V. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

183. [To the Arguments from the First Way] - To the first argument of the first question [n.125] I say that the authority states that the matter of this science, not the first and formal subject of it, is things and signs and the like.

184. To the second [n.126] I say that whatever sense is not literal in one part of Scripture, is literal in another part of Scripture; therefore, although any part of Scripture may have diverse senses, yet Scripture as a whole takes all those senses for the literal sense.

185. To the third [n.127] I say that the argument is to the opposite conclusion, in two ways. First, because in moral science and medical science man is posited as subject for that which contains virtually all the truths of the science. For the human body contains the idea of health virtually; for that is why the health of man is the sort it is, because the human body is the sort of complex it is. Likewise, the soul of man contains the idea of natural felicity virtually, as is clear in Ethics 1.9.1097b22-98a20, where the idea of the natural felicity of man is deduced from the soul, or from the idea of the soul. It is not in this way that man contains the idea of the end of this science (of theology), because supernatural felicity or the object of this science is not included in the idea of man; and     therefore man cannot be the first object of this science; therefore etc     .

186. Second thus: man is the final end of the sciences just mentioned, and to this end both health and natural felicity are ordered. The proof is that all love of concupiscence presupposes love of friendship [2 d.6 q.2 n.3]; but health and felicity are loved with love of concupiscence; therefore what is loved with love of friendship by him who has love of concupiscence is a further end beyond any of these ends. Such a further end is the body, on one side, and the soul, on the other. Therefore if man in his body or soul is the subject of this science, it follows that his end is the subject of this science.

187. To the fourth [n.128] I say that the first proposition is false, because the fact that nothing else is the end of a science except what, by its own act, attains the object of the science is not because it induces some form in the object by its act, for science is not a quality for making things.

188. [To the Arguments from the Second Way] - To Boethius [n.129] I say that he is speaking of subject in the sense of subject of an accident, not in the sense of subject of study.

To the text from the Physics [n.130] I say that it means matter in the sense of matter ‘from-which’, for this matter and the efficient cause do not coincide, and not that it means the matter ‘of-which’ or ‘about-which’. Or better, one should say that the subject of a science with respect to truth does not belong to the genus of material cause but to the genus of efficient cause; yet the subject of a science is said to be its matter by a certain likeness to the act of making, where the idea of the object ‘about-which’ comes together with the idea of the susceptible matter, because the act of making is a doing that passes over to something outside it. Things are not like this in the case of the proper act of a science; still, a science is understood to pass over, because it does not terminate in itself but in that about which it is, although it is not received in the ‘about-which’ but remains in the knower. And on account of this one property of matter, namely ‘to be that about which’, the object is said to be the matter in relation to the science and to its act.Interpolation: “because the artisan works on something, and in that same thing his making is received; by reason of the first is the object said to be the matter in a science, not by reason of the second, because the act of a science does not pass over [sc. into something else].” ⁵⁹

189. To the text of the Posterior Analytics [n.131] I say that the obj ect of any science naturally discovered is something universal; therefore the subject of such a science should have subjective parts. But of this science (of theology) the object is this essence here (sc. God) as a singular, because it is a mark of imperfection in universal created nature that it is divided among many singulars; once this imperfection has been removed, the result is that this essence is knowable without divisibility of it into subjective parts. Yet it could be said that the divine persons are a sort of subjective parts of the divine essence itself; but the essence itself is not numerically multiplied in them the way it is in other and imperfect things, where the subject is divisible into many parts.

190. As to the point that is added about properties [n.131], some say that the attributes are a sort of properties of the essence itself. But this does not hold, because any attribute as this can properly be known of God theologically, while any attribute as known confusedly is known of him metaphysically. For just as God taken in this way and in that, that is, as this and as confusedly known, pertains to the theologian on the one hand and to the metaphysician on the other, so too does any attribute pertain to them when taken in this way and when taken in that. Text canceled by Scotus: “because a consideration of attributes naturally known to us is a metaphysical consideration, save when there are some attributes that belong per se only to this essence as this and not to it as it is now naturally known by us, namely confusedly.” ⁶⁰As to what is added about the property being outside the essence of the subject [n.131], this is true when the property is really caused by the object; but in the deity that which has the nature of a property is not caused, because it passes over into essence by way of identity; yet, as far as its knowability is concerned, it is known through the idea of the essence as if it were really distinct from the essence.

191. As to what, third, is said about the principle of the subject [n.131], I say that it is not necessary that the principles of the subject as knowable be principles of the subject as it is in itself, because in the case of being qua being, which is set down as the subject of metaphysics, there are no principles, because then they would be principles of any being whatever; but what is necessary is that in the case of any subject whatever there are principles by which its properties are demonstrated of it, and from these principles, as from the means of demonstration, propositional principles are formed, such as are the self-evident principles. In this way there can be principles of any subject whatever, insofar as the subject is the principle-without-principle in relation to its properties.Interpolation: “On the contrary, the principles of being and of knowing are the same, Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31; if therefore something has principles of knowing then it has principles of being. The principles of being are said not to be complex but in-complex, and from these are formed the propositions which are the principles of knowing; but the first cause lacks a principle of being, though not of knowing, because some things belong to it in a prior way and through these are posterior things known.” ⁶¹