B. Scotus’ own Opinion

314. [On the theology of necessary things] - To the question [n.217],     therefore , I reply that since an elicited act of will is most truly action, even if no commanded act accompanies it (as is plain from the first article [nn.230, 232, 234-235]), and since extension of practical knowledge consists in conformity to action and in aptitudinal priority (this is plain from the second article [nn.236-237]), it follows that that knowledge is practical which is aptitudinally conform to right volition and is naturally prior to it; but the whole of theology necessary for a created intellect is thus conform to the act of the created will and prior to it; therefore etc     . - The proof of the minor is that the first object of theology is virtually conform to right volition, because from the idea of it are taken the principles of rectitude in the will; it also determines the created intellect to knowledge of the determinate rectitude of action itself, with respect to all the necessary elements of theology, naturally before any created will wills them, otherwise they would not be necessary; therefore from the first object there follow both the conformity and the priority of theology to volition, and thus extension to action, from which extension knowledge itself must be called practical. A confirmation of this reason is that the first object of theology is the ultimate end, and the principles in the created intellect taken from the ultimate end are practical principles,     therefore the principles of theology are practical; therefore the conclusions too are practical.

315. If an objection be made against this from what was said in the preceding question, where it is said that God is not the first subject here as he is the end but as he is this essence [nn.167, 195]; but the principles taken from the end as it is end are practical; therefore etc     .

316. Again, knowledge of the ultimate end is not immediately conform to, nor is it of a nature to be conform to, the eliciting of action; therefore it is not proximately practical.

317. Again, the first object virtually includes conformity to right action, but it does not include only the knowledge that is thus conform; otherwise there could not be speculative science about it, which seems discordant. For how is this truth practical ‘God is triune’ or ‘the Father generates the Son’? Therefore the first object includes some speculative knowledge. Therefore from the virtual conformity of the first object to action it does not follow that theology is practical, since the truths that are most theological insofar as theology is distinguished from metaphysics are speculative.

318. Again, the science of God, which is about the same first subject, would in that case be practical, and it seems that the reason for the solution to the question [n.314] could be applied to the divine intellect just as to the created intellect.

319. To the first [n.315] I say that the respect of the end is not what the principles are taken from in any science, but the absolute subject is on which the respect is founded; that subject is ‘this essence’.

320. To the second [n.316] I say that what virtually contains conform knowledge is virtually conform, and thus is practical knowledge, because practical conclusions have practical principles; but the knowledge proximate to the one which is about the end is knowledge of enjoyment of the end, and it is of the nature to be formally conform to the action of enjoyment.

321. To the third [n.317] I say that the first object includes only knowledge that is conform to right volition, because by virtue of it nothing is known about the will that is not either rectitude of some will or virtually includes knowledge of such rectitude. And I concede what is inferred as a discordance in the consequent, that there can be about it no speculative science; for necessarily knowledge of it and of anything intrinsic known through it is aptitudinally conform to action and prior, if what is known is necessary.

322. When an instance is drawn from the truths, which seem to be most truly theological and not metaphysical, ‘God is triune’, ‘the Father generates the Son’ [n.317], I say that those truths are practical. The first indeed virtually includes knowledge of the rectitude of love tending toward the three persons, such that if the act were elicited about one of them alone by excluding another (as an unbeliever would elicit it), the act would not be right; the second includes knowledge of the rectitude of the act which is about two persons one of whom is thus from the other.

323. And if it be objected against this that only what is essential is the reason for terminating the act of love; but theology is more properly about the personals than about the essentials, because several essentials can be known by the metaphysician; therefore theology, as it is distinguished from metaphysics, is not practical as to what is most proper to it. The proof of the first proposition is that otherwise there would be some reason of lovability in one person that was not in another, which is false, because then no person would be blessed in itself.

I reply: an essential is absolutely a reason for terminating the act of love as the ‘that because of which’, but the persons terminate the act of loving as what are loved. For it is not sufficient for rectitude of the act that it have the formal reason that is fitting to the object, but there is also required that it have the fitting object in which such formal reason exists. So, over and above the knowledge of rectitude which the essential includes in the act of loving God, the personals include the further proper knowledge of the required rectitude.

324. To the fourth [n.318], one could concede that the theology of God about necessary things is practical, because in his intellect the first theological object is of a nature to generate, as it were, the knowledge conform to right volition that is naturally prior to the volition itself. That it is conform is plain. That it is also prior is proved because the intellect naturally understands the first object before the will wills it; therefore it can naturally have, prior to the will, all the knowledge sufficient for it virtually included in the understanding of the first object; of such sort is any necessary knowledge whatever of the first object. The assumed consequence is plain, both because, if all will were per impossibile excluded, the intellect could have all sufficient knowledge virtually included in the understanding of the first object, since that understanding precedes volition; - also because the divine intellect is not discursive; therefore it does not naturally understand the first object before it understands anything as to knowledge that is virtually included in the object; therefore, if it understands the first object before the will wills anything, it understands anything as to knowledge that is included in the first object before the will wills (this second proof of the consequence is less strong).

325. If it be objected that the divine will will not be the first rule of itself in its act if its act is preceded by the knowledge it should be conformed to so as to act rightly; the consequent seems discordant, because the supreme freedom of the divine will is taken away if this will is determined by another and not first by itself to its first act. But if all its acts are preceded by practical knowledge, it will be determined to its first act by the intellect, because it cannot dissent from it; for then it could commit sin.

326. Again, it was said above that the Philosopher consequently speaks well if intelligence naturally loves God when seen; therefore a knowledge that shows God is not practical. Let there be a like consequence about God naturally loving himself.

327. Again, something that directs is a cause in respect of something directed, so there is a real distinction between them; but there is no such distinction of God’s intellection to his willing. A confirmation of the reason is that, if one understands an act of will to have already been elicited, the intellect is not directing, for its direction only concerns something to be elicited as being prior to it; but in God his willing does not follow the being of the will, so his willing there is never something to be elicited, as it were, but is always as it were elicited;     therefore etc     .

328. It seems here that, in consequence of what has been said [nn.274-277, 310-312, 314, 319-320, 322-323], one must say that, when one takes the rule for what gives right guidance in action, the first rule is the ultimate end, which virtually includes the knowledge of the rectitude necessary to any action, just as the first object of speculative science first includes knowledge of truths of speculation. But this first rule, which is the end, gives right guidance to the intellect and the will according to the order that those powers naturally have in acting, such that it generates knowledge conform to right action as it were before right action or before it makes action right; and in this way there will be another power that is right prior to the power that acts, so that it seems that the consequent deduced in the first reason [n.325] must be conceded. Although it is criticized [n.325], one could say that, just as freedom is universally consistent with previous apprehension, so supreme freedom is consistent with the most perfect previous apprehension; but the most perfect apprehension of action includes the knowledge of conformity when it necessarily agrees with action.

329. When it is further argued that it would then be determined by something else [n.325], one must deny this by speaking of the determination that is done by a sufficient agent. For although it could not disagree with knowledge that is right and prior to action, yet it is not as if the intellect is by its knowledge a sufficient cause actively determining the will to act, but this is from the perfection of the will, which is of a nature only to act in conformity with the prior power in acting, when that prior power acts perfectly about its object, that is, when it knows in advance as much as it can know. But I say this about contingent things, of which the divine intellect does not have all the knowledge possible to it before any act of the will; therefore, as to those contingent things, I say that it is not necessary for it to act in conformity with the prior power, because it does not itself have in advance conform knowledge of such object. But it is otherwise as regards knowables that are of themselves necessary, because these contain the most perfect account of themselves without any act of will.Interpolation: “To the second [n.326] it can be said that it is not similar, because there is there simple being pleased, but here there circumstanced efficacious willing. Likewise, the divine will is not merely ostensive, but it is at least equivalently directive, because it is an objectual, though not potential, regulation and determination, which the Philosopher did not posit. - To the third [n.327] I say that, if it was conclusive, it would follow that there was neither any intellection nor any volition in God, since the divine essence is the moving object for both, and thus, along with the concurring part, it is a vital power as joint cause; I say therefore that there is only an order of quasi-effects of the same quasi-cause in the proposed case, which order however is not distinct from the quasi-effects, because these effects are neither properly caused nor produced, nor do they have a principle, nor are they elicited, but they simply flow out; the causality therefore is metaphorical, as commonly happens in divine reality. Or in another way, when upholding that the intellect in some way or other directs, the assumption is denied when speaking properly of cause. To the confirmation [n.327] I say that the order of nature suffices, which order stands along with simultaneity in duration of the knowledge for action and of the will for willing, and thus the answer is plain to the arguments, when one upholds the first way.” ⁸⁷

330. Now although this response seems to avoid the argument [n.325], and although the subsequent arguments might be avoided [n.326-327], yet one must respond otherwise and say that necessary theology in the divine intellect is not practical, because there is no natural priority of confirmative or directive intellection to the will to make it conform or to direct anything; because once any knowledge whatever of the rectitude of action has been posited, although it could of itself conform a conformable or directable power from without, yet it could not conform the divine will with respect to its own first object, because the will is rectified by itself alone with respect to that object, for either it naturally tends toward it or, if it tends freely, it is not of itself in any way as it were indifferent to rectitude or in any way from without as it were possessed of that rectitude, and so determinate knowledge of rectitude is not necessarily prior to volition as though the will required it in order to be rightly elicited; but all that is required in advance is the showing of the object; and the knowledge that is of itself directive it does not require in advance as directive but only as ostensive, and so if the mere showing of the object could precede the will and if knowledge of the rectitude necessary for action could follow (in the way that will be said of action about contingent things [n.333]), volition would be rightly elicited equally in this case as in that. Therefore intellection is not now prior and conformative or regulative.

331. To the argument, therefore, that proves the priority of knowledge of rectitude to right action [n.324], one can reply that although there is some priority of intellection to volition, yet it is not prior such that it requires right cognition to be prior to action, because such priority is priority of the rule to the thing ruled, which is not the sort there can be when the will is in every way its own rule in acting.

The sum of this controversy about the science God has with respect to himself, whether it is practical or not, consists in this: whether the knowledge which of itself would be directive in action, if it were granted that the power in the knower which is right or is active were directable in its acting, is practical from the fact alone that it is directive, or is not practical from the fact that the power in the knower which is active is not directable. He who holds one side or the other will answer accordingly.

332. [About the theology of contingent things] - From this is introduced the second article of the question, namely about the theology of contingent things, whether it is practical or not [nn.314, 324, 330; 1 d.38 q. un. nn.1-4]. I say that the theology of contingent things can be practical only in that intellect which can have determinate knowledge of the rectitude of action prior to all volition of the one who has the intellect, or prior to the elicited action itself, because only there is this theology of contingent things able to be or is conform to action and prior to it. Of such sort is every created intellect, because in the case of no created intelligence does the will first determine the contingent rectitude that is fitting to its action.

333. But in the divine intellect contingent theology cannot be practical if one holds onto these two points, namely that practical knowledge and the action to which it is extended ought necessarily to belong to the same supposit,Interpolation: “and if of another supposit, then it would be practical, because it would be of the directible or determinable power of the other supposit, namely of the power of some created supposit or other.” ⁸⁸ and that of God as an actor there is no action save volition (if one does not posit in him a third power other than intellect and will), for no knowledge conform to action or to a right contingent will precedes in the divine intellect its right action or God’s volition itself, because such rectitude is first determined by the will for that action.

334. The first point is true, for if any knowledge at all about someone else’s action is practical, then my knowledge of the fact that God creates the world or that an intelligence moves the heavens, will be practical. This at least seems to be conclusive, because the practical knowledge cannot belong to a lower intelligence or understanding when something else is acting according to the action in question, nor, by parity of reasoning, to a higher or equal intelligence if it is contributing nothing to the action of the doer; but if it does contribute something, the higher intelligence does now have its own action with respect to which its knowledge would be practical.

335. Again, if practical knowledge has any causality with respect to the action to which it is extended, and if it only naturally has such causality in the first respect of action in the one who understands, the thing proposed [n.333] seems to follow.

336. To the contrary: therefore about the same thing one intellect would have practical knowledge and another speculative, if action were possible to one intellect and not to the other.

One can say that perfect rectitude of action includes the circumstance of the doer just as it does the other circumstances as well, so that without it there is no rectitude. For if one takes ‘God is to be loved’ and does not add by what, namely by the will, it is not a practical truth completely, because God is not to be loved by a brute; therefore this perfect truth ‘God is to be loved by God’ is practical in any intellect whatever; thus too this truth ‘man should sometimes fast’ is practical not only to the man who knows it but also to an angel and to God; so also this truth is practical to man and to God ‘the heaven is to be moved by an angel’, - and I concede as something discordant what the first proof infers [n.334].

337. And if it be objected that the priority of practical knowledge to action is not preserved - for love with respect to himself is right before a man or an angel could understand ‘God is to be loved by God’ - I reply: this priority ought to be from the object and the intellect, that is, that it naturally determine the intellect to knowledge of determinate rectitude of action, namely as far as it is of itself in advance of action; in this way this object is of a nature to determine any intellect whatever to the knowledge ‘God is to be loved by God’ as far as it is of itself in advance of action, although some intellect, because of its own imperfection, is not determined before the acting power, because of its own perfection, acts.

338. To the other objection [n.336] I say that just as the will can be a superior cause with respect to the action of the moving power, not however any will at all with respect to any power at all, for example, not my will with respect to the moving power of an angel, but when it is in the same subject, so that if it is a practical cause with respect to action, this is in the same knower and the same doer; nor is it necessary that in someone else it be non-practical, unless one takes practical strictly for what is immediately applicable to a work to the extent it depends on the identity of subject in knower and doer, which immediacy is denoted [in Latin] by the infinitive that signifies the action when it is construed with the verb ‘to know’ - for in this way it is conceded that only God knows that he loves himself [Latin infinitive: ‘to love himself’]infinitely although an angel might know that he is to be infinitely loved by himself.

339. Someone who thus responds must from the beginning concede that every truth about the action of created agents is known by some acting intellect, because all these truths are of a nature to be conform to action, or to determine the rectitude of action (whether from the object if they are necessary, or from something else if they are contingent), before the action is elicited. But all truths about divine volition are practical if necessary but not practical if contingent, because these, in advance of the action’s being elicited to which they are extended, do not have conformity, for they do not have any determination of rectitude; for example, God knows practically that man should repent and that the angel should move, but not that God should wish a holy man to repent and an angel to move.

340. If you ask of what sort theology of contingents is in itself when not compared with this intellect or with that, one can say that it is in itself the sort it is from its object; but from its object it is not conform to action in advance of every action, because no determinate knowledge of contingent rectitude is of a nature to be had from the object; therefore from its object it is not practical, therefore it is speculative, if knowledge is sufficiently divided between these [n.303]. Congruent with this is that in the divine intellect it is denied to be practical [n.333]; for a thing seems to be such in itself as it is in a perfect instance in that genus and not as it is in an imperfect one.

341. If it be objected that then knowledge in itself speculative is for someone practical, to wit for a created intellect, therefore the practical is not repugnant to the speculative, I reply: to be speculative from the object is to be speculative per se; so, to be practical from an object that sufficiently determines the intellect to knowledge of rectitude - and if sufficiently then prior to volition - is to be practical per se. It is in this way that these two are opposed, as are also these ‘not-extendable to action’ and ‘extendable to action’. But to be practical from something other than the object, to wit from an extrinsic cause, as from the will determining the intellect to knowledge of action, is to be accidentally practical; thus I concede that the theology of contingent things is practical for us, though in itself it is speculative.

342. Against this: that to which one opposite per se belongs the other opposite belongs neither per se nor per accidens; therefore knowledge in itself speculative is not practical either per se or per accidens.

I reply: although the antecedent might be expounded of per se in the first or in the second way, not however in the third way, the way in which it signifies the same as the solitary [Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a-34-b10], yet I concede that in no way of inhering does the opposite of this predicate inhere which is ‘per se practical’ or of this predicate ‘per se speculative’, because contingent theology per se in the second way is per se practical or speculative, so that the inherence is both per se and the predicate is determined by the ‘per se’. But to be per accidens practical is per accidens not opposed to that inherence, just as to be black simply and to be white in some respect are not opposed; for ‘in some respect’ and ‘simply’ determine predicates as they are denominative. If it is argued ‘it is per se to be per se speculative, therefore it is per se speculative’, I concede the point, but to this predicate the predicate ‘per accidens practical’ is not opposed.

343. But if the one of these two [n.333] that is held by that response is not held, then it can be conceded that contingent theology, although it is not in itself practical because not so from its object, yet in every intellect created and uncreated it would be practical per accidens, because in the divine intellect it can be conform to action before the action is elicited by a created will; for the intellect of God knew that the adult sinner in the New Law should be punished before the sinner is punished. And by not holding to the first of the two above mentioned, the knowledge of God about the action of some other actor is practical; also by not holding to the second of them, to wit by positing the action of God extrinsically to be an action of his formally different from the will of God, although the divine intellect does not know by any ‘it must be created’ before his will wills it, yet he knows before he creates, and so conform knowledge precedes the extrinsic action, although it is not conform from the object but from something else.

344. This at any rate I hold to, that the theology of contingents is not practical per se or from its object; yet for a created intellect it can be practical per accidens, and that in the intelligence to whom it belongs to act according to the action for which rectitude is determined by the divine will. But as to whether it is practical to the divine will, by holding those two positions [n.333] or the opposites [n.343] it is plain what should be said as a consequence. These three things, however, seem to be probable: first, that the practical is regulative in the action of the contingent, and second that it is regulative of the power of the doer who is set right by something other than himself, and third that in God the only power that acts is will. From the first and third it follows that if divine knowledge is practical, it is rectificatory or regulative in divine volition; but this is false from the second of those things that were said [n.333], because the will of itself first rightly elicits willing with respect to the first object, but with respect to the second objects, which it is contingently related to, it is determined by itself alone, not by any preceding knowledge of rectitude.