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The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus
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Ordinatio. Book 1. Distinctions 1 and 2.
Book One: First and Second Distinctions
First Distinction. First Part. On the Object of Enjoyment
Question 1. Whether the object of enjoyment per se is the ultimate end
I. To the Question

I. To the Question

7. In answer to this question I will first distinguish between enjoyment taken as ordered and taken in general, second I will speak of the first object of ordered enjoyment, third of the object of enjoyment in general, fourth of how one must understand enjoyment to be about the end - whether about the end truly ultimate, as in the second article, or about the end not truly ultimate, as in the third article.

8. [Article 1] - I say that enjoyment in general is more extensive than ordered enjoyment, because whenever some power is not of itself determined to ordered act, its act in general is more universal than its special ordered act; now the will is not of itself determined to ordered enjoyment, as is plain because supreme perversity can exist in it, as when things to be enjoyed are used and things to be used are enjoyed, according to Augustine On 83 Diverse Questions q.30. Now ordered enjoyment is of the sort that is naturally right, namely when it is ordered according to the due circumstances, but enjoyment in general is whether it has those due circumstances or not.

9. [Article 2] - As to the second [n.7] it seems to be the opinion of Avicenna that ordered enjoyment can be about something other than the ultimate end. The proof is from his remarks in Metaphysics 9 ch.4 (104vb-105rb), where he wants the higher intelligence to cause through its act of understanding the lower intelligence; but it seems that the thing produced is then perfect when it attains its own productive principle, according to the proposition of Proclus Theological Education ch.34 that: “each thing naturally turns back to that from which it proceeds;” but in such a return there seems to be a complete circle and so perfection; therefore the intelligence produced comes to perfect rest in the intelligence producing it.

10. Argument against this is as follows: a power does not rest except where its object is found to exist most perfectly and at its highest; the object of the enjoying power is being in general, according to Avicenna in Metaphysics 1 ch.6 (72rb); therefore the enjoying power does not rest except where being is most perfect. This being is only the supreme being.4

11. There is a confirmation by a likeness from matter to form: matter only rests under a form that contains the others, yet something intrinsic does not satisfy as the object does.

12. Again, an inferior intelligence seeing the superior intelligence either sees it to be finite, or believes it to be infinite, or sees neither its finitude nor its infinity. If it believes it to be infinite then it is not beatified in it because “nothing more stupid can be asserted than that a soul might be blessed in false opinion,” according to Augustine On the City of God XI ch.4 n.2. But if it sees neither the superior intelligence’s finitude nor its infinity it does not see it perfectly and so is not blessed. But if it sees it finite, then it can understand that something else can exceed it; now we in this way experience in ourselves that we can desire a greater good beyond any finite good at all that is shown to us, or that we can desire beyond any good another good which is shown to be greater, and consequently the will can love the greater good, and so it does not rest in that intelligence.5

13. Others6 argue against this opinion as follows: the soul is the image of God,     therefore it is capable of him and can participate him, because according to Augustine On the Trinity XIV ch.8 n.11: “for this reason is the soul the image of God because it is capable of him and can participate him;” but whatever is capable of God can be satisfied by nothing less than God; therefore etc     .

But this reason does not proceed against the philosophers, because the assumed premise about the image is only something believed and is not known by natural reason; therefore the idea of image which we conceive is only something believed, but is not naturally known by reason, because the idea of image that we conceive is founded in the soul in relation to God as Triune, and therefore is not naturally known, because neither is the extreme it is related to naturally known by us.

14. Others argue against his opinion [n.9] in the following way: the soul is created immediately by God, therefore it does and would rest immediately in him.

But the antecedent of this reason is only something believed, and it would be denied by them [sc. followers of Avicenna] because he himself [Avicenna] lays down that the soul is immediately created by the last and lowest intelligence. Likewise the consequence is not here valid, nor the like one either made [n.9] on behalf of the opinion of Avicenna; for it is an accident that the idea of first efficient and the idea of end are conjoined in the same thing, nor does the thing give rest as far as it is the first efficient but as far as it is the most perfect object, otherwise our sensitive power, which according to one opinion is created by God, could not perfectly rest save in God; in the proposed case, then, the same thing is efficient cause and end because there is in the efficient cause the fullness of perfection of the object, but in the efficient cause with respect to why it is efficient cause there is not included the idea of end and of cause of rest.

15. Therefore I hold with respect to this article the following conclusion, namely that ordered enjoyment has the ultimate end alone for object, because, just as one should by the intellect assent to the first truth alone for its own sake, so one should by the will assent to the first good alone for its own sake.

16. [Article 3] - About the third article [n.7] I say that the object of enjoyment in general, as it abstracts from ordered or disordered end, is the ultimate end: whether this be the true end, namely the end that from the nature of the thing is the ultimate end, or the apparent end, namely the ultimate end which is shown to be ultimate by an erring reason, or the prescribed end, namely the end which the will of its own freedom wills as ultimate end.

The first two members are sufficiently plain. The proof of the third is that just as to will or not to will is in the power of the will, so the mode of willing is in its power, namely to refer or not to refer;7 therefore it is in its power to will some good for its own sake without referring it to some other good, and thus by prescribing the end for itself in that.

17. [Article 4] - About the fourth article [n.7] I say that the idea of end is not the proper idea of the enjoyable object, neither in the case of ordered enjoyment nor in the case of enjoyment taken generally. That it is not so in the case of ordered enjoyment is plain; both because the respect [sc. of end] is not included in the beatific object per se as far as it is the beatific object; and because that respect is a respect of reason only, just as is any respect of God to creatures (but a respect of reason cannot be the per se object or the idea of the per se object of enjoyment); and because if per impossibile there were some supreme object to which the will was not ordered as to its end, the will would still rest in that object although there is, by supposition, no idea of the end in it. In respect therefore of ordered enjoyment the idea of end is not, in truth, the proper idea of the enjoyable object, but it is a concomitant of the enjoyable object; in disordered enjoyment of an apparent end the idea of end is a concomitant of the enjoyable object (perhaps in the apprehension it precedes the enjoyment that is to be elicited in some other way, as the enticing idea of the object), but in the case of enjoyment of a prefixed end the idea of end follows the act, because ‘prefixed end’ means either the mode of the act or the mode of the object in the way such a prefixed end actually terminates the act, because the will by willing it for its own sake attributes to it the idea of end.