoid the problem, because a negation agrees necessarily to no positive thing save on account of some affirmation necessarily agreeing with that positive thing on which the negation follows; and then that affirmation in the proposed case cannot be an habitual or aptitudinal inclination, because not-refusing to will does not follow on it, just as neither is refusing to will opposed to it, because the affirmation necessarily agreeing with the will, on account of which refusing to will is opposed to it, will be actual willing. If therefore it cannot refuse to will, it necessarily wills. - And this reason generally shows that to nothing susceptible of contraries and of intermediates, if it has intermediates, is any form of that genus opposed, or it shows that it is impossible for a form to be present in it unless some form of that genus is necessarily present in the same thing, or something else is, to which that which cannot be present in it is virtually opposed. Such a positive that is virtually opposed to a very refusing to will cannot be found in the proposed case. Response: the thing opposed to the refusing to will is the will, because the will only has a capacity for possible willing and refusing to will; but to refuse to will the end includes a contradiction, because it is not a possible object of this act. An example: to see a sound includes a contradiction by reason of the act and of the object, therefore the object is opposed to sight and sight is opposed to it and determines for itself not to see this, because sight is of a sight. So here. Nor is it discordant to deny that the end can be the object of hatred and beatitude of flight, but neither can misery be the object of concupiscence, because according to Augustine in Handbook of the Faith ch.105 n.28: “nor can we will to be wretched” [Lombard, Sentences 2 d.25 ch.3-5; Scotus 1 d.10 q. un n.10] [n.81].” ⁴³ And this seems capable of being shown through Augustine

Retractions 1 ch.9 n.3 and ch.22 n.4, where he intends that “nothing is so in the power of the will as is the will itself,” which is not understood save as to the elicited act [n.91].

150. It might, however, be said that the will itself through some elicited willing commands or prohibits the action of an inferior power. But it cannot thus suspend all willing, because then it would at the same time will nothing and will something. But however things may be with the suspension of all willing, the will can at least suspend every act about this object through some elicited willing, and in this way I refuse now to elicit anything about this object however more distinctly it may be shown to me. And thus refusing to will is a certain elicited act, one that as it were reflects back on willing the object, not an object that is present or was present, but one that could be present; which object, although it is not shown in itself, is nevertheless shown in its cause, namely in the object shown, which is of a nature to be, in some class of principle, the principle of an act.

151. It is in another way said to the third preceding reason [nn.149, 85] that it has not been proved that the will could not refuse to will the good in which there is found no idea of evil or of defect of good, just as it has not been proved that it could not will that in which is found no idea of good, and this either in reality or in apprehension before that thing is the term of the act of willing. About this perhaps there will be discussion elsewhere [2 d.6 q.2 n.13, d.43 q. un; 4 Suppl. d.49 p.2 q.2 nn.4-10].

152. To the authority of Augustine On the Trinity [n.84], that everyone wants to be blessed, therefore everyone necessarily wills the ultimate end in where there is beatitude, I say that he does not mean actual volition. For his intention is that the mimic actor, of whom he is speaking, would have spoken the truth about what everyone who was rushing together wanted had he said to them all: “You all want to be blessed.” But not everyone who was then rushing together to the spectacle had then actually the appetite for beatitude, because they did not all have actual thought about it. So he is speaking of habitual or aptitudinal volition, namely that whereby the will itself is ready for immediately inclining to an act of willing beatitude if beatitude is actually offered to it by the intellect.

153. Likewise, the authority is not to the purpose. Because if it is certain that everyone wills beatitude, this is not in an act of friendship, by willing for this beatific object well being for itself, but in an act of concupiscence, by willing that good as a sufficient good for itself, because it is not certain that disordered wills have the ordered delight of the first good as such, but all wills, whether ordered or disordered, have the concupiscence of willing, or the will of concupiscence, for what is good for them. But an act of concupiscence cannot be an act of enjoyment, because everyone who desires with concupiscence desires for something else what he loves with the love of friendship, and so the act of concupiscence is not an act of enjoyment but only the act of friendship is.

Therefore, although Augustine is speaking of the act of willing beatitude, he is however not speaking of an act of friendship but of an act of concupiscence, and so not of enjoyment, and thus it is not to the purpose.

154. To the argument for their fourth article, when they argue about doing and being [n.88], I say that the act would not be supernatural but natural, because the will can naturally will an act about an object in whatever way it is shown by the intellect; and because the act does not exceed the faculty of the power, so neither does the object as it is the term of the act of that power.

155. When it is said, second, that then such a will might be blessed [n.89], I say no, according to Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.5 n.8: “The blessed have whatever they want and want nothing evil.” This definition must be understood in this way, that the blessed person is he who has whatever he can will in an ordered way, not merely whatever he now actually wills; for then some wayfarer could be blessed for the time when he is thinking about only one thing that he has in an ordered way. But the will could wish in an ordered way to have charity, because it can will not only to have the substance of the act of enjoying, but it can will to have an enjoyment accepted by God; if therefore it does not have it, it does not have whatever it can in an ordered way will. Also, the way charity is required, not for gratification of act but for some rank of perfection intrinsic to the act, will be discussed later [1 d.17 p.1 qq.1-2].

156. To the principal arguments. To the first [n.77] I say that a thing is agreeable aptitudinally or agreeable actually. A thing is agreeable aptitudinally that agrees to someone of itself and as much as depends on the nature of the thing, and such a thing agrees actually to everyone who does not have it in his power that a thing should actually agree or disagree with him; and for the reason that whatever agrees with someone naturally or aptitudinally, with his natural appetite or his sensitive appetite, agrees with him also actually. But it is in the power of the will that something actually agree or not agree with it; for nothing actually agrees with it save what actually pleases it. For this reason I deny the minor, when it is said that ‘the end necessarily agrees with the will’; for this is not true of actual agreement but of aptitudinal agreement.

Or in another way: if aptitudinal agreement alone is sufficient for delight, yet not for enjoyment; rather it is, by enjoyment, made to be actually agreeable whether it agrees aptitudinally or not. If the first thing supposed in this response is true, one must deny the consequence ‘delight, therefore enjoyment’.

To the second [n.78] I say that there is a different mode of acting in the action; ‘properly’ and ‘metaphorically’ destroy the likeness as far as necessity is concerned.

157. Or in another way: just as something properly acting necessarily moves something else contingently, thus something metaphorically acting necessarily moves something contingently. For the end which necessarily moves the efficient cause, to wit the natural agent, moves necessarily in a metaphorical way, because it is necessarily loved or naturally desired; but the end which moves the efficient cause contingently, moves contingently in a metaphorical way. But this efficient cause causes contingently and the end moves contingently in a metaphorical way.

158. To the third [n.79] I say that the immovable thing does not have to be some elicited act. For several different and movable heatings do not presuppose some one immovable heating, but they presuppose a first act, namely heat, which is a sufficient principle for eliciting all the various acts. So here, the volitions do not presuppose some one immovable volition, because then the will when it wills something for the end would always be under two acts, or at any rate under one act that is referring this to that, but they presuppose a first act, to wit the will, which is a sufficient reason for eliciting the various volitions.