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

1. On the first distinction,Rubric by Scotus: “On the object of enjoyment two questions are asked, on the act of enjoying itself two questions are asked, and on the one who enjoys five questions are asked.” ¹ where the MasterMaster Peter Lombard, the author of the Sentences, around which the Ordinatio is organized. ² treats of enjoying and using, I ask first about the object of enjoyment itself, and first whether the object of enjoyment per se is the ultimate end.

Argument that it is not:

First, by the authority of Augustine On 83 Diverse Questions q.30: “Invisible goods are what is to be enjoyed;” but there are many invisible goods;   therefore the ultimate end is not the only thing to be enjoyed.

2. Again, by reason: the capacity of the enjoyer is finite because the idea or nature of the subject is finite; therefore the capacity can be satisfied by something finite. But whatever satisfies the capacity of the enjoyer should be enjoyed; therefore etc     .

3. Again, there is something greater than the capacity of the soul, as God, who is sufficient for himself, and something less than the capacity of it, as the body; therefore there is something in the middle, namely what is equal to the capacity of it; this thing is less than God; therefore I have the proposition intended, that not only God or the ultimate end is to be enjoyed.

4. Again, any form at all satisfies the capacity of matter; therefore any object at all satisfies the capacity of a power. The proof of the consequence is that a power relates to the object through the form received; and if one received form satisfies intrinsically, the result is that the object that the power relates to through the form satisfies extrinsically or terminatively. The proof of the antecedent is that if any form does not satisfy the matter, then the matter, while that form is persisting in it, would be naturally inclined to another form, and it would as a result be violently at rest under that first form, for whatever prohibits something from what it has a natural inclination to is violent for it, as is clear in the case of a heavy body at rest away from the center.

5. Again, the intellect assents more firmly to a truth other than the first truth;     therefore , by similarity of reasoning, the will can assent more firmly to a good other than the first good.Interpolation: “Again, Ambrose [Ambrosiaster On Galatians ch.5, 22] on the verse of Galatians 5.2223: ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,’ etc., says that he here speaks, not of ‘works’, but of ‘fruits’, because they are to be sought for their own sake; but what is to be sought for its own sake is enjoyable; therefore it is fitting to enjoy virtues; but the virtues are not the ultimate end; therefore etc. And there is a confirmation of the reason, that the good is by its essence the due object of enjoyment; but the virtues are good by their essence.” ³

6. To the opposite is Augustine On Christian Doctrine 1 ch.5 n.5: “The things one should enjoy are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one thing,” therefore etc     .

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.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Again, a power that is inclined to many objects does not rest per se in any single one of them perfectly unless that one includes all the per se objects as far as they can be most perfectly included in any single object; but the enjoying power is inclined to all being as to its per se object; therefore it does not most perfectly rest in any single being unless that being includes all other beings as far as these can be included in any single being. But they can be most perfectly included in one infinite being; therefore the power can only rest there in 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.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Again, I reduce [Avicenna’s] reason [n.9] to the opposite, because the second intelligence causes a third intelligence - supposing one concede to him that it does cause it -only in virtue of the first intelligence; therefore it does not complete it by its own virtue but by a foreign virtue. But what completes something by reason of another thing does not bring that something to rest, nor does that something rest save in that other thing; therefore etc.” ⁵

13. OthersE.g. Bonaventure. ⁶ 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;Interpolation: “because within the power of any agent whatever is acting and the mode of acting.” 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.

II. To the Principal Arguments

18. To the first principal argument [n.1] I say that ‘to enjoy’ is taken in an extended sense for a love of the honorable that is distinct from love of the useful or of the pleasant; or ‘things honorable’ [sc. invisible goods] are there spoken of in the plural, not because of a plurality of essences, but because of a plurality of enjoyable perfections in God.

19. To the second [n.2] I say that a relation to a term or object that is simply infinite is necessarily finite, because what is for an end is, insofar as it is such, finite, even when taken as altogether proximate to the end, namely when taken along with everything that suffices for immediately attaining the ultimate end, and yet the idea of end, to which it is immediately related, is based only on the infinite. And this often happens in the case of relations of proportions or of proportionalities, but not of likenesses, because the first extremes are there maximally dissimilar. Thus in the proposed case I say that the relation between the power and the object is not one of likeness but of proportion, and therefore a finite capacity can be finite in nature, in the way its nature is finite, and yet be related to a term or object, as to its correlative, that is simply infinite.Interpolation: “just as any being whatever for an end, however finite it may, is yet never referred to the ultimate end unless that ultimate end is infinite. Or in another way, and it comes back to the same, one should say that although the appetite of a creature is, in its subject, finite, yet it is not so in its object, because it is for an infinite end. - And if an argument is made about adequacy, namely that an adequate object satisfies, one should say that adequacy is twofold, namely in entity, and this requires a likeness in the nature of the things that are made adequate, and there is no such adequacy between the created power of enjoyment and the enjoyable object; the other adequacy is according to proportion and correspondence, which necessarily requires a diversity in the natures that are made adequate, and such adequacy does exist between the power of enjoyment and the enjoyable object. An example about adequacy between matter and form” [n.21]. ⁸

On the contrary, an adequate object would satisfy. - I reply: not one that is adequate in reality, but one adequate in the idea of object; such adequacy accords with proportion and correspondence.

20. I use the same reply to the other argument [n.3], that nothing is greater in the idea of object than the object that is proportioned to the soul; yet there is something greater, namely something that is attainable in a greater or better way than can be attained by the soul, but this ‘greater’ is not in the object but in the act. I explain this by an example: if one posits some white object that has ten grades of visibility, and if one posits a sight that grasps that white thing and some whiteness according to one grade and another more perfect sight that grasps them according to the ten grades, the second sight will perfectly grasp that white thing as to all grades of its visibility, because it will see that object with as much whiteness as can on the part of the object be seen; and yet if there were a third sight, more perfect than the second and more acute, it will see that white thing more perfectly. Hence there will not in that case be an excess on the part of the visible thing and of the object in itself, or of the grades of the object, because simply and in its uniform disposition it is the same thing, but the excess will be on the part of the seers and the acts of seeing.

21. To the fourth [n.4] I say that not just any form satisfies the appetite of matter in its total extent, because there are as many appetites of matter to forms as there are forms that can be received in matter; therefore no one form can satisfy all matter’s appetites, but one form might satisfy it most perfectly, namely the most perfect form; but that form would not satisfy all the appetites of matter unless in that one form were included all the others. To the proposed case, then, I say that one object can include all objects in a way, and therefore only that object would make the power rest to the extent that the power can be made to rest.Text cancelled by Scotus: “as was argued in the second article against Avicenna [n.10: canceled text in footnote 3].” ⁹ But things are not altogether alike as to internal and external rest, because anything that is receptive is at rest internally when some finite thing has been received; but externally or terminatively it ought not to rest in something finite, because it can be ordered to something more perfect than it can receive formally in itself; because a finite thing can only receive a finite form although it very well has an infinite object. - When it is proved that any form brings matter to rest, because otherwise it would be violently at rest under any form whatever [n.4], I say that violent rest never happens except when the thing at rest is determinately inclined to the opposite, as in the example of a heavy object with respect to descent downwards and its being at rest on a beam [n.4]; but prime matter is inclined thus determinately to no form, and therefore it is at rest under any form at all; it is not violently at rest but naturally, because of its indeterminate inclination to any form.

22. To the fifth [n.5] I say that the intellect assents to any truth because of the evidence of that very truth - the evidence which the truth produces naturally of itself in the intellect - and therefore it is not in the power of the intellect to assent to a truth more or less firmly but only according to the proportion of the very truth that moves it; but it is in the power of the will to assent more intensely to the good, or not to assent, although less perfectly than when the good is seen, and therefore the consequence does not hold of the true with respect to the intellect as it does of the good with respect to the will.Interpolation: “To the sixth [footnote to n.5] one must say that ‘to seek for its own sake’ is double, either formally, and in this way the virtues of which Ambrose speaks are to be sought after, or finally, and in this way only God is to be sought after. And to the confirmation one should say that being by its essence, or being such by its essence, in one way is distinguished from ‘accidentally’, and in this way any thing is what it is by its essence; in another way existing by its essence is distinguished from that which exists by another, and thus only God exists by his essence; for he is not reduced to any other prior being that might be more perfect than he or be his measure, and thus too only God is good by his essence.” ¹⁰

Question 2. Whether the ultimate end has only the one idea of enjoyability

23. Second I inquire whether the ultimate end has only one idea of enjoyability, or whether there is in it some distinction according to which the will could enjoy it in respect of one idea and not in respect of another.

And that there is in it such a distinction the proof is:

Because in Ethics 1.4.1096a23-27, in the paragraph, “But further, because the good^” the Philosopher says, and the Commentator [Eustratius Explanations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1 ch.6 (17E)], that, just as being and one are in all the categories, so also is good, and he speaks there specifically of the category of relation; therefore just as relation has its own goodness, so also does it have its own enjoyability, and consequently, since there are different relations in God, there will be in him different ideas of being enjoyable.

24. Again, just as one is convertible with being, so also is good; therefore, when these are transferred to God, they are transferred equally. Therefore just as one is an essential and a personal feature in God, so also is good and goodness; therefore just as there are three unities in divine reality, so are there three goodnesses, and the intended proposition is as a result obtained.

25. Further, an act does not terminate in an object insofar as the object is numbered unless the object is numbered as it is the formal object; but the act of enjoying terminates in the three persons insofar as they are three; therefore the object of enjoyment is numbered insofar as it is the formal object.

26. Proof of the minor: we believe in God insofar as he is Triune;     therefore we will see God insofar as he is Triune, because vision succeeds to faith according to the complete perfection of faith [Prologue n.217]; therefore we will enjoy God insofar as he is Triune.

27. To the opposite: In every essential order there is only one first, therefore in the order of ends there is only one end; but enjoyment is in respect of the end; therefore etc     .

28. Again, to the first efficient cause the ultimate end corresponds; but there is only one first efficient cause, and one under a single idea; therefore there is only one end. - The reasons is confirmed too, because the unity of the efficient cause is so great that one person cannot so cause without the other person so causing; therefore likewise the unity of the end is so great that one person cannot be end without the other person being end, and the intended proposition follows. - This second reason is confirmed by Augustine On the Trinity V ch.14 n.15: “The Father,” he says, “and the Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit as they are one Creator with respect to the creature.”

29. Again, just as there is in God one majesty, so also there is one goodness; but there is owed to him because of his majesty only one adoration, according to Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.8, such that it is not possible to adore one person without adoring the other;Interpolation: “as it seems.” ¹¹ therefore it is not possible to enjoy one person without adoring the other.

I. To the Question

30. This question could have a fourfold difficulty according to the fourfold distinction in divine things, the first of which is the distinction of essence from person, the second the distinction of person from person, the third the distinction of essence from attributes, and the fourth the distinction of essence from ideas. About the third and fourth distinctions I will not now speak, because it has not been shown of what sort that distinction is nor whether the things distinguished pertain to enjoyment [cf. 1 d.8 p.1 q.4 nn.1-26; d.35 q.un nn.12-16]. Therefore we must only look now into the first two distinctions.

And as concerns those two distinctions one must first see about the enjoyment of the wayfarer as to its possibility, second one must see about the enjoyment of the comprehender and that when speaking of absolute divine power, third about the enjoyment of the comprehender speaking about the power of the creature, fourth when speaking of the enjoyment in fact of the wayfarer and of the comprehender.

A. On the Enjoyment of the Wayfarer as to its Possibility

31. About the first I say that it is possible for the wayfarer to enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person, and this is even possible in the case of ordered enjoyment. My proof for this is that according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2: “if essence is said relatively it is not essence, because every essence which is said relatively is something after the relative has been removed;” from which he concludes: “wherefore, if the Father is not something for himself, he is not something which can be said relative to another.” The divine essence, then, is some conceivable object in whose concept relation is not included, therefore it can be thus conceived by the wayfarer; but essence thus conceived has the idea of the supreme good, therefore it also has the perfect idea of enjoyability; therefore one can also enjoy it in an ordered way.

32. A confirmation of this reason is that one can deduce from purely natural facts that the supreme good is one, and yet from those natural facts we do not conceive God as he is Triune; therefore about the supreme good thus conceived one can have some act of the will, and not necessarily a disordered act; therefore one will have an ordered act of enjoyment about the essence and not about the person as we now conceive the person. The converse, however, is not possible, namely that one might enjoy in an ordered way the person without enjoying the essence, because the person includes the essence in the idea of itself.

33. Second I say also that the wayfarer can enjoy in an ordered way one person without enjoying another. My proof is that with respect to the three persons there are three distinct articles of faith; therefore one person can be conceived to whom one article corresponds, and then in that person the idea of the supreme good is conceived; one can therefore enjoy the person thus conceived without enjoying another.

If you say the person is a relative notion, therefore it cannot be conceived unless its correlative is conceived, I reply: although the knowledge of a relative requires knowledge of its correlative, it is nevertheless not necessary that the knower and enjoyer of one relative know and enjoy the other relative, because it is possible to enjoy God insofar as he is Creator without enjoying the creature that is nevertheless the term of that relation. - Likewise, although the Father is said correlatively to the Son and therefore cannot be understood insofar as he is Father without the Son being understood, yet he is not said relatively to the Holy Spirit insofar as he is Father; therefore it will be possible to conceive the Father as Father and to enjoy him without conceiving and enjoying the Holy Spirit.

B. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender when Speaking of the Absolute Power of God

34. About the second article [n.30] it is asserted that it is not possible, when speaking of the absolute power of God, that anyone who comprehends should enjoy the divine essence without enjoying the person.

The proof of this is first about vision [about enjoyment see nn. 40-41], namely that it is not possible absolutely for any intellect to see the divine essence without seeing the person:

The first proof is thus, that confused knowledge is imperfect knowledge; the vision of that essence cannot be imperfect; therefore the visual knowledge of it cannot be confused. But if it were knowledge alone or vision alone - about the essence and not about the person or of the essence and not of the person - it would be confused vision, because it would be of something common to the persons and would not be of the persons, which seems discordant.

35. The second is as follows: vision is of what is existent as it existent and as it is present to the seer according to its existence; and in this respect vision is distinguished from abstractive understanding, because the latter can be of what is not existent or of what is existent insofar as it is not present in itself; and this distinction in the intellect between intuitive and abstractive understanding is like the distinction in the sensitive part between act of vision and act of imagination. Intuitive knowledge of the divine essence, then, is other than knowledge which is abstractive, because the former is vision of his existence as it is existent and as it is, according to its existence, present to the knowing power; but the divine essence only exists in the person; therefore there can only be vision of it in the person.

36. Again, something in which there are many things distinct on the part of the nature of the thing cannot be known by intuitive knowledge unless all those things are also distinctly and perfectly seen. An example: whiteness is not seen distinctly unless all the parts at the base of a pyramid are seen, which parts are distinct on the part of the nature of the thing. But the persons are in their essence also distinct on the part of the nature of the thing; therefore the essence is not distinctly seen unless the persons are seen.

37. From this there is an argument to the intended proposition [n.34] as concerns the second distinction, namely the distinction of the persons among themselves [n.30], because if the essence cannot be seen save in the person - and it is not seen more in one person than in another, because it is seen with equal immediacy to be related to any person whatever - therefore it cannot be seen unless it is seen in any person whatever, and so it is not seen in one person without being seen in another.

38. There is also an argument that goes further to the enjoying proposed [n.34], because the will cannot abstract its object beyond what the intellect can display of it; therefore if the intellect cannot distinctly display the essence without the person or the person without the person, then neither can the will distinctly enjoy them.

39. And there is a confirmation for this too, that the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of the object unless a distinction either real or in idea is posited on the part of the object; but if the intellect apprehends the essence and person indistinctly, there will not be on the part of the object a distinction either real or in idea; therefore the will cannot have a distinct act on the part of a distinction in the first object. That there is not a real distinction on the part of the object is plain; the proof that there is not a distinction in idea is that the intellect does not distinctively comprehend, or does not distinctly apprehend, this and that; therefore it does not distinguish this and that.

40. On the part of enjoyment the argument is as follows: enjoyment gives rest to the enjoyer; one person does not without another give rest perfectly to the enjoyment of the enjoyer, nor does the essence without the person, because then the power that is at rest therein could not be made to be at further rest; nor can it be made to be at rest in anything else, because what is at ultimate rest is not able to be made to be at further rest, and consequently that power could not be made to be at rest in another person or to enjoy it, which is false.

41. Again, if it were at rest in this person alone, and it is plain that it can enjoy another person, then either the enjoyment of the other person can exist with the enjoyment of this person, or these enjoyments will not be compossible, so that one of them will not exist with the other; if in the first way then two acts of the same species will exist at the same time in the same power, each of which acts is equal to the capacity of the power, which is impossible; if in the second way then neither act will be enjoyment, because neither act will be able to be perpetual.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Again, in our soul there is by nature the image of the Trinity; therefore the soul cannot be made to rest except in the Trinity; therefore it cannot enjoy anything in an ordered way except the Triune God.” ¹²

42. [Scotus’ own opinion] - As to this article [n.34] I say that, speaking about the absolute power of God, there seems to be no contradiction in its being possible on the part of the intellect and on the part of the will that the act of each should be terminated in the essence and not in the person, or terminated in one person and not in another, to wit that the intellect should see the essence and not the person, or see one person and not the other, and that the will should enjoy the essence and not the person or enjoy one person and not the other.

43. Proof for this is as follows:Text cancelled by Scotus: “The Father is in origin perfectly blessed before he generates the Son, because he gets from the person produced no perfection intrinsic to himself. Blessedness is a perfection intrinsic to the blessed person. But if in the prior stage the Father is perfectly blessed, then in the prior stage he has the object as making perfectly blessed; but he does not seem in that prior stage to have an essence communicated as object to the three persons, but an essence absolutely, or an essence as it is in one person only; per se then it is not of the idea of the essence as it is the beatific object that it beatify insofar as it is communicated to the three persons, and so there seems to be no contradiction, either as to enjoyment or as to vision. Response: the Father has the essence for object as it is in the three persons, and yet he has it first according to origin, because he has it of himself as an object for himself, and this is to be first in origin; but there is no other priority there according to which his essence, as it exists in one person and not as it exists in another, is an object for himself, just as neither in any prior stage of nature is it an object for one person and not for another, but it is an object only for one person from himself and an object for another person not from himself. On the contrary: any of the persons whatever understands formally with the intellect as it exists in that person, not as it exists in another person, nor as it exists in all three, from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12; therefore in this way it seems that each person understands by perfectly understanding the essence as it exists formally in that person; therefore perfect understanding, which is beatific understanding, does not necessarily of itself require that the essence is understood as it exists in the three persons. Proof of the consequence: the intelligible thing is required for understanding no less than the intellect; therefore in one who understands perfectly of himself there is required no less that he have in himself the object as it is formally intelligible than that he have in himself the intellect whereby he understands. The reason is confirmed because if the Father were by the beatific vision to understand the essence as it is in the Son, therefore he would as it were receive something from the Son, or from something as it exists in the Son. The consequence is proved by the argument of the Philosopher in Metaphysics 12.9.1074b28-35, where he proves that God does not understand something other than himself, because then his understanding would be cheapened since it would receive perfection from the intelligible thing; therefore it is so here, nay rather, what is more discordant, the Father would as it were receive perfection simply, which is the beatific vision, from the three persons as from three objects, or from something as it exists in the three. And then two absurdities seem to follow: first that the Father does not have all perfection from himself, because of the fact that the whole and essential perfection simply is not in any person prior to the properties, but some part of it is as it were posterior to the persons themselves, namely the part that is from the object as it exists in the three. Again, if the intellect as it exists in something produced were the principle of the Father’s beatitude, the Father would not be blessed of himself, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12; therefore if the essence as it exists in the thing produced were the per se object of beatitude, the Father will not be blessed of himself. The proof of the consequence is that the object as object is no less required for beatitude than is the intellect. Response: it is required as present but not as existent within; the intellect is required as existent within, because by it one formally understands; not so by the object. An example: [the Archangel] Michael is not blessed except by his intellect existing within him; but he is blessed by an object that does not exist within him, and he would be naturally blessed if he naturally had the object present to him although not existent in him; not so with the intellect. On the contrary: of whatever sort something is of itself, it would be of that sort even if, per impossibile, any other thing whatever did not exist. Again, the Father would receive something from the Son, or from something as it exists in the Son, as from the object of his beatitude; that which exists of itself does not necessarily require for its being anything which is not of itself, and this with a necessity as great as the necessity with which a dependent thing requires what it depends on. This reason very well concludes that the Father has of himself, not only on the part of the intellect but also on the part of the object, the source whereby he is blessed, and consequently that he has of himself the essence as the essence is what makes him blessed; not, however, as it exists in the three, because in this way an object present of itself is required just as an intellect of itself is required, so that he might be blessed of himself. Here is a brief enthymeme: he is blessed of himself; therefore he has of himself the object as it is the beatific object; but he does not of himself have that object as beatific object as it exists in the three, because then as it exists in the Son it would per se as it were act on the beatitude of the Father. Response: in comparison with the Father, the essence as essence is the first beatifying object, although it at the same time necessarily beatifies in the three; thus too does it necessarily understand creatures, although it does not expect understanding from them but from the essence which it has of itself; thus the first object can, in comparison with the created intellect, be posited without the second object. The manner of positing it is as follows: etc. [as in the body of the text]. ¹³ some act has a first object on which it essentially depends, and it has a second object on which it does not essentially depend but does tend toward it in virtue of the first object; although, therefore, the act could not stay the same in the same way unless it had a relation to the first object, yet it could stay the same without a relation to the second object, because it does not depend on the second object. An example: the act of seeing the divine essence is the same act as that of seeing other things in the divine essence, but the essence is the first object and the seen things are the secondary object; now the seeing could not stay the same unless it was of the same essence, but it could stay the same without being of the things seen in the essence. Just as God, then, could without contradiction cooperate with that act insofar as it tends to the first object and not insofar as it tends to the second object, and yet it will be the same act, so he can without contradiction cooperate with the seeing of the essence, because the essence has the idea of the first object, but not cooperate with the same act of seeing or of enjoying insofar as it tends to the person, and, by parity of reasoning, insofar as it tends to one person and not to another.

44. From this comes response to the arguments against this way [n.34]. As to what is said first about confused vision [n.34], I say that the universal in creatures is divided among its singular instances; but this ‘to be divided’ is a mark of imperfection and so it does not belong to what is common in God, nay the divine essence, which is common to the three persons, is of itself a ‘this’. So that is why knowledge of some universal abstracted from singulars is confused and imperfect, because the object is confused, being divided among the things which are confusedly conceived in it. But the knowledge of the divine essence is distinct, because it is of an object that is of itself a ‘this’, and yet there is no need that in this distinctly conceived object the person be distinctly conceived or known, because the person is not the first term of enjoyment or of vision, as has been said [n.32].

45. To the second, when the argument is made about existent essence     etc . [n.35], I say that it is necessary that the term of vision be existent as far as it is existent, but it is not necessary that subsistence, i.e. incommunicable essence, belong to the idea of the terminus of vision. But the divine essence is of itself a ‘this’ and actually existent, although it does not of its idea include incommunicable subsistence, and therefore      it can as a ‘this’ be the terminus of vision without the persons being seen. An example: a white thing is seen intuitively insofar as it is existent and is present to vision according to its existence; but it is not necessary that the white thing be seen as subsistent or insofar as it has the idea of a supposit, because it does not have the idea of a supposit, nor does it have the supposit in which it exists or is seen. As to the form of the argument, then, it is plain that although vision is of the existent insofar as it is existent, and although it is existent only in a person, yet the inference does not follow ‘therefore it is of the existent insofar as it exists in a person’, but what should be inferred is only that it is of what subsists or exists in the subsistent.

46. To the third [n.36] I say that the first proposition is false except when the first thing seen in those things that are distinct on the part of the nature of the thing is itself distinct, as is clear in your example about the base of the pyramid, for whiteness and a seen white thing are distinguished into the parts in which they are seen, and therefore the white thing is not distinctly seen unless the parts in which the seen white thing is distinguished are distinctly seen. But in the intended proposition, although the divine persons are distinguished on the part of the thing, yet the seen essence is not distinguished in them, because it is of itself a ‘this’; therefore the essence can be distinctly seen without the persons that subsist in it being seen.

47. As to the further deduction about the will [n.38], although there is no need to reply to it, because the antecedent must be denied, yet one can reply that the consequence does not seem to be necessary. When it is said that ‘the will does not abstract more than the intellect displays’, I say that the intellect can show some first object to the will and in that first object something that is a per se object and not first (and here the whole of that in which the act of the power terminates is called ‘first object’, and what is included per se in the object that first terminates is called ‘per se object’). Now each idea there shown [the idea of first object and of per se object] suffices for the will to have its own act with respect to it; for there is no need that the will wills the whole of the first object shown, but it can will the first object shown and not will what is shown in that first object shown. Take the following sort of example: in bishop-hood is shown priesthood; such showing suffices for the will to have an act of willing or of not willing with respect to priesthood, so that it could from this showing have an act of willing with respect to bishop-hood and not with respect to priesthood; and yet there is only one showing, and a showing of one first object, in which first object however is included something as per se object. I say that the will does not abstract the universal from the singular, but there are many willed things shown by the understanding to the will, and this understanding is of several different things included in the first object, each of which, as thus shown, can be willed by the will.

48. To the confirmation, when it is said that ‘the object differs either in reality or in idea’ [n.39], I say that it differs in idea. And when the proof is given that it does not, ‘because the intellect does not conceive this distinctly from that’ [n.39], I say that a distinction of reason does not require that the intellect possess them as distinct objects, but it is enough that it conceive them in the first object.

49. To the point about rest [n.40] I say that the Father rests in his essence as it is in himself; nor does it follow that ‘therefore he cannot rest in it as it is in the Son or the Holy Spirit’, for rather he rests in the essence as communicated to them and does so with the same rest with which he rests in the essence as it is in himself. For that which rests first in some object rests in it as to whatever it is according to that mode of it; so here, if the blessed were to enjoy the essence first and then the person, they would not rest with a further rest beyond what they were resting with before but with the same rest, because the object is complete in giving rest as it exists in any one of them and was not first complete as it existed in that one.

50. Using this in answer to the fifth argument [n.41] I say that there will not be two acts there, because whatever act there is of enjoyment or of vision there is of the first object under one formal idea; but that one act can be of everything or of the object per se by virtue of the first object, or it can be only of the first object itself; there will not then be two acts, at the same time or in succession, of the same species.Text cancelled by Scotus: “To the other point about the image [in footnote 7 above] the response is clear from what has just been said.” ¹⁴

C. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender when Speaking of the Power of the Creature

51. As to the third article about the power of the creature [n.30] I say that the intellect cannot by its own natural power see the essence without seeing the person, because, since the intellect is of itself a natural and not a free power, when the object acts the intellect acts as much as it can; therefore if the object on its own part acts by manifesting the three persons to the intellect, it is not in the power of the intellect to see part of what is shown and not to see some other part of what is shown.

52. Likewise neither is it in the power of the will to have ordered enjoyment thus by not enjoying thus, because just as it is not in the power of the will not to enjoy in an ordered way (for if it was not enjoying, though unimpeded in this respect, it would be sinning and deserving not to enjoy), so it is not in the power of the will to enjoy something in an ordered way and not to enjoy whatever it can enjoy; and therefore it is not in its power, while remaining in an ordered state, not to have enjoyment under any idea under which it can have enjoyment.Text cancelled by Scotus: “But about the absolute power of the will there is more doubt. However it can be said there that it is not in the power of the will to enjoy in this way and not to enjoy in this way, because although it is in the power of the will that some act be brought to be or not be brought to be, yet it is not in its power that the act once brought to be should or should not have the condition that naturally belongs to the act from the nature of its object. An example: although it is in the power of the will to elicit or not to elicit a sinful act, yet if the act, once brought to be, is disordered, it is not in the power of the will that the act so brought to be should or should not be disordered; now the act of enjoyment, as far as the nature of its first object is concerned, is naturally of the three persons in the essence, because on the part of the object - barring some miracle - it will of itself be of the three persons; therefore it does not seem to be in the power of the will that an act brought to be should or should not be of the essence as it exists in the three persons. If you say that this reason concludes that it is not in the power of God that an act be of the essence and not of the three persons, I say that the conclusion does not follow, for the elicited act is in the power of God as to any condition that might naturally from the object be within his competence, and yet the act as to that condition is not within created power. An example: it is in the power of God that an act elicited by a sinful will be referred back to God because God refers it back to himself, but it is not in the power of the will, once the act has been brought to be, that the will use that act for God because the creature is enjoying the act; but it cannot at the same time enjoy a thing other than God and use that same thing for God. - The example does not, however, seem to be a good one, because that act of the sinner is referred back by one power and not by another. Let the example be dismissed then, and let the reason be held onto, because an accident necessarily consequent to an act once it has been brought to be cannot not be in the act as long as the act persists, and this accident is something subject to the divine will, though not to the created will which elicits it; so let it be said of a condition which, in respect of a secondary object, the act is of a nature necessarily, as far as depends on itself, to have, though not essentially to have; therefore that the condition not be present in the act is something subject to the divine will.” ¹⁵

53. On the contrary: whatever is not necessarily concomitant to an act is within the power of the will that elicits the act; or in this way: whatever the act of will does not necessarily regard, the will itself, which elicits the act, also does not necessarily regard; or in this way: whatever can be separated as it is the terminus of the act of will can also be separated in respect of the power as eliciting the act.

D. On the Enjoyment of the Comprehender and of the Wayfarer when Speaking of the Fact of it

54. As to the article about the fact [n.30] I say that in fact there will be one vision and one enjoyment of the essence in three persons. And this is what Augustine says On the Trinity I ch.8 n.17: “Neither can be shown without the other,” and he is speaking of the Father and the Son; but the remark is to be understood of ordained power, of which Philip spoke when wanting the Father to be shown to him [John 14.8], as if he could in fact have seen the Son without the Father. And Augustine treats there of the words of

Philip and Christ’s response. Augustine also means this in On the Trinity XV ch.16 n.26: “Perhaps we will see the whole of our knowledge in one view all at once.” And the fact that he says ‘perhaps’ does not refer to the beatific object but to the other things to be seen in it.

55. Likewise about the wayfarer I say that in fact necessarily the habitual, though not the actual, ordered enjoyment is of the three persons together; for no wayfarer or comprehender can have ordered enjoyment of one person without enjoying the other (that is, unless he habitually enjoys the other, namely that he is in proximate disposition to enjoying that other), if this person is conceived distinctly from that; and therefore enjoyment of one persons does not stand with hatred of a second person, because, as the Savior said, John 15.23: “he who hates me hates my Father also.”

II. To the Arguments

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.

B. To the Reasons for the Opposite

59. To the reasons for the opposite. To the first [n.27] I say that there is only one ultimate end in itself, although it has several distinct ideas which are not formally ideas of the ultimate end, and so one can enjoy it under the idea of the ultimate end without enjoying it under those ideas.

60. To the second [n.28] I say that, as was said in the preceding question [n.14], it is per accidens that the idea of efficient cause and the idea of end come together in the same thing, yet in fact there is one formal idea of the end itself just as there is one formal idea of the efficient cause itself, but in that one idea the power can be at rest although it is not at rest in the personal ideas that are in that end.

As to the confirmation when it is said that ‘one person cannot cause unless the other causes, therefore one person cannot terminate the act of enjoyment unless the other terminates it’ [n.28], I say that the conclusion does not follow; for while it does very well follow that one person from the nature of the thing is not the end unless the other person is the end, this conclusion does not follow about the end of the act as the act is elicited from the power, because the end of the act as elicited is that to which the power as eliciting orders the act and for the sake of which it elicits the act. But the end from the nature of the thing is the good, to which the act of its own nature is naturally ordered, not indeed by reason of the object which is attained by the act, but in the way that all created natures are in their degree ordered to the ultimate end.

To the authority from Augustine On the Trinity [n.28], what is said there about the fact and the formal reason for the fact is plain.

61. To the final point about adoration [n.29] I say that there is one habitual adoration of the three persons, because whoever adores one of them habitually is subjecting himself to the whole Trinity; but this need not be the case actually; for he need not think actually of another person when he adores one of them, as is plain about someone praying to one of the persons by a prayer that is not directed actually to another person, as is clear in the case of the hymn ‘Come, Creator Spirit’, and in the case of many prayers established in the Church. Hence it is that the prayers of the Church are frequently directed to the Father and at the end the Son is brought in as mediator; therefore when someone actually directs his intention to adoring the Father, he need not then actually think of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, until after he introduces the Son in his adoration and thought, namely as mediator. And just as there is the same adoration in habit but not the same in act, so there is the same enjoyment in habit although not necessarily the same in act.

First Distinction. Second Part. On Enjoying in Itself

Question 1. Whether enjoying is an act elicited by the will or a passion received in the will

62. Next in order I ask about enjoying in itself, and first - on the supposition that it is something precisely of the will - I ask whether it is an act elicited by the will or a passion received in the will, to wit delight.

That it is delight my proof is:

Because the fruit is the final thing expected from a tree, and enjoying is said of fruit; but the ultimate fruit is not the eating itself but the delight is, because of which fruit is eaten and for which fruit is sought. Things are similar, then, in spiritual matters, namely that fruit is the final thing expected from the object; but delight is of this sort; because delight also follows the act, Ethics 10.4.1174b31-33,     therefore it is the final thing; therefore etc     .

63. Again, Galatians 5.22: “The fruits of the Spirit are peace, joy,     etc .” All these things are passions - and especially joy, which is delight - or they are at least not acts but things consequent to act; but fruit is what we per se enjoy; therefore      enjoying is Interpolation: “Thirdly, Augustine On the Trinity X ch.10 n.13: ‘We enjoy things known, in which the very will in itself rests delighted’. So delight either is the same as enjoyment, and the proposition is gained, or it is something consequent and posterior (as a certain property), and thus the definition given of enjoying [n.62] is not appropriate, because the posterior is not put in the definition of the prior nor a property in the definition of the subject” [n.72]. ¹⁷ something per se consequent to act, as it seems.

64. On the contrary:

The will loves God by an elicited act; either then it loves God for the sake of something else, and then it is using him and so is perverse, or it loves him for himself, and then it is enjoying him (from the definition of ‘enjoying’ [n.62]), and so enjoying is an act.

I. To the Question

65. In this question one must look first into the concepts themselves and second into the thing signified by the name.

66. As to the first I say that just as there are in the intellect two acts of assenting to some proposition - one by which it assents to something true on its own account, as to a principle, another by which it assents to some true proposition, not on its own account, but on account of something else true, as it assents to a conclusion - so there are in the will two acts of assenting to the good, one by which it assents to some good on its own account, another by which it assents to some good on account of something else to which it refers that good, just as the conclusion is assented to because of the principle, since the conclusion has its truth from the principle. This likeness can be got from the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139a21-22, where it is said that “in the mind there is affirmation and negation, but this in the appetite is pursuit and flight;” and so, further, just as in the mind there is a double affirmation, on its own account and on account of another, so there is in the appetite a double prosecution or adhering, on its own account and on account of another.

67. There is between these, however, a double difference. First, because the two assents of the intellect are distinguished by the nature of their objects; for they are different according to the different evidence of this and of that, and therefore they have distinct objects corresponding to them and causing them. But in the case of the will the assents are not from distinction of objects but from a distinct act of a free faculty accepting its object in this way or in that, because, as was said above [n.16], it is in its power to act in this way or in that, referring or not referring it [sc. to another]; and so there are no distinct proper objects corresponding to those acts, but any ‘will’-able good at all is had by the will for object according to this act or according to that.

The second difference is that the two assents of the intellect constitute a sufficient division of assent in general, nor is there any middle in between, because there is on the part of the object no evidence in between from which some other truth might be received than the truth of a principle or of a conclusion. But there is in addition to the two assents of the will some assent in between, because there can be shown to the will some good that is apprehended absolutely, not under the idea of something good for its own sake or good for the sake of something else. Now the will can have an act in respect of such a good thus shown, and not necessarily a disordered act; therefore it can have an act of willing that good absolutely, without any relation to anything else, or without any enjoyment of it for its own sake; and further, the will can command the intellect to inquire into what sort the good is and how it should be willed, and then it can in this way assent to it, - and the whole nature of the difference on this side and on that is freedom of the will and natural necessity on the part of the intellect.

68. From this one may say further: an act of an assent to a good for its own sake is a perfect act; but on a perfect act delight follows, from Ethics 10.4.1174b14-23; therefore on an act of willing a good for its own sake some delight follows.

We have then in respect of the proposed intention four distinct things: an imperfect act of willing a good for the sake of something else, which is called use, and a perfect act of willing the good for its own sake, which is called enjoyment, and a neutral act, and a delight consequent to the act.

69. On the second principal point [n.65], namely to which of them the name ‘enjoying’ belongs, the answer can be collected from the authorities that speak about the word ‘enjoying’ [from Augustine nn.70-72]; it is plain that it is not the neutral act, nor is the act of use the act of enjoying, but the dispute concerns only the perfect act and the delight that follows it.

I reply: some authorities seem to say that enjoying is the perfect act alone, some that it is the delight alone; some that it includes both, and then it does not signify any being that is per se one, but one by aggregation from two beings, or a being per accidens: nor is it discordant that one name should signify many things, because the Iliad, according to the Philosopher at Metaphysics 7.4.1030a6-10, is able to signify the whole Trojan War.

70. That it is the act alone is seen from the authority of Augustine On 83 Diverse Questions q.30: “All perversity, which is named vice, is to use things which are to be enjoyed and to enjoy things which are to be used.” Perversity exists formally in an elicited act of the will, not in delight, since delight is only depraved because the act is depraved, and delight is only in the power of the one delighted because the act is in his power; but sin insofar as it is sin is formally in the power of the sinner. This too Augustine seems manifestly to say On Christian Doctrine I ch.4 n.4: “To enjoy is to inhere by love to some thing for its own sake.” This inhering seems to be through the moving power of the inherer, just as in the case of bodies (from which the name ‘inhere’ is there metaphorically taken) inhesion is by virtue of the inherer.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Likewise ‘inhesion in something for its own sake’ does not seem to be through delight, because the efficient cause of delight seems to be the delightful object and not the end, and thus the one who delights does not seem to tend to the object for its own sake. But this reason does not entail the conclusion - for it proceeds as if the object could not be the efficient and final cause of delight - and it must be solved by holding that delight is of the essence of beatitude, see 4 Suppl. d.49 p.1 q.7 nn.2-7.” ¹⁸

71. But that enjoying is delight alone seems to be said by the authority of Augustine On the Trinity I ch.8 n.18: “Full joy is to enjoy the Trinity;” but if the authority is not twisted toward causality or to some other understanding, which the words do not signify, joy is delight formally. Likewise too in the question alleged already from Augustine: “We enjoy the thing from which we receive pleasure;” if the phrase is meant as identity or as it were a definition, then ‘to receive pleasure’ is to enjoy essentially.

72. But that enjoying may be taken for both things, namely for the act and the delight together, is proved from the definition of ‘to enjoy’ in On the Trinity X ch.10 n.13: “We enjoy the things we know, wherein the will delighted for its own sake rests.” For to the act pertains what is said, that ‘we enjoy the things we know’, because to the act of will the object known is presupposed; but afterwards there is added ‘wherein the will delighted for its own sake rests’ etc., which, if delight were an accident of enjoyment, should not be placed in the definition of it.

Likewise, if it be posited that both the act and the ensuing delight essentially pertain to beatitude [cf. n.70 footnote], then all the authorities that say to enjoy is the highest reward or is our beatitude say that it includes each of them, both the act and the delight. The minor is said by the authority of Augustine in On Christian Doctrine I ch.22 n.35: “Supreme wages are to enjoy him himself.”Text cancelled by Scotus: “But that it be the more proper signification of the word is difficult to prove, yet it can in some way be conjectured from the use of the word: for the word ‘to enjoy’ is construed with the ablative case to signify the object in transitive sense, such as is the construal appropriate to verbs signifying activity, but it is not construed with the object in the ablative case in causal sense, as is the construal due to passions signified by verbs that are primarily passive; for one does not say ‘I am joyed by God’ as one says ‘I am delighted by God’ or ‘God delights me’, but I am said ‘to enjoy God’ transitively in the way I am said ‘to love God’, and that seems to be the more proper signification of the word.” Scotus is here commenting on a peculiarity of Latin grammar, that the phrase ‘I enjoy God’ has a verb in passive form and an object in indirect or causal form (‘fruor Deo’), but in meaning it is active and the object is direct, as in ‘I love God’ (‘amo Deum’). ¹⁹

73. But one should not contend about the signification of the word, because according to Augustine Retractions I ch.15 n.4: “when the thing is clear, one should not force the words.” The thing is clear, because the will has a triple act, and a fourth, to wit the ensuing passion [n.68]; and to two of the acts this name in no way belongs [n.69]; some people seem to use the word for either of the other two and for both together, and then it will be equivocal, - or if it is univocal some of the authorities [nn.70-72] must be expounded as speaking loosely or concomitantly.

II. To the Principal Arguments

74. To the first argument [n.62] I say that fruit is the final thing that is expected from a tree, not as something to be bodily possessed, but as something to be had by the act of the power that attains it as its object; for an apple is not the fruit insofar as it is expected as to be possessed but insofar as it is expected as to be tasted and to be attained by the act of tasting, which tasting is followed by delight; if therefore the fruit is said to be that which is to be enjoyed, delight is not the fruit, but that is which is to be expected last; but delight will not be the enjoying either if the first thing by which I attain the expected thing as expected is to enjoy it, - which seems probable, since fruit is what is expected under the first idea under which, as to be attained by the power, it is expected.

75. To the second [n.63] I say that the authority is to the opposite. For since the authority says that ‘acts are not fruits but passions are’, it follows that to enjoy is not to be delighted, because fruit is the object of enjoyment; but a passion cannot be the object first of itself as it can be the object of an act; therefore to enjoy, if it is of a passion as of its object, as the authority indicates, will not be a passion but an act, able to have for object those passions which are as it were proximate to its first object. - And when it is said that ‘we take joy in fruit per se’, this is not to be understood in the sense of formal principal, in the way ‘it is hot by heat’ is to be understood, but in the sense of object, as if one were to say that ‘we take love in the lovable’; now enjoyment is what, in the sense of formal cause, we enjoy by. But the authority does not say that enjoyment is something consequent to act but that fruit is, that is, the object of enjoyment.

76. The opinion that love and delight are the same is shown by four reasons: first, there is a single act of the same power about the same object; second, the same knowledge is followed immediately only by the same thing; third, things whose opposites are the same are themselves the same as well; fourth, things that have the same effects and the same consequences are the same. - Love and delight differ in idea just as from this to that and the reverse differ; also just as union and rest differ, or the privation of division and the privation of motion.

On the contrary: the definition of love in Rhetoric 2.4.1380b35-81a2 and the definition of delight in Rhetoric 1.11.1369b33-35 are different.

Response:

To the opposite about sadness, in four ways: not to want exists both in God and in the blessed; not to want does not require apprehension of the existence of a thing, or it is about that which neither exists in reality nor is apprehended as existing; not to want is most intense before the coming to be of the thing; I voluntarily do not want.

To the opposite about love: delight is the per se object of love, just as it is of the preceding desire, Augustine On the Trinity IX ch.12 n.18: “The desire of him who yearns, etc.”

Again, Lucifer is able to love himself supremely, Augustine On the City of God XIV ch. 28 and Anselm On the Fall of the Devil ch.4.

Again, the more intense the love the less the delight [cf. Ethics 3.12.1117b10-11, about the happier and more virtuous man being sadder at death].

Against the first distinction in idea, the agent is different [n.76, end of first paragraph]; against the second, union is a relation. The solution is in Ethics 10.2.1174a4-8.Interpolation (from Appendix A): “Now some say that love and delight are the same really but differ in reason. The first point is proved in four ways. Firstly, because in the case of one power about one object there is one act. The proof is that the distinction of an act is only from the power or the object. - Secondly thus: on something the same there follows immediately only something the same; but, once the object possessed, love and delight immediately follow. - Again: things whose opposites are the same are themselves the same; but hatred and sadness are the same. The fact is plain because each introduces a certain inquietude. - Fourth thus: for they have the same effects and the same consequences. The fact is plain because each has to perfect an operation of the intellect. The second is shown thus, that love is asserted on the basis of what comes from the power to the object, but delight on the basis of the reverse. Also, delight implies rest, which is the privation of motion; but love states union, which is the privation of division. Now these two privations differ only in reason. But to the contrary. Firstly, that the opposites of them are not the same. The proof is that hatred is a certain refusal to will, but refusal to will does not require an existing object, while sadness does. - Secondly, that a very intense refusal to will precedes the event of a thing, but from the event such sadness arises. - Thirdly, because delight is per se the object of enjoyment, but love is not. -Fourthly, because a bad angel can love himself supremely. The thing is plain from Augustine On the City of God XIV ch.28: “Two loves” etc. - Fifthly, because in Ethics 10 [no such reference is found, though there is something close in Eudemian Ethics 7.2.1237b35ff.] it is said that one loves old friends more, but finds more delight in new ones. - Again, the definition of love and that of delight differ. The thing is plain from Rhetoric 2.4.1380b35-81a2. - Again, where sometimes the love is more intense, there the delight is less. The thing is plain in the devoted. To the first of these: the major is false. - To the second: the minor is false. - To the third: it has been shown that the minor is false. - To the fourth I say that they do not perfect in the same way, but delight is as it were an accidental perfection of it, as beauty in youth, from Ethics 10.4.1174b31-33, but love is as it were a commanded act or an act joining the parent with the offspring.” Interpolation: “Note the reasons that the same John [Duns Scotus], in d.1 q.3 in the Parisian Lectura [Rep. IA d.1 p.2 q.2], gives against this conclusion, that enjoyment and love and delight are the same really. The first reason is founded on this that hatred and sadness, which are the opposites of love and delight, are really distinct. His proof for this is that to hate something is not to want it; now not to want and to be sad are not the same thing, because the act of not wanting does not require an object apprehended under the idea of existing, which is what makes one sad, according to Augustine On the City of God XIV ch.6. He also proves the same because it happens that the will changes from not being sad to being said when there is a not wanting equally in place, because a thing intensely not wanted can precede the happening of that not wanted thing itself. Therefore, when the not wanted thing is posited as existing, the not wanting will not be more intense and it is then necessarily sad but before not. Third, because the will freely elicits the act of not wanting as of wanting, but it is not voluntarily saddened; therefore not wanting is not being saddened. A confirmation is that when the will turns itself back on an act voluntarily elicited it has pleasure in itself, and so a will willing itself freely not to want has pleasure in itself; but a will that turns itself back on being sad does not have pleasure in itself but is displeased; therefore etc The second reason: in God there is properly found the act of not wanting, but not the act of being sad. The assumption is plain, because just as God is by his willing the cause of things that come to be, so by his not willing he is a cause preventative of bad things. The third reason: delight can be the per se object of some love of which love cannot be the per se object. The proof of this is that the will can choose to be delighted in the delightful thing itself when that delightful thing is absent, and of that choice delight is the per se object, but choice or love is not, because then the will would be turning itself back on its own act; but it is not necessary that the will turn itself back on its own act when it desires to be conjoined to its delightful object, or when it desires to be delighted in the delightful object when it will have become present; therefore when by an act of love it chooses the delightful thing or chooses to be delighted, it is not necessary that it be turned back, therefore delight can be the object of a love of which it is not the love. Again, a bad angel can love itself supremely, and yet does not have delight. The thing is plain in Augustine On the City of God ibid. ch.28. Again, a more intense love is compatible with a less intense delight, as in the case of the devoted/infatuated. ²⁰

Question 2. Whether when the end has been apprehended by the intellect the will must necessarily enjoy it

77. Second with respect to enjoying I inquire into the mode of eliciting the act, namely whether when the end has been apprehended by the intellect the will must necessarily enjoy it.

Argument that it must:

Avicenna in Metaphysics 8 ch.7 (101rb): “Delight is the conjunction of agreeable with agreeable;” the end necessarily agrees with the will; therefore from the conjunction of it with the will there is delight, therefore enjoyment.

78. Again, the end moves metaphorically as the efficient cause moves properly [cf. Metaphysics 5.2.1013b9-11; 12.7.1072a26-27, 1076b3]; but an efficient cause proximate to the passive thing does, when not impeded, of necessity move properly; therefore the end that is proximate, namely present to the will, does, when not impeded, necessarily move metaphorically.

79. Again, everything changeable presupposes something unchangeable [Physics 8.5.256a13-b3]; therefore various and changeable acts of the will presuppose some unchangeable act; such an act is only about the end, therefore that act is necessarily unchangeable.

80. To the opposite:

Natural necessity does not stand with liberty. My proof for this is that nature and will are active principles possessing an opposite mode of acting as principles [Physics 2.5.196b17-22], therefore nature’s mode of acting as a principle does not stand along with the will’s mode of acting as a principle; but the will wills the end freely,     therefore it cannot will the end by natural necessity, nor, as a result, in any necessary way.

Of the assumption, namely that the will wills the end freely, the proof is that the same power wills the end and what is for the end, therefore it has the same mode of acting, because diverse modes of working argue for diverse powers; but the will works freely in respect of what is for the end, therefore etc     . - Now that there is the same power for both is plain,Interpolation: “because the act of using is per se one act, therefor it is of one power, respecting per se each extreme.” ²¹ because otherwise there would, in the case of what is for the end, be no power willing it for the sake of the end; for the power must be one, having an act about both extremes, as the Philosopher proves about the knowing that belongs to the common sense in On the Soul 3.2.426b15-29.

81. Note, this reason [n.80] does not reject all necessity of unchangeableness but only natural necessity; therefore let there be a more general reason proving the opposite, - and then in the first article [n.83] what is set down is that there is natural necessity, but Henry sets down that the will tends freely to the end, others that it naturally does so: they agree in this common term ‘necessary’, therefore against them in general are the reasons given here against the opinion in the first article [nn.91-133], but against the mode ‘naturally’ in particular there is this reason [n.80], as well as Augustine in Handbook on the Faith ch.105 n.28 (Lombard, Sentences 2 d.25 chs.3-4; Scotus 1 d.10 q. un. n.10).

I. To the Question

82. This question can be understood either about the end obscurely apprehended in general, as we conceive beatitude in general, or about it obscurely apprehended in particular, as we conceive beatitude in the Triune God; or about the end clearly seen in one who has his will supernaturally elevated, as in the case of one who has a perfect will by supernatural habit, or fourth about the end clearly seen in one who does not have a supernatural habit in his will, and this on the supposition that God might, of his absolute will, show himself to an intellect without giving any supernatural habit to the will.

A. The Opinion of Others

83. [Article 1] - About these four articles [n.82] it is said first, as to the first, that the will of necessity enjoys the ultimate end thus apprehended obscurely and in general. There is a triple proof:

First by the remark at Physics 2.9.200a15-16: “As the principle is in speculative things, so the end is in doable things;” but the intellect of necessity assents to the first speculative principles;     therefore the will of necessity assents to the ultimate end in doables.

84. There is a second proof for the same thing, that the will necessarily wills that by participation in which it wills whatever it wills; but by participation in the ultimate end it wills whatever it wills; therefore etc     . - The proof of the minor is that the will wills no other thing except insofar as that thing is a good; but every other good seems to be a participation in the ultimate end, which is the supreme good, as seems to be proved by Augustine On the Trinity VIII ch.3 n.4: “Take away this good and that good,”     etc ., “and see the good itself if you can, the good of every good.”

85. Third, the same thing is proved in this way: the will can only not will a thing that has in it some defect of good or some idea of evil; in the ultimate end apprehended in general there is no defect of good or any idea of evil; therefore      etc.Interpolation: “Again, Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.3 n.6, says that a certain mimic actor said that he knew what the many people present in the theatre wanted, meaning to understand this of happiness; but all those people would not want happiness or their ultimate end if they contingently wanted it; therefore they necessarily want it.” ²²

86. [Article 2] - As to the second article [n.82] it is said that when the end is thus obscurely apprehended in particular the will is able not to enjoy it; which can be proved because it can enjoy something which it knows to be incompossible with such end, as is clear in a mortal sinner.

87. [Article 3] - As to the third article [n.82] it is said that the will necessarily enjoys the end thus seen because of the third reason to the first article [n.85], since no idea of evil is found in it, nor any defect of good discovered in it, - and this if it see the end with practical vision, whatever may be true of speculative vision; and there is added here that the connection, or the necessity of the connection, is so great that God by his absolute power cannot separate practical vision from the enjoyment of him.

88. [Article 4] - As to the fourth article [n.82] it is said that it is impossible for a will not elevated by charity to enjoy the end even when seen, because acting presupposes being; therefore supernatural acting presupposes supernatural being; but a will of this sort does not have supernatural being, therefore it cannot have a supernatural act.

89. Again, it would then be possible for such a will to be blessed. The consequent is false, because then charity would not be necessary for the beatitude of the will. The consequence is proved as follows, because to enjoy the end when seen in particular seems to be beatitude, or to include beatitude formally.

90. An argument is also given in another way thus: when vision is posited enjoyment is necessarily posited, when vision is not posited enjoyment is taken away; therefore vision is the total cause of enjoyment; therefore it is simply nobler. Proof of the first consequence: otherwise all knowledge is taken away of what the cause is whose ‘by’, or whose sine qua non, anything at all will act on itself.

B. Attack on the Opinion of Others

91. [Against article 1] - Against the first article I argue. First as follows: Augustine in Retractions 1 ch.9 n.3 and ch.22 n.4 says 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.

92. From this come two conclusions: first, therefore the act of the will is more in the power of the will than any other act; second, therefore that act is in the power of the will not only mediately but also immediately.

From the first conclusion there comes further as follows: the act of the intellect about the end is in the power of the will; therefore the act of the will is too.

From the second conclusion there comes further as follows: therefore if the act of the will is in the power of the will by the mediation of an act of some other power, much more is this act immediately in the power of the will; but to will or not to will the end is in the power of the will by the mediation of an act of the intellect; therefore this act is immediately in the power of the will. The minor is plain, because it is in the power of the will to turn the intellect away from consideration of the end, whereby the will will not will the end, because it cannot have an act about something unknown.

Response: it is supremely in its power because it is immediately in its freedom; everything else is in its power by the mediation of some other volition, including what is not free but not such that it cannot be contradicted.

93. There is a confirmation for this reason, namely the first against the opinion [nn.91-92], and it can count as the second reason, namely that what, when not impeded, is compelled to act, of necessity removes, if it can, what prohibits its action; therefore if the will when not impeded is compelled of its nature to will the ultimate end, it necessarily removes, if it can do so, everything prohibiting the volition; but what prohibits this volition is non-consideration of the end, and this the will can remove by making the intellect stand in consideration of the end; therefore the will of necessity will make the intellect stand in consideration of the end. - The major of this argument is plain, because that which of itself is necessitated to act will never be prohibited except by something opposing it that overcomes its active virtue, as is clear in the case of a heavy object; for a heavy object will be prevented from falling because of something opposing it that overcomes its downward inclination, and, by parity of reasoning, the heavy object will, if it can, remove what is prohibiting it, and its fall is unimpeded once that thing is removed, because the heavy object removes what is opposing its effect as necessarily as it brings about the effect which that thing is opposing.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Confirmation for the reason [n.93]: wherever there is a necessary connection of extremes, there is also a necessary connection of the intermediates necessarily required for the union of the extremes, otherwise the necessary would depend on the contingent; but if the will necessarily enjoys an end shown to it, there will be a necessary connection of the terms among themselves and by the nature of those very extremes, therefore also of all the intermediates; but the one intermediate necessarily required for the union of those extremes is understanding of the end, therefore etc. Proof of the minor: if there is a necessary connection of the will to the end, it is a connection of the principal agent to the object about which it is acting; but necessity for acting can only exist in the principal agent through that by which it formally acts; but the will acts of its very self, therefore in itself will that necessity to the object exist. Therefore the first minor is plain. - The minor of the prosyllogism is proved in this way: a principal agent acts as a principal by no necessity save by that by which it acts as a principle, otherwise it would act by that necessity by which it is impossible for it to act; but it does not act as a principle save by that which is its formal idea of acting. This confirmation seems to exclude a certain response that might be given to the principal reason, about necessity simply and conditioned necessity; for it proves that if the will also necessarily enjoys the end shown to it, then it does so on account of the proper reasons of those extremes, which reasons have of themselves a necessary connection; therefore the will does not depend on anything other than the extremes, and so it is absolute, although there will be a necessary connection of the extremes between themselves and therefore of all the intermediates in their order. Response: the first minor is false unless it is understood of conditioned necessity, that is that, once understanding is presupposed, the necessity of enjoying which follows - which is a necessity in a certain respect, because it depends on the showing of the thing - that necessity, I say, is from the nature of the extremes; which is to say briefly: there is a necessary connection of the extremes if the showing precedes. But the minor is proved of absolute necessity by the nature of the extremes, therefore, in order to prove this, I reply to the minor and say that in a principal agent acting simply necessarily there is nothing by which it necessarily acts, and there is nothing required either for its acting necessarily, save only that by which it principally acts, because in a simply necessary agent the whole nature of its necessity is in it by that by which it is an agent. But in an something principally acting necessarily in a certain respect or conditionally the reason of its acting is not a sufficient reason for its acting necessarily but something else is required on which that necessity depends, because it is not from the idea of the agent alone. The second minor is therefore denied, because the conditioned necessity in something’s acting is not from that alone by which it principally acts but from that along with the presupposition of something else. - To the proof of the second minor I say that in that ‘act necessarily’ two things are included, both that with respect to ‘act’ there exists one ‘by which’, namely the formal reason of acting in the principal agent, with respect to ‘necessity’ there does not exist that reason alone but along with it the presupposition of something else. To the form [sc. of the argument], therefore, I say that one should not concede that there is something by which it necessarily acts, but that for that necessity there is required both that by which it acts and something else by which it does not act. But because in the intended proposition that on which the necessity depends is the same as that on which the action also depends, and that by which it acts is that by which it acts with some mode of acting (either necessarily therefore or contingently), therefore in order to prove the second minor one can say in another way that that by which it is active is not that by which it itself acts except on the presupposition of something else, but when the other thing is presupposed then there exists that by which it necessarily acts. [The preceding paragraphs of this cancelled text are marked by Scotus with the letters: c—c.] On the contrary: in the first instant of nature there is the preceding action, in the second the principal action. I ask how the principal acts in the second instant. If contingently, we have the intended proposition; if necessarily, then since it acts precisely through its proper form, both because it is acting principally and because what precedes is in no way its reason of acting, it follows that the form is then the reason for necessarily acting; but this is only possible from the determination of the form to the object and to action on the object; therefore the extremes have of their nature a necessary connection, and so to the necessary intermediates. - Again, nothing makes one do that which is placed under a condition, therefore neither to make one do it necessarily; therefore if there is necessity from that condition, it will also equally be necessity simply. Response to the first [objection on the contrary]: it acts in the second ‘now’ of nature necessarily, that is necessarily in a certain respect, because in the second ‘now’, namely as presupposing another ‘now’. On the contrary: that which, when it acts, necessarily acts, simply necessarily acts, because ‘necessarily’ and ‘contingently’ determine action for the time when the cause acts; for the generator necessarily generates, although on the presupposition of alteration, as much as is in its active form. And then further: so it is determined simply necessarily, as much as in its form, to every necessary intermediate; it tends to this necessarily when it can, therefore it tends to every intermediate necessarily as much as or when it can. Perhaps it is not in proximate potency save to operating about the object. - On the contrary: therefore it necessarily wills the understanding of the end if the end is presented to it as an understood object. ²³

94. If an instance is made against this reason by saying that the will does not simply necessarily enjoy the end but with conditioned necessity, namely on the supposition that the end is shown to it, and if the major is said to be true of something acting simply necessarily, I reply: this is not a solution, because things that can be impeded do not act simply necessarily but with conditioned necessity, namely if they are not impeded, and of these things the major is true;     therefore what is taken in the major is not ‘whatever necessarily acts necessarily removes, if it can, what removes it’ but: ‘whatever is not impeded necessarily acts’, etc     . [n.93], where a specification is made in the major about conditioned necessity.

95. If an instance is made in another way that the major [n.93] is true of those things that have a necessity with respect to what is principally intended similar to the necessity they have with respect to things necessary for that thing, of which thing there are only natural agents, and these agents throughout the whole process up to the ultimate thing intended act merely of natural necessity - but the will in one way regards the end in which all goodness exists, and for that reason necessarily, and in another way regards any other being in which there is a defect of good, and therefore regards anything else contingently - on the contrary: it is impossible for one extreme to regard with any necessity the other extreme without regarding with as much necessity any intermediate necessarily required between those extremes, otherwise a necessary thing would necessarily depend on a non-necessary thing; therefore the will tends to the end with the necessity with which it necessarily tends to the showing of the end, without which it is impossible for it to tend to the end.The preceding paragraphs, nn.94-95, are marked by Scotus with the letters: a—a. ²⁴

96. If, thirdly, an instance is made to the minor [n.93], that non-consideration does not properly prohibit the will from enjoying, one might argue otherwise as follows: whatever necessarily rests in something present to itself, necessarily holds it present to itself if it has it and can have it; the will by you necessarily rests in the end presented to it; therefore it necessarily holds the end once presented to it so that it might always be present. - The major is proved by induction: if a heavy object necessarily rests at the center, it necessarily makes itself present to the center, if it can, and the center present to it, and necessarily holds onto that presence as much as it can. The thing is apparent in sensitive appetite; if this appetite necessarily rests in a present delightful thing, it necessarily holds the sense as much as it can to that sensible object so that the object might be present to it to delight it. - The major is also proved by reason [mark k., see n.112] sinceHere Scotus gives as a superscript the letter: k. ²⁵ the fact that a thing necessarily rests in something present to it is on account of the perfect agreement of the latter to the former; on account of the same agreement it seems to desire equally necessarily the thing to be conjoined to itself as much as possible; but this conjunction takes place in the presence of the latter to the former.The preceding paragraph, n.96, is marked by Scotus with the letters: e—e. Then there is some text cancelled by Scotus: “It is proved [note q. n.112] in another way, that what necessarily rests in a thing when present, necessarily as far as depends on itself moves toward it when absent, at any rate it is apt to do so, although it may be impeded by something; therefore just as it would by that necessity be actually moved if it were not impeded, so if it is a superior mover it moves anything inferior to itself by which it can take away the impediments; such a movable inferior to the will is in the present case an intellect movable to the consideration of the end” [this cancelled text is marked by Scotus with the letter: q]. ²⁶

97. A response is made in another way to the major of the first reason [n.93], that it is true of what is said properly to be impeded, namely that it is prohibited from acting because of something else that overcomes its active virtue; it is not so here, but there is something else acting whose action is previous to the action of the will, and therefore the cessation of this something else is by extension said to prevent the will from willing, and about such the major is false. For although an agent that presupposes to its own action the action of another might move that other to act and, with that other acting first, would itself necessarily act by conditioned or concomitant necessity, yet it does not necessarily move that other to act first, because it does not simply necessarily act, just as that which is said properly to be impeded would simply necessarily act as much as depends on itself, although it only acts with conditioned necessity, namely on the supposition of the previous action; an example is about a power acting contingently, and yet once the act that generates the habit is in place it acts with the necessity of concomitance.This paragraph, n.97, is marked by Scotus with the letters: b—b. ²⁷

98. On the contrary: the necessity of acting only comes through something intrinsic to the active principle; the previous action is not something intrinsic to the active principle;     therefore , once it has been removed, there is a necessity of acting, and so absolute necessity. - And then the reply is as before: if there is a simple necessity for acting, therefore there is a simple necessity for doing that without which it cannot act, provided however this is in its power; but here it is; therefore etc     .

Confirmation: here the necessity is not of action to action, because one action is not the active reason with respect to the other; therefore the necessity is on account of the inclination of the power to the action; therefore the power is also necessarily inclined to the required intermediates, because there is no necessary connection between the extremes unless there is also a necessary connection of all the intermediates required for the connection of the extremes.

99. Response to these and to the principal argument [n.93]: here the necessity is conditioned, namely on the presupposition of something else; and I concede that the necessity is through something intrinsic to the principal agent and that it is a necessity in relation to the intermediates just as it is a necessity of the extremes to each other, but the whole is conditioned, namely by a presupposition of the showing of the object.

On the contrary: an agent that can be impeded does not act simply necessarily but conditionally, ‘if it is not impeded’ [n.94], but yet it necessarily removes the impediment if it can; therefore so here. Nor is the first response valid, the one about what is properly impeded that ‘the will is not properly impeded by non-understanding’ [n.97].The preceding paragraphs, nn.98-99, are marked by Scotus with the letters: c—c. ²⁸

100. [Again, propositions against article 1] g.For these propositions [from here to n.110] a note is added by Scotus: “And they are against the first article of the opinion.” ²⁹ WhateverIn place of nn.100-114 there is this interpolated text: “Against the first article [n.83] there is first the following argument: any power about a most perfect object presented to it, and it does not necessarily operate about anything else, necessarily continues its operation about that object as much as it can [n.100]; but the will necessarily operates about the ultimate end, which is the most perfect object, therefore it necessarily continues its operation as much as it can; the opposite of which we experience, because the will turns the intellect away from consideration of the ultimate end just as it turns it away from the consideration of other things. - There is proof of the major, and first in this way: the reason for necessarily operating is the same as for necessarily continuing the operation, if simply, simply, if when it can, when it can. Secondly, because if the power principally necessarily operates about the object when present, there is in the power itself a reason for always necessarily acting about it as far as depends on itself, or whenever it can if it can. Thirdly, because we see this in the sensitive appetite, and in the sense and the intellect. But it seems to be particularly true in the will, because the will does not cease to act of itself about any object save by turning itself away to some other object, whether a more agreeable or a more perfect one, or one to which it is more determined or inclined, which prevents it operating at the same time about the first object; but the end is the most perfect and the most agreeable object; to it alone is it necessitated, to it most of all is it inclined, in it does it most rest, and in it is it most pleased; the willing of it is compatible with the willing of any other thing. Again, any appetite that necessarily tends to the supremely most perfect apprehended object alone, necessarily determines itself if it can to the continued apprehension of it once it is in place. The virtue of this argument depends immediately on the preceding reason. But will necessarily tends to the apprehended end that is the most perfect object, therefore etc. Again, anything that necessarily acts once some previous action is in place, necessarily determines itself to that previous action if it can; but once the previous action of the intellect about the ultimate end is in place, the will necessarily tends to the ultimate end; therefore it necessarily determines itself to the action of the intellect as to the apprehension of it. The virtue of this reason is that necessity for an intermediate thing is the same as necessity for the extreme. Again, anything that necessarily acts when some previous action is in place necessarily determines itself to that previous action if it can [n.105]; but when a previous action of the intellect about the ultimate end is in place, the will tends necessarily to the ultimate end; therefore it necessarily determines itself to the action of the intellect as to the apprehension of the end. The power of this reason is that there is the same necessity for the end means as for the extremes. Again, whatever acts necessarily about a present object necessarily determines itself to the presence of it if it can [n.107]. Again, any appetite that necessarily tends to a known object, necessarily determines itself to the knowledge of it if it can [n.108]. To what is adduced against the first article, when it is said ‘any power about, etc.’ [at the beginning of this note], because the reason...” [continue as at n.114 below]. In place of this interpolated text there is, for nn.100-110, the following alternative interpolated text [from Appendix A]: “a. Anything that, when not impeded, necessarily acts, necessarily takes away the impediment if it can. b. Anything that necessarily acts when some previous action is in place, necessarily determines itself to that previous action if it can. c. A principal agent that necessarily acts when anything is in place in a secondary agent, is necessitated by the principal active principle. d. Anything that necessarily acts in the presence of the object necessarily determines itself, if it can, to the presence of it. e. If a power necessarily principally operates in the presence of the object, there is in that power the idea, as far as depends on itself, of necessarily acting on the object always, or whenever it can if it can. f. Any appetite that necessarily tends toward the object when it is known, necessarily determines itself to the knowledge of it if it can. g. Any power that necessarily tends toward the sole supreme and most perfect object when it is apprehended, necessarily determines itself to the apprehension of it if it can. h. Any power that necessarily operates in the presence to it of the most perfect object, necessarily continues the action as much as it can. i. Any power that necessarily operates-rests in the presence of the object, is necessarily moved, as far as depends on itself, toward that object when it is absent; agreement is a common cause. k. If there is a necessity in one extreme, simply or as far as depends on itself, to the other extreme, there will be a like necessity in it to any simply necessary intermediate between them.” ³⁰ power operates necessarily about the most perfect object and not about something else necessarily continues its operation as much as it can [n.133].

101. n. Whatever power necessarily rests-operates about an object present to it, necessarily moves toward it when absent as much as it can; agreement is the common cause [n.96].

102. t. If a power principally necessarily acts-operates about an object present to it, that power has the nature to act, as much as depends on itself, always necessarily about it, either whenever it can or if it can [n.96].

103. m. If an extreme has a necessity simply or as much as depends on itself to the other extreme, it will have a like necessity to any simply necessary intermediate between them [n.95].

104. a. Whatever when not impeded necessarily acts, necessarily takes away the impediment if it can [n.93].

105. b. Whatever necessarily acts when the preceding action is in place, necessarily determines that preceding action to be if it can [nn.97, 98].

106. c. A principal agent that necessarily acts when anything is put in place secondarily, is necessitated by an active principal principle [n.98].

107. d. Whatever necessarily acts about an object present to it, necessarily determines that it be present if it can [n.96].

108. e. Whatever appetite necessarily tends to a known object, necessarily determines itself to knowledge of it if it can [n.96].

109. f. Whatever appetite necessarily tends only to the supremely most perfect object when the object has been apprehended, necessarily determines itself to apprehension of the object if it can [n.96].

110. g. Whatever power necessarily operates about only the most perfect object, necessarily continues its operation as much as it can [n.100].

111. Note,Interpolated text [from Appendix A]: “From c, when the major is given, follows a, and follows b and d and f, each of which can be a major for the negative conclusion of the first article. - From i follows e. - g implies that the willing and understanding already in place are continued; the first from k, the second from i imply that things not in place necessarily must be put in place. h appears truer among these, because universally there seems to be the same reason for necessarily operating and necessarily continuing, if simply simply, if when it can when it can. - g is plain because we see this in sensitive appetite, in sense and, in intellect. Yet it seems most true in the will, because the will does not cease of itself to act about any object save by turning itself to some other thing, whether to a thing more agreeable or more perfect or to which it is more determined or inclined, which thing prevents the will operating about something else at the same time; but the end is the most perfect and most agreeable object; to it alone is the will necessitated, to it is it most inclined, in it does it most rest and in it is it most delighted; volition of the end is compatible with volition of anything else whatever.” ³¹ g. [nn.100, 110] appears to be truer among these: because there seems generally to be the same reason for necessarily acting or operating as for necessarily continuing - if simply, simply, if when it can, when it can; and because of t. above [n.102]; and because we see this by sense and understanding in sensitive appetite; and because it seems most true in the case of the will, since the will does not cease of itself to act about any object except by turning itself to some other object, either one more perfect or more agreeable, or one to which it is more determined or inclined, which object prevents it operating about the first one at the same time; but the end is the most perfect and most agreeable object: to it alone is the will necessitated, to it is it most inclined and in it does it most delight; the volition of it stands with the volition of anything else.

112. From the proof of g. there follows f. [n.109], at any rate if one understands the predicate ‘to apprehension of it’ to mean that the apprehension already in place is to be continued. If the predicate ‘to apprehension of it’ is taken of an apprehension to be put in place if it has not been put in place, then in this way f. does not follow from g. but is proved by the reason given above [n.95] ‘on the contrary: it is impossible for one extreme.’; but there is a necessity that the appetite tend to the object when it can, because it cannot so tend except in its presence; therefore there is thus a necessity with respect to any intermediate when the proximate power is capable of it. - Not so now e. [n.108], which is more universal, because it does not specify the object as ‘most perfect’ nor as ‘only’ [n.109]; it is proved however as f. is, but above at the place marked [k. in n.96] it is not proved first except about an apprehension already in place. To be set down are k. [n.96] and q. [footnote to n.96]; they are as it were a single proof. - d. [n.107] and b. [n.105] are very universal, hence they are approved; a. [n.104] is sufficiently dealt with [nn.93-95, 97-99], and is improper; the proper form returns in b.; but b. and d. are proved from c. [n.106], along with the major ‘on the contrary: it is impossible for one extreme.’ [n.95]; the deduction is made here under ‘Confirmation for the reason.’ [footnote to n.93]. - Therefore g. stands; c. is disputed; k. and q. are probable.

113. Note the following four points as a gloss on the many things posited above [nn.94-112]: g. is well proved [n.111], and it is a more evident way to a negative conclusion in the case of the first article of the question [n.82]; g. can also be proved from c. here [n.106], and c is proved hereunder, namely on the other side of the page [n.98, first paragraph]. - From m. here [n.103] as major, and from c. here [n.106], made to be major [n.98, first clause], a. follows, b. follows, d. and e. and f. follow, each of which can serve as major for a negative conclusion to the first article. - From n. here [n.101] follows e., which is a more particular major than a. or b. or d. - g. entails that a willing and understanding already in place are necessarily continued, the two other reasons (the first from m. and c., the second from n. [n.112]) entail that when not in place they must necessarily be put in place; this second entailment is more discordant but it less manifestly follows, the first entailment contrariwise.

114. In response to the first way of g. [nn.100, 110, 111], for the negative conclusion to the first article [n.82], which is about the will necessarily continuing its willing as much as it can:

Let the conclusion be conceded, nor let the will ever stop unless the intellect first at least in nature stops considering the end, etc.

115. And if it be argued that the will necessarily will continue that understanding as much as it can, by commanding it [n.93], - response: the conclusion does not follow, because the will does not necessarily will the understanding as it does will the end [n.95].

116. It is argued in another way: at least the will would never turn away from this understanding, because the will, when necessarily continuing dependently, does not by commanding destroy that on which it depends.

Response: while the consideration of the end stands, and so as a result the willing of it, something else is confusedly offered to it the consideration of which is commanded by the will, and thus indirectly the will turns the intellect from consideration of the end; and for the ‘now’ for which it is averted the consideration first in nature ceases and next in nature the volition itself.

117. Against the first response [n.115]: the necessity that is of the extreme to the extreme is the same as is the necessity to any necessary intermediate [n.103].

But here there is the reply in the preceding page above [n.95] that there is not the like relationship to any intermediate as there is to the end, and then it might be conceded that I can will this and not will that without which I cannot will this [n.95].

118. Against the other response [n.116]: the fourth proof of g. [n.111], that there is no other object more perfect, or none to which it is equally or more inclined than it is to this; a more perfect and necessary volition of something both more perfect and more agreeable more impedes a volition that is less such than conversely.

119. Again, a superior power inclines an inferior in a concordant way; therefore where it is more superior it more inclines.

120. Again, if an object is necessarily willed, therefore the willing of it is a more determinate willing than any other willing whatever; therefore the understanding of it too is more determinate than any other understanding whatever. The proof of both consequences is that the will wills to will because of the object and wills to understand because of the willing.

121. Again, we experience that the will impels us to understand the object to which the will is more prone.

122. Therefore it is conceded that the will never turns away [n.116] but only an occurrent phantasm, which is not in the power of the will, Augustine On Free Choice of the Will 3 ch.25 n.74.

Here against the second response [n.116], and also against the first [n.115]; it always continues as much as it can, but it cannot continue when some other phantasm occurs whose movement is not subject to itself.

Confirmation: the separated intellect will always persist in consideration of the ultimate end and in the volition of it, although sometimes there is volition of another thing; these things do indeed stand well together [n.111].

123. On the contrary: we experience that the will as freely turns the understanding from consideration of the end to a different object as it does with other objects.

124. Again, the intellect would, as much as depends on it, always persist in consideration of the end, because the end is the maximally moving object; therefore if it sometimes ceases, this will be by the command of the will.

125. Response: if the end were the object that in itself or also in its proper species moves, it is true that it would maximally move. But now, according to some, it moves only in something else that is more of a nature to move toward itself in itself than to the end. Or, for you, many phantasms move it to conceive a description of it as taken from common notions; therefore less than to other objects, for two reasons: first, because it is difficult to persist in consideration of a transcendent universal [1 d.3 p.1 q.3 n.26], for a phantasm moves rather to the most specific species [1 d.3 p.3 q.1 n.9], Augustine On the Trinity 8 ch.2 n.3: “When you begin to think what truth is, at once phantasms will present themselves to you;” second, because it is difficult to use many common notions at the same time for a description than to use individual ones separately.

126. Against this response: at any rate the separated intellect always considers those common notions at the same time; likewise, according to Henry [of Ghent] it has a proper concept of God.

127. Again, to the principal, for a negative conclusion to the first article [n.82]: The damned apprehend the ultimate end. If they necessarily will it, then they do so by the love and willing either of friendship or of concupiscence. Not in the first way, for that enjoyment is supremely right; nor in the second way, because they apprehend it as impossible for them.

128. Again, if loving the end is necessarily elicited once practical understanding is in place, and yet there is there the supreme idea of right and merit by congruity: then, because every other act of the will is acceptable and laudable only by virtue of that love, there would stand with any merit whatever the fact that the will would necessarily follow practical understanding, - against Anselm On the Virginal Conception ch.4.

129. Again, in something that is necessitated to acting of itself or to acting whenever it can act [n.102], there can be no habit; for thus there might be a habit in a stone, which is not simply necessitated to fall but as far as depends on itself [nn.93, and footnote thereto]. Therefore in the will with respect to the end there can be no habit. There is a confirmation about acquired habits: because these habits are only generated by acts, but now when the will acts it has a necessity de re [necessity in sensu diviso] to act.

The conclusion about acquired habits is conceded. - But this agrees with the Philosopher, because wisdom is a supreme habit [Ethics 6.7.1141a16-20, Metaphysics 1.2.983a6-7].

There is a proof that neither can there be a supernatural habit with respect to it, because it is not capable of another habit with respect to an act to which it is necessitated.

Response: it is not necessitated to love now of the end in particular, nor to love of it when seen in the fatherland, unless it is elevated. - The first is rejected as below against the second article [nn.134-135], the second as below against the third article [nn.136-140].

130. Against the reason [n.129] an instance is made, that it rejects habits in the intellect. It is conceded that the intellect as inclining has no habit but not the intellect as showing.Interpolation: “if the reasoning is valid, no habit will be posited in the intellect. - I say that one should not posit an inclining habit but habit of showing is very well required, which habit should not be posited in the will but only the inclining one; therefore the reasoning is good about the will but not about the intellect. I hold therefore that the will is able not to will the end in whatever way it is apprehended, whether obscurely or clearly, whether universally or in particular.” ³²

131. Again, a priori, every single power, as it has one first object, so also one mode with respect to the first object; therefore it has the same mode with respect to anything whatever in which its first object is per se included.

Response: it has some one mode which is per se, but the ensuing modes can vary, which modes agree from the nature of special objects with the power in its acting; of this sort are ‘necessarily’ and ‘contingently’. - But the per se mode is freely’ as this is contradistinguished from ‘naturally’; ‘freely’ however does not entail ‘contingently’.Interpolation: “On the contrary: ‘naturally’ and ‘contingently’ do not imply ‘freely’ in the way inferiors imply their superior; therefore they are not special modes contained under the first mode which is ‘freely’. - It is said that they are so as compared with the will, although simply speaking ‘necessarily’ and ‘freely’ are related as things exceeding to things exceeded.” ³³

132. Again, a priori, whatever any will wills necessarily if shown to it, this it simply necessarily wills; the thing is clear about the will of God, where infinity is as much the reason for necessity simply as if the object were shown.

133. Again,Text cancelled by Scotus: “Again, against the first article [n.83], every agent acting necessarily acts of necessity according to the ultimate of its power, because just as its action is not in its power, so neither its mode of acting, namely to act intensely or not intensely; therefore the will of necessity wills the end always very intensely and as much as it can, the opposite of which we experience. - The conclusion is conceded when the apprehension is equal and there is nothing to distract it.” ³⁴ a power free by participation does not tend more to a perfect object than to any object; therefore neither a power free by essence; but there is no difference between the end that is willed and other things that are willed except on the part of the perfection of the object. The antecedent is plain, because sight, which is a free power by participation, namely insofar as its act is subject to the command of the will, does not more necessarily see a very beautiful thing than a less beautiful thing; therefore it is turned away form each equally and each it sees equally contingently.

The response is that the major is true of the cognitive power but is not true of the appetitive power tending to the object apprehended by its own cognitive power; for more necessarily does a very beautiful sight delight the seeing power than does a less beautiful one, and if the appetite could carry itself to that sight by an elicited act, it would more necessarily carry itself or be carried to a more beautiful sight than to a less beautiful one.

134. [Against article 2] - Against the second article [n.86].Interpolation: “which I concede to be true, but” ³⁵ It seems that the first articles destroy the second article, because the reason, which is that in the ultimate end there is not any defect of good nor any malice [n.85], seems with equal efficacy to entail its conclusion about the ultimate end when apprehended in particular, or to entail it with more efficacy, because in the ultimate end in particular there is apprehended the whole idea of the end in general, nay there is also shown that the perfection of the end in general can exist in it alone, and so without any defect of good and without any malice either.

135. Likewise the second reason for the first member about participation [n.83] concludes more about the end apprehended in particular, for created goods, if they are good by participation, are more truly goods by participation in the ultimate end in particular than by participation in it in general; for they do not participate in it in general except because they participate in it in particular, since the participator has the participated for the cause or measure on which it essentially depends, and the dependence of a real being is only on a real being, and so on something singular.

136. [Against article 3] - Against the third article [n.87]. When an elicitive principle does not elicit necessarily, what possesses that principle does not necessarily act; nor does an elicitive principle, while being disposed in the same way, elicit necessarily now what before it was eliciting contingently, therefore neither will what possesses that principle necessarily act. But a will having the same charity that it has now was before eliciting the act of enjoying contingently, therefore it does not now necessarily elicit that act, since no change has been made on its part. This is plain in the rapture of Paul. If before he had a charity equal with that which he had during the rapture, there was no change on the part of his will nor on the part of the elicitive principle; therefore there was then no greater necessity for eliciting it than before.Interpolation: “nor consequently for acting.” ³⁶ At any rate there could have been an equal charity during the rapture and prior to it.

137. Or let the reason be formed in this way: the necessity of acting can only be through something intrinsic to the active principle; but, by the fact that the intellect now sees the object, there is no new thing intrinsic to the active principle in enjoying; therefore not a new necessity of acting either. - Proof of the major: otherwise the necessity of acting would not be by reason of the active principle, and so it would be by nothing or by something extrinsic; and if by something extrinsic, the acting would be through that, because the acting is through that through which is the necessity of acting. -The minor is plain: if vision in accord with this thing does not have the idea of active principle with respect to enjoyment, neither does the intellect nor anything in the intellect; also if vision in some other way has some nature of active principle, though not of the principal one but of the secondary one, then the major should be taken as determined in this way: ‘the necessity of acting is only through something intrinsic to the principal active principle’; for a secondary principle does not give necessity to a principal one, just as it does not determine it either to acting, but conversely the principal agent of itself uses in its own way the secondary one, so that if nothing in the principal one excludes contingency, the whole action will be contingent. The minor is thus plain, because through enjoyment nothing is intrinsic to the principal active principle;     therefore etc     .

138. Again, either the end moves to the act or the power does. If the end, it is plain there is no necessity, because the end moves necessarily to no created act. If the will moves,Text cancelled by Scotus: “and it does not have a difference on the part of the object except that of greater or lesser proximity.” ³⁷ then I argue: the diverse proximity to the agent of the thing that undergoes the action does not cause necessity but only a more intense action, as is plain of the hot with respect to heatable things that are more and less proximate; but the diverse presence of the known object, to wit seen and not seen, seems only to be as it were the diverse proximity to the will of what the act of will should be about; therefore it does not diversify necessity and non-necessity, but only makes the act to be more or less intense.Interpolation [from Appendix A]: “Besides, diverse proximity of the passive thing to the agent does not cause necessity but only a more intense action, as is plain in the case of heat with respect to heatable things that are in greater or lesser proximity; but the diverse presence of the known object, namely seen and not seen, seems only to be as it were the diverse proximity to the will of that which the act of will should be about; therefore it does not diversify necessity and non-necessity, but will only make a more and a less intense act.” ³⁸

139. Again, what is said in that article, that the act of vision is altogether impossible without enjoyment [n.87], does not seem to be true, because any absolute distinct natures whatever are so disposed that a prior nature can essentially exist in the absence of a later one without contradiction; those acts ‘vision’ and ‘enjoyment’ are two absolute natures; therefore vision, which is naturally prior, can exist without contradiction in the absence of the later, namely enjoyment.

140. A response is that the major is true of absolutes neither of which depends on another nor both on a third; but in the proposed case both depend on a third, as on the object causing and moving.

On the contrary: if they depend on a third necessarily causing them both, and not necessarily causing one though it cause the other, the major will still be true, because the prior will be able without contradiction to exist in the absence of the later.Interpolation: “or the argument goes like this: whatever is essentially prior to another can be made to exist by that agent by which neither are both necessarily produced nor is the later necessarily produced if the prior is.” ³⁹ But they do not depend on a third necessarily causing them both simply, as is clear; nor on a third necessarily causing the later if it causes the prior, because any absolute thingNote added by Scotus: “Note, ‘absolute’ excludes the following instance: ‘God is able not to cause a white thing, and thus not to cause a similar thing, therefore he can cause a white thing without causing a similar thing’; and this instance: ‘he is able not to cause a body, therefore to cause a body without a shape’, if shape only means the many respects of lines bounding a surface or of surfaces bounding a body as health means many proportions.” ⁴⁰ that is able non-necessarily to cause immediately is able non-necessarily to cause through an intermediate cause that is also caused, because that intermediate caused cause does not necessitate it to causing the absolute effect of the intermediate cause; therefore if it does not necessarily cause a later absolute, it does not necessarily cause it even when the prior cause is in place, if in any respect it is a cause.

141. [Against article 4] - Against the fourth article [n.88] the argument goes: that by which someone can simply act is the power; therefore if the will is not able from its natural properties to have an act about a seen end but it can have charity, charity is either simply a power of volition about that object or a part of the power of volition, both of which are false.

142. Again, if a willable object that is not sufficiently proximate or present to the will is sufficiently able to terminate an act of will, much more is the same object able to do so if it is more perfectly proximate or present to the will; therefore if some good obscurely apprehended can be willed by a will not elevated by a supernatural habit, much more can the same object clearly seen be in some way willed by such a will. I therefore concede the conclusions of these reasons [nn.141-142].

C. Scotus’ own Opinion

143. As for the first article [n.82] I say that just as the will enjoys non-necessarily the things that are for the end, so also does it non-necessarily enjoy an end apprehended obscurely or in general.

144. As for the second article [n.82] I concede along with the first opinion [n.86] that the will does not necessarily enjoy an end obscurely seen and in particular; nor is there nor should there be an argument against the first opinion as to the conclusion, but argument that the reasons put in the first article conclude against the second article, if they are valid [nn.134-135]. But how will someone who relies on them in the first article solve them in the second? Nay even the reasoning of them in the second article [n.86] seems to contradict the first article [n.83].

145. As for the third article [n.82] I say that an elevated will does not necessarily enjoy, as far as depends on its own part, an end thus seen.

146. As for the fourth [n.82] I say that a will not supernaturally elevated can enjoy the end.

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.

First Distinction. Third Part. On the Enjoyer

Question 1 Whether enjoying belongs to God

159. Lastly in regard to this first distinction I ask about the enjoyer, namely to whom as subject enjoyment belongs, and first whether enjoying belongs to God.

It seems that it does not:

Because enjoyment is with respect to the end; but God does not have an end; therefore enjoying does not belong to God.

160. On the contrary:

God loves himself; and he does not love himself because of something else, because then he would be using himself; therefore he enjoys himself. The consequence is plain, because if he loves himself, either by using or enjoying himself.

Question 2. Whether the wayfarer enjoys

161. Second I ask whether the wayfarer enjoys.

It seems that he does not:

Because the wayfarer has only an act of desire in respect of the absent good; but an act of desire is not an act of enjoyment. The proof of this is that desire is an act of concupiscence, but enjoyment is an act of friendship;     therefore etc     .

162. On the contrary:

“To enjoy is to adhere by love to something for its own sake,” as Augustine says, and it is contained in the text [On Christian Doctrine 1 ch.4 n.4; Lombard Sentences 1 d.1 ch.2]; but the wayfarer thus adheres to God; therefore he can enjoy God.

Question 3. Whether the sinner enjoys

163. Third the question is asked whether the sinner enjoys.

And it seems he does not:

Because what does not rely on something immovable does not enjoy nor rest; but the sinner does not rely on any immovable good; the proof is that he relies on a creature, which is not immovable, for “every creature is subject to vanity” [Romans 8.20, Ecclesiastes 3.19]; therefore he does not rest nor enjoy.

164. Again, he who wants another to use his act does not enjoy him; but the sinner wants God to use his act; therefore he does not enjoy him. The major is clear because he who wants another to use his act does not value him as the supreme good; therefore he does not enjoy him. The minor is clear because the sinner wishes to be his own act; therefore he wishes it to be from God, since nothing can exist except from God; therefore he wishes God to use it, because God uses everything that is from him.

165. On the contrary:

Augustine 83 Diverse Questions q.30: “All perversity, which is named vice, is to use things which are to be enjoyed and to enjoy things which are to be used” [n.70]; therefore it is possible for the sinner to enjoy things he should use.

Question 4. Whether the brutes enjoy

166. Fourth the question is asked whether the brutes enjoy.

And it seems that they do, from Augustine, where as before, 83 Diverse Questions q.30, he says that: “to enjoy any corporal pleasure the beasts too are not absurdly judged to do.”

167. On the contrary:

“To enjoy is to adhere by love to something for its own sake” [nn.70, 162]; but the brutes do not have love, because neither do they have will nor do they adhere to anything for its own sake but for their own good; therefore they do not enjoy.

Question 5. Whether all things enjoy

168. Fifth the question is asked whether all things enjoy.

It seems that they do:

Because all things desire the good with natural love, Ethics 1.1.1094a2-3; and they desire some good not for the sake of something else [Ethics 1.4.1096b13-14];     therefore they enjoy.

169. On the contrary:

“We enjoy things known” [n72; Augustine On the Trinity X ch.10 n.13]; but not all things have cognition; therefore etc     .

I. To all the Questions Together

170. To solve these questions I put first a certain example, namely about how bodies are made to rest in diverse ways [cf. Prol. nn.170-178]. For the ultimate terminus of rest for heavy bodies is the center. But to this center, as to the ultimate terminus, a heavy body adheres per se and first, for example earth, which does not by the nature of some other body adhere to that by which it participates in heaviness and in the adhering in question.

171. Now a body adheres to the center immovably and per se, but not first, because it adheres by the heaviness and the adhering that it has received from earth. However it does adhere per se, because it adheres by an intrinsic form and firmly and immovably, because it does so as it were through what is intrinsic to earth, which is what rests first, as stones and metals in the bosom of the earth; and such things, although they do not rest first, do yet perfectly rest, because they are perfectly conjoined to the center through the medium of the first rester, with which they are, as it were, perfectly united.

172. In a third way, a body adheres to the center through the medium of the earth with which it is united, but movably and not firmly, as a heavy object existing on the surface of the earth; and such a thing, although it truly rests for a time, is yet not as determined in rest as a body that is resting in the second way.

173. In a fourth way, a body can adhere uniformly to a body next to it and rest with respect to it, and not rest with respect to the universe if the body next to it, to which it adheres, is not uniformly adhering to the center, for example in the case of a man lying on a ship; although it would be in the power of a body to be itself at rest, that heavy body, which would be finally at rest itself in some such movable thing but not in the center, whether mediately or immediately, would be disorderedly at rest, because although, as far as depends on itself, it would be at rest because of its firm adhesion to such a movable body, yet it would not adhere to that to which it should, according to its own nature, adhere in order to be at rest.

174. Applying the example to the intended proposition, the will corresponds in spiritual things to weight in the body, because “as the body by weight, so the spirit by love is borne wherever it is borne,” according to Augustine On the City of God 11 ch.28. The center which of its own nature gives ultimate rest is the ultimate end; hence the wise man says that “God is the intellectual sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” [Ps.-Hermes Trismegistus Book of 24 Philosophers prop.2] -it accords with truth. To this center the divine will first and per se immovably and necessarily adheres,Interpolation: “Hence the Commentator Physics II com.88 says that the disposition of a simply necessary being is that it not exist because of its action but its action because of it, and this mode is found in simply eternal things.” ⁴⁴ because not by participation in anything other than itself, for this will, not by habit nor by a deferring act nor in virtue of any superior cause, most perfectly and necessarily loves the supreme good.

175. In second rank is a blessed created will, which not first, but by participating in God, yet per se, because by its own intrinsic form, adheres firmly to this good, and that because it is made to be as it were intrinsic to the will that is first at rest, because it always abides in that will’s good pleasure.

176. In third rank is the will of a just wayfarer, who although it relies on the divine will and relies, by its mediation, on the supreme good in which the will itself rests, yet it does not firmly and immovably adhere to the good pleasure of that very will; hence now it adheres to that good and now it turns away from that good. - But here there is a certain unlikeness to the third member in the case of bodies [n.172]; because there the body is able not to be at rest while the form remains by which it rests, but here the form, by which the will rests, is posited to be destroyed at the same time along with aversion of the will from the center.

177. In the fourth rank is the mortal sinner, who although, as far as depends on the act of the will that is making itself rest, adheres vehemently to something other than God, so that neither by its mediation nor immediately is it adhering to God, yet on the part of the object it cannot be simply at rest; nay rather, just as someone at rest with respect to a ship, and not with respect to the center, is not simply at rest, because not at rest with respect to what in the universe makes ultimately to rest, so the will, which is making itself rest, as far as it can, in some object other than God, is not simply at rest, because not at rest with respect to what in the universe makes the will ultimately and most perfectly to rest. The fact is also plain, because the will is there never satisfied, however firmly it immerses itself in the thing by loving it for its own sake.

178. On the basis of these points I say to the questions posed that to enjoy either means delight or it means the act of adhering to the object for its own sake, to which act the rest of delight is concomitant, or which act is itself the delight or the rest, that is, the act that ultimately terminates the power to the extent that a power terminates itself in its act; so that about the idea of enjoyment, if it means the act, it does not seem to be the case that it itself makes the power to rest as far as depends on the part of the object, but as far as depends on the part of the power adhering to some object for its own sake; so that the divine will enjoys simply and necessarily and per se and first; but the blessed created will enjoys simply and perpetually and per se but not first; the just will of the wayfarer enjoys simply and per se but not immovably nor first. The will of the mortal sinner enjoys simply because, as far as depends on the part of the will, it would make itself to rest, and does rest, in the object which it loves for its own sake; but it does not simply rest as far as depends on the part of the object, nor does that object require enjoyment, but because the object does not make it to rest as a power makes itself, by its act, to rest in its act, therefore its enjoyment is disordered.

179. But in that case there is a doubt as to what object the mortal sinner enjoys, namely whether his own act or the object of his act.

My reply: I say that in general he enjoys himself, because he loves the object of his act with the love of concupiscence. Because all love of concupiscence is preceded by an act of love, and consequently he loves something else with the love of friendship, and that something else is himself, for whom, as loved with love of friendship, he loves the object with love of concupiscence. He does not then enjoy the object of his act, nor consequently the act itself, on which there is no need that he first reflect back. This opinion is that of Augustine On the City of God 14 ch.28: “The two loves have made two cities: the love of oneself to contempt of God has made the city of the devil, the love of God to contempt of oneself the city of God,” and On Genesis to the Letter 11 ch.15 n.20. Therefore the first root is in this, that the sinner enjoys himself.

180. To the penultimate question [n.166] it can be said that although the sensitive appetite in some way adheres to something for its own sake, that is, not because of another negatively, because it does not have the feature of referring to another, nor yet by contrariety, because the object is not valued as not referable to another; therefore it is said in an abusive sense to enjoy, because of lack of relation, but not properly, because it does not adhere in a non-referring way. Likewise neither does it adhere with love, because it does not properly have the feature of loving. Likewise neither does it properly adhere, because it does not apply itself to the object but is as it were fixed by the force of the object, because it does not lead but is led, according to Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 2 ch.22. And by following the said simile about the resting of bodies [n.173], one could say that the sensitive appetite is likened to iron that is fixed to adamant by the force of the attracting adamant, and thus is made to rest in the center neither mediately nor immediately, nor in anything else, by the force which would give it rest in the center, or by any intrinsic force making it rest in something as if in the center, but only by force of something extrinsic making it rest. So here, the force of the object makes it to rest, but not the intrinsic force of making to rest in the center or as if in the center, which force as freedom alone, and this does not belong to the sensitive appetite.

181. To the final question [n.168] the answer is clear from what has been said. Because, if enjoying proper by sensitive appetite be denied, which appetite however more agrees with the will, where enjoyment is, than natural appetite agrees with it, because the act of the sensitive appetite follows an act of knowing just as does the act of the will - not thus, however, the act of natural appetite, if it has any act - then the conclusion follows that enjoying proper does not belong to what has natural appetite alone, nay nor does it thus belong abusively either in the way it belongs to sensitive appetite.

II. To the Principal Arguments

182. To the arguments. To the argument of the first question [n.159] I say just as was said to the first question of this distinction in the fourth article [n.17], that the idea of end is not the proper idea of the enjoyable, but the idea of the absolute good is to which the idea of end belongs. Although, therefore, God is not the end of himself, yet with respect to his will he is that absolute object to whom naturally belongs the idea of end, because he is the supreme good; but the idea of end cannot belong to him with respect to himself (just as neither is he the end with respect to himself) but with respect to all enjoyable things, of which sort are all the goods that can be ordered to another.

If the objection is raised how God then is said to act for an end, and also that a superior agent has a superior end, I reply: with respect to nothing is there any final cause unless with respect to it there is an efficient cause, because the causality of the final cause is to move the efficient cause to act; God then, as not being something that can be effected, has no final cause. But the first common saying [God acts for an end] must be understood to mean that he acts for the end of the effect; but not for the end of himself, because he is not an agent of himself. Likewise the second common saying [a superior agent has a superior end] must be understood of the end of the effect, because a superior agent orders, not himself, but the effect to a more universal end; and so the superior end is the agent’s, not as its end, but as that to which it orders what it does.

183. To the argument of the second question [n.161] I say that, besides the act of desire which is with respect to something not possessed, by which the just wayfarer desires God for himself with an act of concupiscence, the just wayfarer has another act, one of friendship, by wanting well being for God in himself, and this act of friendship is enjoyment, but not that act which is of desire; and this second act is properly the act of charity, but not the first, which is the act of one desiring, as will be said in 3 Suppl. d.26 q. un n.17. The major then is false.

184. To the first argument of the third question [n.163] an exposition of the minor can be given, that what adheres to a movable thing does not rest simply, although as far as depends on its own part it makes itself rest in it, and so the conclusion is to be conceded, because the mortal sinner does not simply rest, although as far as depends on his own part, by his own act of ultimate rest, he makes himself rest in a movable thing. If it be added that nothing enjoys a thing unless it makes itself rest simply in that thing, this must be denied, but one must add: ‘unless it makes itself rest as far as depends on the part of the act itself,’ namely the act by which he adheres to the object; and also: ‘as far as depends on the part of the object’, in disordered enjoyment. Nor ought supreme rest to be what is understood here, because to all rest on the way there follows the greater rest of the fatherland, but because of an act accepting the object that cannot be referred to another.

185. As to the second [n.164], the major can be denied, because although by ordered love no one enjoys anything save what he does not wish anyone to use but to enjoy, yet with disordered love someone can very well enjoy what he does not wish another to enjoy but only to use, or not to love in any way, as is evident with disordered jealousy. - To the proof of the major one can say that although the enjoyer values the enjoyable as the supreme good, yet he does not wish it to be thus valued by everyone when he is enjoying it in disordered way; therefore the conclusion does not follow: ‘he wishes it to be the supreme good or he loves it as the supreme good, therefore he wishes others thus to love it’.

One can reply in another way by denying the minor. - For the proof, when it is said ‘he wishes the enjoyable to be, therefore he wishes it to be from God’, the conclusion does not follow. Nor does this follow either: ‘he wishes it to be from God, therefore he wishes God to use that act’. And the cause of the defect of each consequence is that he who wills the antecedent need not will the consequent when the consequent is not per se included in the antecedent but only follows through an extrinsic topic. So it is in the proposed case.

186. As to the authority of Augustine for the fourth question [n.166], it is clear that his authority is to be expounded of abusive enjoyment, or of the term ‘enjoyment’ in an extended sense, because the sensitive appetite does not refer by understanding negatively, nor by contrariety, because it does not adhere to the object as to something that cannot be referred, because, although the thing cannot be referred by it, this results from its natural impotency, not from the goodness in the object or in the acceptation of the power. About the difference between these, namely not being referred in negatively, by contrariety and by privation, there will be discussion at 2 d.41 q. un n.3.

187. As to the argument of the final question [n.168], it is plain that although the natural appetite adheres to something for its own sake negatively, not however by contrariety for the most part, and if it does do so by contrariety, yet it does not adhere by love; nor does it properly adhere either, but by itself giving the nature it is fixed as it were in the object itself, not indeed by an elicited act other than nature, as is the case with the sensitive appetite, but by nature’s habitual inclination. Hence as was said [n.181], enjoyment belongs less to it than to the sensitive appetite which by an elicited act adheres as to an object already known, though not freely; but natural appetite is perpetually inclined without any cognition.

From what has been said about enjoying, and especially in the third question of this distinction (namely ‘whether enjoying is an act elicited by the will or a passion received in the will, to wit delight’ [nn.62-76]), one can be clear about use, which is a more imperfect act of the will ordered to enjoying as to a more perfect act of the same power.

Second Distinction. First Part. On the Existence of God and his Unity

Question 1. Whether among beings there is something existing actually infinite

1. On the second distinction I inquire first about what pertains to the unity of God, and firstInterpolation: “This therefore is to be held by true and pious faith. About this second distinction, wherein the Master deals with the existence and unity of God and the plurality of the persons, there are seven questions [nn.1, 10, 157, 191, 197, 201, 212]; for there are three questions about the first part, two about God’s essence and one about his unity. The first is.” ⁴⁵ whether among beings there is something existing actually infinite.Interpolation: “Whether there is some being simply first. That there is not: beings are related to themselves as numbers, and there is no number first in perfection because neither is there a greatest number. On the contrary: Metaphysics 2.2.994a11-19, there is a first efficient cause, therefore a first actuality; there is a first end, therefore a first good. - Second, whether priority could simply belong to essences of different nature. That it could: posteriority so belongs, and as one correlative is multiplied so is the other. On the contrary: every multitude is reduced to a unity. - Third, whether a being simply first is infinite in intensity. Here below [nn.1-9]. - Solution: first, as to what the order of questions is, because in a ‘demonstration-that’ existence is proved first of relatives; from the second will be got priority with respect to all causable things, from this the solution of the third, to the first as below [nn.41-73].” ⁴⁶

That there is not is argued as follows:

If one contrary were actually infinite, there would be nothing in nature contrary to it; therefore if there were some good actually infinite, there would be no evil in the universe.

2. The response is made that the major is true of contraries formally; but nothing evil is formally contrary to God.

3. On the contrary: whether it is formally or virtually contrary, if it is infinite, it suffers nothing contrary to its effect, because it will, on account of its infinite virtue, destroy everything incompossible with its effect. The major is true, then, of the virtual contrary as of the formal contrary. An example: if the sun were infinitely hot virtually, it would leave nothing cold in the universe, just as if it were infinitely hot formally.

4. Again, an infinite body allows of no other body along with it, therefore neither does an infinite being allow of any other being along with it. Proof of the consequence is first because, just as dimension opposes dimension, so actuality seems to oppose actuality; and second because, just as a body different from the infinite would produce along with it something greater than the infinite, so a being other than the infinite seems to produce something greater than the infinite.

5. Further, what is here in such a way that it is not elsewhere is finite with respect to ‘where’, and what is now in such a way that it is not at another time, is finite with respect to ‘when’, and thus with each category. What does this particular thing in such a way that it does not do something else is finite as to action, therefore what is a this something in such a way that it is not something else is finite in entity; God is supremely a this, because he is of himself singularity; therefore he is not infinite.

6. Again, from Physics 8.10.266a24-b6, if there were an infinite virtue, it would move in non-time; no virtue can move in non-time, because if it did motion would exist in an instant; therefore no virtue is infinite.

7. On the contrary:

In the same place of the Physics [266a10-24, b6-20, 7b17-26] the Philosopher proves that the first mover is of infinite power because it moves with an infinite motion.

But this conclusion cannot be understood only of infinity of duration, because he proves, on account of its infinity of power, that it cannot exist in magnitude; but it is not repugnant to magnitude, in his view, that there is a power in it infinite in duration, the way he posited in the case of the heavens.

8. Again Psalm 47.2: “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.”

9. Again Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.9: “He is a sea, etc.”

Question 2. Whether something infinite is known self-evidently

10. Whether something infinite is known self-evidently, as that God exists.

It seems that this is so:

Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.1: “Knowledge of the fact that God exists is naturally implanted in everyone;” but that is self-evidently known the knowledge of which is implanted in everyone, as is clear from Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5, because the first principles, which are as it were the entrance doors, are self-evidently known;     therefore etc     .

11. Further, that than which nothing greater can be thought is self-evidently known to exist; God is of this sort, according to Anselm Proslogion ch.5;     therefore etc     . This thing is also not anything finite, therefore it is infinite. - The proof of the major is that the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject: for if the subject does not exist, it is not that thing than which nothing greater can be thought, because, if it existed in reality, it would be greater than if it did not exist in reality but in the intellect.

12. Again, that truth exists is self-evidently known; God is truth; therefore that God exists is self-evidently known. The proof of the major is that it follows from its opposite: for if there were no truth, therefore it is true that there is no truth; therefore there is truth.

13. Again, propositions that have necessity in a certain respect from terms that have existence in a certain respect, namely from the fact that they are in the intellect, are self-evidently known, as first principles which are self-evidently known from terms that have existence in the intellect; therefore much more will that be self-evidently known which has necessity from terms simply necessary, of which sort is the proposition ‘God exists’. The assumption is plain because the necessity of the first principles and their knowability is not because of the existence of the terms in reality but only because of the connection of the extremes as that connection exists in the conceiving intellect.

14. On the contrary:

What is self-evidently known cannot be denied by anyone’s mind; but ‘the fool has said in his heart, there is no God,’ Psalm 13.1, 52.1;     therefore etc     .Interpolation: “Again, Avicenna Metaphysics 1 ch.1 (70rb): ‘That God exists is not known per se, nor is it beyond hope for him to be known.” ⁴⁷

I. To the Second Question

15. Because according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 2.3.995a13-14: “it is absurd to look for knowledge and the way of knowing at the same time,” I reply first to the second question, which inquires about the way of knowing the proposition ‘God exists’. And, as to its solution, I first set down the idea of a self-evidently known proposition, and I say thus:

When a proposition is said to be self-evidently known, the phrase ‘self-evidently’ does not exclude there being any cause, because it does not exclude the terms of the proposition; for no proposition is known when the knowledge of the terms is excluded, because we know the first principles to the extent we know the terms; but what is excluded is any cause and reason outside the per se conception of the terms of a self-evidently known proposition. A self-evidently known proposition, then, is said to be one that gets its evident truth from nothing outside the proper terms that are part of it.Interpolation: “that is, from no other propositional truth but from itself alone does ‘every whole is greater than its part’ get its evidence.” ⁴⁸

16. Next, what are those proper terms from which its evidence should come? - I say that, in this regard, one term is the definition and the other the thing defined, whether the terms are taken for the words that signify or for the concepts signified.Interpolation: “some are to be taken for the thing defined and others for the definition.” ⁴⁹

17. I prove this from the Posterior Analytics 1.6.75a25-27, because the ‘what it is’ or the definition of one of the extremes is the middle term in demonstration; therefore one of the premises does not differ from the conclusion save as the thing defined differs from the definition, and yet the premise is a self-evidently known principle; the conclusion, however, is not self-evidently known but is demonstrated. Therefore as to the idea of a self-evidently known proposition, the concept of the definition is different from the thing defined, because if the concept of the definition and of the thing defined were the same, there would, in the most potent demonstration, be a begging of the question; again, there would then only be two terms there, which is false.

18. This is proved in a second way as follows, through Aristotle Physics 1.1.184a26-b3, that names relate to the definition as the whole to the parts, that is, that a confused name is first known by the definition; but a name introduces confusedly what a definition introduces distinctly, because a definition divides a thing into its individual parts; therefore the concept of a quiddity, as it is introduced by the name confusedly, is naturally known before its concept, as introduced distinctly by the definition, is known, and so it is another concept and another extreme term.Interpolation: “A reason also of this sort can be formed: it is impossible for the same concept to be prior and posterior and to be had and not had about the same thing; but the same thing can be conceived, and is conceived, according to the name before it is so according to the definition, Averroes Physics 1 com.5; therefore the concepts introduced by the name and by the definition are not the same.” ⁵⁰ - From this further: since a self-evidently known proposition is one which has evident truth from the proper terms, and since the other terms are, as introduced by the definition, concepts of the quiddity in a distinct way, and are, as introduced by the name, concepts of the quiddity in a confused way, the conclusion follows that a proposition about a quiddity taken in a confused way will not be self-evidently known when the same proposition is only known if it is conceived distinctly.

19. There is another proof of this conclusion, that otherwise any other proposition, which is necessary and per se in the first mode [Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-37] (as this proposition: ‘man is an animal’ and ‘man is a body’, as far as substance), would be self-evidently known; for if the nature of each extreme is assigned by the natures of the extremes when distinctly conceived, it is plainly manifest that one extreme includes the other. Similarly, otherwise any proposition would be self-evidently known in the special sciences that the metaphysician might possess as self-evidently known from the definitions of the extremes, which is not true, because the geometer does not use any principles as self-evidently known save those that have evident truth from terms confusedly conceived, to wit by conceiving line confusedly; but it is evident that a line is length without breadth without yet any distinct conception, in the way considered by the metaphysician, of what genus line pertains to. But the other propositions that the metaphysician could conceive, to wit that line is a quantity and a quantity of this sort, these sort of propositions are not had by the geometer as self-evidently known.

20. This is clear thirdly because the demonstration of some predicate about a defined thing stands well with the predicate being self-evidently known about the definition.Interpolation: “just as having three angles [equal to two right angles] is demonstrated of a triangle when there is knowledge of its definition, which is: ‘plain figure’ etc.” ⁵¹

21. Therefore all and only those propositions are self-evidently known that, from terms conceived in the way in which they are the terms of the proposition, possess or naturally posses the evident truth of the combined proposition.Interpolation: “That proposition is known per se which gets its evidence, not from another proposition whose truth is more known, but from its own intrinsic terms.” Interpolation to the interpolation: “...as these terms are its own. And I say, as they are its own: either they are confused concepts as confused, or distinct concepts as distinct; for definition and thing defined are not the same terms, because the thing defined is known before the definition is, by the fact that the confused thing or things are known first, Physics 1.1.184a21-22; hence the name of the defined thing involves the intelligible thing in a confused way and in a confused concept, but by the definition is introduced a discrete concept about the same thing; and therefore something can be known per se as to one term, namely the defined term, which is not known as to the definition. Again, a definition is the middle term in demonstration, and the defined thing is the conclusion; and therefore did I say ‘as the terms are its own’, namely confusedly if they are confused and distinctly if the concepts are distinct. Hence the definition as it is the middle is not as it is declarative or more evident to us than the thing defined, but the major proposition or the minor is more evident than the conclusion.” ⁵²

22. From this it is plain that there is no distinction between a self-evidently known and a self-evidently knowable proposition, for they are the same; for a proposition is not called self-evidently known because it is self-evidently known by some intellect (for then, if no intellect actually knew it, no proposition would be self-evidently known), but a proposition is said to be self-evidently known because, as far as depends on the nature of the terms, it is of a nature to possess, even in any intellect that conceives the terms, the evident truth contained in the terms. But if some intellect does not conceive the terms, and so does not conceive the proposition, it is, as far as depends on itself, no less self-evidently known; and it is in this ways that we speak of self-evidently known.

23. From this is also plain that there is no distinction between the self-evidently known in itself to nature and the self-evidently known in itself to us, because whatever is in itself self-evidently known, even if not actually known, is evidently true from the terms and known to any intellect, provided the terms are known.Interpolation: “as is plain in the case of the perfect syllogism, which needs nothing for its necessity to be evident, Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24, and Reportatio IA d.3 n.62. But this evidence is from the relation of the principles or the suppositions to the conclusion, which is the relation of necessity.” ⁵³,Text cancelled by Scotus: “For the same reason the distinction is not valid that something is self-evidently known to the wise and the unwise, because this only pertains to the conception of the terms, which are presupposed to the understanding of a self-evidently known proposition, although Boethius, On the Seven Days PL 64, 1311, does thus distinguish the common conception; but either the self-evidently known proposition and the common conception are not the same, or Boethius is understanding a proposition that is conceived, not a proposition that is conceivable, or he is understanding one distinctly conceived by reason of the terms.” ⁵⁴

24. Nor is there any validity to the distinction that some propositions are self-evidently known in the first order and some in the second, because any propositions self-evidently known, when the proper terms are conceived in the way they are the terms, possess evident truth in their own order.

25. From these points I say to the question that the proposition which conjoins these extremes: existence and the divine essence as a this or God and his proper existence, is self-evidently known in the way that God sees this essence and existence under the most proper idea that this existence has in God; and in this way neither existence nor essence are understood by us now, but by God himself and by the blessed, because the proposition has from its terms evident truth for the intellect, for the proposition is not per se in the second mode [Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a37-b5], as when the predicate is outside the idea of the subject, but is per se in the first mode [n.19] and is immediately evident from the terms, for it is the most immediate proposition, to which are resolved all assertions about God however he is conceived. Therefore this proposition ‘God exists’ or ‘this essence exists’ is self-evidently known, because the extremes naturally make the complex whole evident to anyone who perfectly apprehends the extremes of this complex whole, for existence belongs to nothing more perfectly than to this essence. In this way, therefore, understanding by the name ‘God’ something that we do not perfectly know or conceive as being this divine essence, thus is ‘God exists’ self-evidently known.

26. But if it be inquired whether existence is present in some concept which we conceive of God, so that the sort of proposition in which existence is asserted of such a concept is self-evidently known, for example as about a proposition whose extreme terms can be conceived by us, that is, whether existence can in our intellect be a concept said of God, though not one common to him and to creatures, namely necessary existence or infinite being or supreme good, and we can of such a concept predicate existence in the way it is conceived by us, - I say that no such proposition is self-evidently known, for three reasons:

27. First, because any such proposition is a demonstrable conclusion, and a ‘conclusion-why’. Proof: anything that first and immediately belongs to something can be demonstrated of whatever is in itInterpolation: “whether in a superior or inferior, or of a passion.” ⁵⁵ by a ‘demonstration-why’ through what it first belongs to as through the middle term.Interpolation: “about the superior particularly or about the particular universally.” ⁵⁶ An example: if the triangle is what first has three angles equal to two right angles, of whatever is contained in triangle there can be a demonstration that it has three angles by a ‘demonstration-why’ through the middle term which is triangle, to wit that some figure would have three [angles equal to.. ,|     etc ., and also about any kind of triangle that it has three angles., although not first. But existence belongs first to this essence as this essence, in the way it is seen by the blessed; therefore      of anything in this essence that can be conceived by us, whether it be as something superior or as a property, existence can be demonstrated through this essence, as through the middle term, by a ‘demonstration-why’, just as by this proposition ‘a triangle has three.’ there is a demonstration that some figure has three.; and consequently it is not self-evidently known from the terms, because then there would be no ‘demonstration-why’.Interpolation: “Or let the reason be given in briefer form thus: what belongs to something first does not belong to another save by the nature of what to which it belongs first; but existence belongs first to this divine essence, therefore it will not belong to any other property or any other thing save by the nature of the essence. Therefore no proposition in which existence is asserted of any property of this essence that we conceive about God is true first, but is true by something else, and consequently it is not first and not known per se.” ⁵⁷

28. Second in this way: a self-evidently known proposition is self-evidently known to any intellect from the terms. But this proposition ‘there is an infinite being’ is not evident to our intellect from the terms; proof: for we do not conceive the terms before we believe the proposition or know it by demonstration, and it is not known to us in that ‘before’; for we do not hold it with certitude from the terms save by faith or demonstration.

29. Third, because nothing about a concept that is not simply simple is self-evidently known unless it is self-evidently known that the parts of that concept are united; but no concept that we have of God which is proper to him and does not belong to creatures is simply simple, or at any rate no concept that we distinctly conceive to be proper to God is simply simple;Note by Scotus: “This minor is set down on the basis of the opinion about the univocity of the concept that is common to God and creatures, but if this opinion is changed let this minor be taken: ‘many concepts in which we conceive God are not simply simple’, and a particular conclusion follows, not a universal one as from the two reasons [nn.27-28]. The minor might be taken in another way thus: ‘no concept of ours that is proper to God and that we perceive to be proper to God is simply simple’, because although the concept of being taken from creatures is simply simple and proper to God according to another opinion [sc. the opinion that being is analogical, not univocal, to God and creatures], yet it is not a proper percept, because according to Henry [of Ghent] it seems that in that concept, because of its likeness and simplicity, we do not distinguish God from other things, -understand: we do not distinguish in a perceptible way, because although the concept is distinct, yet it is not perceived by us as a distinct concept.” ⁵⁸ therefore nothing is self-evidently known about such a concept unless it is self-evidently known that the parts of the concept are united; but this is not self-evidently known, because the union of these parts is something demonstrated, by the two reasons mentioned [nn.27-28].

30. The major is manifest from the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.29.1024b31-32, that an account in itself false is false about everything; therefore no account is true about anything unless it is in itself true. Therefore in order for something to be true about some account, or for the account to be true about anything, one must known that it is in itself true; but no account is in itself true unless the parts of the account are united. And just as one must know as regard quidditative predications that the parts of the account can be united quidditatively, to wit that one formally contains the other, so as regard the truth of a proposition asserting existence one must know that the parts of the account of the subject or of the predicate are actually united. An example: just as the proposition ‘man is an irrational animal’ is not self-evidently known when speaking of quidditative predication, because the subject includes something in itself false, for it includes a proposition that includes contradictories in itself, so the proposition ‘a man is white’ is not self-evidently known if it is not self-evidently known that man and white are actually per se conjoined; because if they are not conjoined in actual existence, this proposition is true ‘nothing is a white man’, and consequently its converse will be true ‘no white man is’; therefore its contradictory is false ‘a white man is’.

31. Proof of the minor: whatever concept we conceive, whether of good or of true, if it is not contracted by something so that it is not a concept simply simple, is not a proper concept of God. Now I call a concept simply simple which is not resolvable into other simple concepts any one of which might in a simple act be distinctly conceived.

32. From this final reason [sc. the third, nn.29-31] a response to the [following] instances is clear, when the argument is made ‘this is self-evidently known, necessary existence exists’ - proof, because the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject; for if the predicate is not, ‘necessary existence’ does not exist - ‘this too is self-evidently known, God exists’, because, according to all the expositions posited by Damascene On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.9, God is called so from actual operation, namely from warming or burning or seeing,Damascene derived the Greek for ‘God’ (Theos) from Greek words signifying these operations. ⁵⁹ therefore, according to all acceptations of the term, ‘God exists’ is the same as ‘God is actually operating’, which seems self-evidently known, because, as before, the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject.Text cancelled by Scotus: “It is said that this proposition ‘the one who is actually operating is’ the ‘is’ can be predicated as an additional third thing, or as a second thing, and thus that the ‘is’ is predicated as present being or as habitual being [sc. the difference between ‘a just man is’ - where ‘is’ is second thing, namely a predicate of existence - and ‘a man is just’ - where ‘is’ is a third thing, namely the copula joining subject and predicate]; in the first way the proposition is not self-evidently known, in the second way it is self-evidently known. But this is not logically said, because according to the Philosopher On Interpretation 10.19b19-22, ‘is’ is not predicated as additional third except when the third is additional as a predicate; but, when no third is additional, it predicates existence proper, which is to be predicated as second thing; but here nothing is additional; therefore it predicates precisely what exists in itself, and so it is predicated as second thing.” ⁶⁰

33. For this reason I reply to these points [n.32] in another way, that neither of these propositions, ‘necessary existence exists’ or ‘the one actually operating exists’, is self-evidently known, because it is not self-evidently known that the parts that are in the subject are actually united. When it is said that ‘the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject’ [n.32], I say that it does not follow from this that the proposition is self-evidently known unless the repugnance is self-evident, and unless it is evident also along with this that each extreme has a simply simple concept or that the concepts of the parts are simply united.Text cancelled by Scotus: “Against this: if the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject, then the consequence is good of putting the subject in some antecedent and the predicate in some consequent, inferring the consequent from an antecedent of that kind, to wit ‘a is necessarily existent, therefore a exists’, because the opposite of the consequent is repugnant to the antecedent. But every necessary consequence holds by virtue of some necessary categorical proposition, and thus the categorical is what unites the extremes, by reason of which the consequence holds; therefore such a proposition is necessary, to wit this one ‘necessary existence exists’ and ‘the one who is actually operating exists’. I reply: when in the antecedent are included two opposites and a consequent is inferred, it is not inferred by reason of the whole antecedent extreme, because the whole extreme does not make any single concept, but only by reason of one part of the extreme, to wit the inference ‘an irrational man exists, therefore an animal exists’. The reason for the consequence is not ‘irrational man’, because it does not make any concept, but ‘man’ in the antecedent and ‘animal’ in the consequent; and therefore a categorical proposition that is per se true must be formed from those extremes, namely these: ‘man’ is ‘animal’. So in the proposed case: if the proposition has an extreme that is not simply simple, whose parts are not self-evidently known to be united, and something is inferred by reason of such non-simply simple extreme, it is inferred by reason of a part of it which includes what is inferred in the consequent; and therefore it holds by virtue of a categorical proposition which conjoins these two things, namely one part of the antecedent extreme and one part of the consequent extreme. This categorical is ‘existence exists’, but not ‘necessary existence exists’. The same response is made to ‘if it does not actually exist, it is not operating,’ and to the reverse ‘if it is operating, it is a being in actuality’: for in the subject several things are included, one of which is precisely the reason for the consequence, but the whole subject is not; and therefore there is no necessary proposition uniting the whole extreme of the antecedent with the extreme of the consequent.” ⁶¹

II. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question

34. To the principal argument of Damascene [n.10]: it can be expounded of the cognitive power naturally given to us by which we can know from creatures that God exists, at rate in general ideas (he subjoins there how he is known from creatures! On the Orthodox Faith 1 ch.3), or it can be expounded of the knowledge of God under common ideas that agree with himself and with creatures, which are known more perfectly and eminently in God than in other things. But that Damascene is not speaking of actual and distinct knowledge of God is clear from what he says there: “no one knows him save to the extent he himself has given revelation.”

35. To the second [n.11] I say that Anselm does not say that that proposition is self-evidently known, as is clear, because from his deduction it cannot be inferred that the proposition is true save through at least two syllogisms, one of which is this: ‘being is greater than any non-being, nothing is greater than the supreme thing,     therefore the supreme being is not a non-being’, from oblique forms in the second mood of the second figure [of syllogism]; the other syllogism is this: ‘what is not a non-being is a being, the supreme thing is not a non-being, therefore etc     .’ But how his reasoning is valid will be explained in the following question, in the sixth argument [n.137], about proving infinity.

36. As to the proof of the major [n.11] (I say the major is false when ‘it is self-evidently known’ is taken; however the major is true, though not self-evidently known), when it is proved that ‘the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject’, I say that it is neither self-evident that the opposite of the predicate is repugnant to the subject nor is it self-evident that the subject possesses a simply simple concept or that its parts are united in fact; and both these are required for that proposition to be self-evidently known.

37. To the third [n.12] I say that the inference ‘it is self-evidently known that truth in general exists, therefore it is self-evidently known that God exists’ does not follow but is the fallacy of the consequent;The argument in n.12 is of the form: it is self-evident that truth exists; this truth (namely God) exists; therefore this truth is self-evident. The argument commits the fallacy of the consequent because the premise proceeds from self-evidence to truth, and the conclusion does the reverse, proceeding from truth to self-evidence; cf. Aristotle Sophistical Refutations 1.5.167b1-13. ⁶² alternatively, the major can be denied. And when it is proved ‘if there is no truth, it is true that there is no truth’, the consequence is not valid, because truth is taken either for the foundation of truth in reality, or for truth in the act of the intellect combining and dividing; but if there is no truth, neither is it true that there is no truth, whether by the truth of reality, because there is nothing, or by the truth in the intellect combining and dividing, because there is no intellect. However the inference does indeed follow, ‘if there is no truth, therefore it is not true that there is any truth’, but the further inference does not follow, ‘therefore it is true that there is not any truth’; it is the fallacy of the consequent, from a negative having two causes of truth to an affirmative which is one of those causes.The conditional ‘if there is no truth, it is not true that there is any truth’, is a double negative; the conclusion ‘it is true that there is no truth’ is an affirmation of the antecedent. But to conclude to the affirmation of the antecedent of a conditional is to commit the fallacy of the consequent. ⁶³

38. To the last principal argument [n.13] I say that propositions are not said to be self-evidently known because the extremes have a greater necessity in themselves, or a greater necessity in reality outside the intellect, but because the extremes, as they are the extremes of such a proposition, show evidently that their combination is in conformity with the natures of the terms and with the relation of them, and this whatever being the terms have, whether in reality or in the intellect; for the evidence of this conformity is the evidence of the truth in the proposition, which is the proposition’s being self-evidently known. But, as it is, the propositionInterpolation: “in my intellect the proposition ‘infinite being is’ is of a nature to be evident from the terms, but.” ⁶⁴ ‘every whole is greater than its part’, or anything similar, in any intellect that conceives the terms, naturally has such evidence from the terms, because from the terms it is evident that the combined proposition is in conformity with the relation and nature of the terms, whatever being the terms have; and therefore although there is less necessity in the terms, it does not follow that there is less evidence in the propositions.

III. To the First Question

39. To the first question [nn.1-9] I proceed as follows, that it cannot be demonstrated for us in this way by a ‘demonstration-why’ that an infinite being exists, although from the nature of the terms the proposition is demonstrable by a ‘demonstration-why’. But for us the proposition is indeed demonstrable by a ‘demonstration-that’ from creatures [Posterior Analytics 1.13.78a22-b34]. Now the properties of an infinite being that are relative to creatures are related more immediately than are absolute terms to things that are the middles in a ‘demonstration-that’, so that it can more immediately about the relative properties than about the absolute properties be concluded that an infinite being exists through what are middle terms in such a demonstration, for from the existence of one relative the existence of its correlative immediately follows; therefore I will first make existence clear about the relative properties of an infinite being, and second I will make existence clear about the infinite being, because the relative properties belong only to an infinite being; and thus there will be two principal articles.

40. As to the first article I say: the properties of an infinite being that are relative to creatures are properties either of causality or of eminence; the causality is double, either efficient or final. As to what is added about the exemplar cause, it is not a genus of cause other than the efficient cause, because then there would be five genera of causes; hence the exemplar cause is a sort of efficient cause, because, in distinction from what operates through nature, it operates through the intellect, about which elsewhere [1 d.36 q. un n.5].

A. The Existence of the Relative Properties of an Infinite Being is Made Clear

41. In the first principal article I will principally show three things. First then I will show that there is something in effect among beings which is simply firstInterpolation: “with ever primacy that does not include any imperfection. For the part is more imperfect than the whole and yet is prior; for a part shares in the entity of the whole and is not itself the whole. But there are other primacies that do not include any imperfection, as the primacy of eminence and of triple causal independence, namely, efficient cause, formal or exemplar cause, and final cause. But the primacy of eminence is not the primacy of causality; for one being is not the cause of another from the fact that it is preeminent over it, for the first and the supreme in any genus is preeminent over any other posterior in that genus and yet it is not the cause of it. Also exemplar primacy is not distinguished from the primacy of efficient causality, because a principle that is the exemplar of other things in intelligible being is only an efficient principle through the intellect; for just as a natural efficient cause does not distinguish efficient causality but is contained under it, so neither is the exemplar cause distinguished from the efficient cause. So there are two causalities, distinct from each other, namely of efficient causality and final causality. And all those primacies that we attribute to God do not include any imperfection. - Hence first I will show that there exists something in fact among beings that is simply first.” ⁶⁵ in efficient causality, and that there is also something which is simply first in idea of end, and something which is simply first in eminence; second I show that that which is first in one idea of primacy is first also in the other primacies; and third I show that that triple primacy belongs to one nature only such that it does not belong to several natures differing in species or in quiddity. And so in the first principal article there will be three partial articles.

42. [First partial article] - The first article among them includes three principal conclusions, because of the triple primacy; but each of the three conclusions has three conclusions on which it depends: the first is that something is first, the second is that that thing cannot be caused, the third is that that thing actually exists in reality. And so in the first article there are nine conclusions, but three principal conclusions.

43. Now the first conclusion of these nine is as follows, that some efficient cause is simply first such that neither can it be an effect nor can it, by virtue of something other than itself, cause an effect. The proof is that some being can be an effect. An effect of itself, then, or of nothing, or of something else. Not of nothing, because that which is nothing is cause of nothing; nor of itself, because there is nothing that makes or generates itself, Augustine On the Trinity 1 ch.1 n.1; therefore of something else. Let this something else be a. If a is first in the way expounded [n.43 init.], I have the proposition intended; if it is not first, then it is effective derivatively, because it can be the effect of another or cause an effect by virtue of another, for if a negation is denied the affirmation is asserted.To deny that a thing cannot be an effect or cause an effect by virtue of another is to assert that it can be an effect and cause an effect by virtue of another. ⁶⁶ Let that other be granted and let it be b, about which one argues as was argued about a, and thus either one proceeds ad infinitum, where each thing will be second in respect of a prior, or one stops at something that has no prior; but an infinity is impossible in ascending causes, therefore primacy is necessary, because what does not have a prior is posterior to nothing posterior to itself, for a circle in causes is discordant.Interpolation: “because then the same thing would be prior and posterior to itself.” ⁶⁷

44. Against this reasoning there is a double instance: first,Interpolation: “because it seeks a stand in causes.” ⁶⁸ that according to philosophizers an infinity in ascending causes is possible, as in the example they posit about infinite generations,Interpolation: “none of which is first but each is second, because according to them an infinite process is not discordant in the case of productions of the same nature.” ⁶⁹ where none is first but each is second, and yet they posited this without circularity.

45. Second, it seems that the argument proceeds from contingents and so is not a demonstration. The proof of the antecedent is that the premises assume the existence of something that is caused; everything such exists contingently.Interpolation: “likewise, it proceeds from contingents, because it proceeds from the ideas of producer and produced, which are only contingent terms.” ⁷⁰

46. To exclude the first instance [n.44] I say that the philosophers did not posit that an infinity was possible in essentially ordered causes but only in accidentally ordered ones, as is clear from Avicenna in Metaphysics 6 ch.5 94rb-va, where he speaks of an infinity of individuals in a species.

47. And, in order to show the proposed point better, one must know that there are causes essentially ordered and causes that are accidentally ordered. Here one must note that it is one thing to speak of causes per se and per accidens, and another to speak of causes per se that are essentially and accidentally ordered. For in the first case there is only comparison of one thing with another, namely of the cause with the thing caused; and a cause per se causes according to its proper nature and not according to something accidental to itInterpolation: “as the subject is the per se cause with respect to its own property, even in other cases, as ‘the white disperses [sight]’ and ‘the builder builds’.” ⁷¹ and a cause per accidens is the reverse;Interpolation: “as ‘Polycleitus builds’.” ⁷² in the second case the comparison is of two causes with each other, insofar as something is caused by them.

48. And causes that are per se or essentially ordered differ from causes that are per accidens or accidentally ordered in three ways.

49. The first difference is that in per se ordered causes the second depends for its causing on the first, but not in per accidens ordered causes, even though the second is dependent in existence or in something else.Interpolation: “for although the son depends for his existence on his father, yet he does not so depend in causing, because he can act when his father is dead just as when his father is alive.” ⁷³

50. The second difference is that in per se ordered causes there is causality of a second nature and a second order, because the superior cause is more perfect, but this is not the case in accidentally ordered causes; and this difference follows from the first, for no cause essentially depends for its causing on a cause of the same nature, because in the causing of something one thing of one nature is enough.

51. The third difference is that all causes ordered essentially and per se are necessarily required simultaneously for the causing, otherwise some essential and per se causality would be lacking for the effect; but it is not so in the case of accidentally ordered causes, because the simultaneity of them in causing is not required.Interpolation: “because any cause has its own perfect causality without any respect of its effect; for it is enough that one cause successively causes after the other.” Interpolation: “From the three differences come three reasons: from the first, that the totality of causes is dependent in causing, therefore dependent on something that is not part of the totality; from the second, that the infinitely superior will be infinitely more perfect; from the third, that infinite things are actual all at once. There is an additional fourth reason which proves that a possible thing which does not include imperfection is already shown to be in existence. - But if an essential order is denied, because an accidental order is sufficient for the sense, on the contrary I give this proof: a is being caused by something; a nature that can be produced in one supposit can be produced in any supposit; so the reason by which it is now in this supposit is reason that it was before in that supposit and in that other supposit. No succession of things goes on continually save by virtue of something permanent; that permanent thing is no part of the succession; therefore besides the individual in the species doing the generating there is some other superior agent. - From this result I infer that that agent is the surpassing first thing, because an equivocal agent is more actual and independent and that on which the other things depend. It is the first end, because there is some end on account of which it per se acts, Physics 25.196b17-22; not on account of any of the effects other than itself, because these are less good. Likewise, nothing else does it naturally or by reason most of all love. Fourth, it is the first exemplar thing because it is a per se agent; so either it acts for an end that it knows or for an end it is directed to by something that knows; also it knows everything that can be made, because it orders them to the end and wills them for the end. Solution to the second question: there are not two supereminent things. - Again, there are always as many essential features, hence and thence and in different species, as there are coordinate orderings, because they do not have one idea here and there, nor here to one and there to two first totalities. Note the process of this solution, which is as follows: the first conclusion is that there is some first efficient thing; this conclusion is first proved in a confused way [n.43], second in a distinct way (through the three propositions [nn.53-55], the first of which is proved after five manners [n.53]), and two instances against it are ruled out [nn.44-46, 56]. The second conclusion is that the first thing cannot be caused [n.57]. The third conclusion: thus the first thing is actually existent [n.58]. Hence follow three similar conclusions about the first end [nn.60-62]. Hence three similar ones about the first supreme thing [nn.64-66]. Hence, that the first efficient cause is first in two other ways; two conclusions follow [nn.68-69]. Hence, that thus the first thing is one nature; which is shown in four ways, namely because it necessarily exists, because it is highest, because it is ultimate end, because it is the termination of dependency [nn.70-73]. In the second principal article the preliminaries are first proved, and there are three conclusions [nn.75, 89, 98; a fourth conclusion in n.105]; hence, that the first thing has intelligence and will, by three reasons [nn.76-79]; hence that its understanding itself is the same as its essence [n.89]; hence, that no understanding is an accident of it, by four reasons [nn.98-101]. Hence is the principal intention proved, namely infinity; first, through efficient causality, by treatment of Aristotle’s reason in Physics 8.10.266a10-24, b6-20, 267b17-26 and Metaphysics 12.7.1073a3-13, [nn.111-124]; second, through actual knowledge of infinites [nn.125-127] and, in line with this, by an argument about intuitive knowledge of effects [nn.128-129]; third, through the idea of the end [n.130]; fourth, through the idea of preeminence [nn.131-139].” ⁷⁴

52. These points make the proposed conclusion clear, namely that an infinity of essentially ordered causes is impossible. Likewise second, that an infinity of accidentally ordered causes is impossible unless a stand is posited in essentially ordered causes; therefore in every way an infinity in essentially ordered causes is impossible. Even if an essential order is denied, an infinity is still impossible; therefore in every way there is some first thing that is necessarily and simply efficient cause. - Of these three assumed propositions let the first for brevity’s sake be called a, the second b, and the third c.

53. Proof of the three propositions.

First a, namely that an infinity of essentially ordered causes is impossible. The proof is first thatInterpolation: “in essentially ordered causes, where the adversary posits an infinity of them, a second cause, insofar as it causes, depends on a first (from the first difference [n.49]). So if there were an infinity of causes, things are such that not only any later cause but any cause at all depends on its own immediate cause, therefore etc.” ⁷⁵ the totality of essentially ordered causes is from some cause that is not any part of the totality, because then it would be cause of itself. For the whole totality of dependent things is dependent, and not on any part of the totality.Interpolation: “and this thing I call the first efficient cause. So if there are infinite causes, they still depend on some other cause that is not part of the totality.” ⁷⁶ Second that an infinite number of causes, namely of essentially ordered causes, would actually exist at once, from the third difference above [n.51],Interpolation [replacing the second argument in the text]: “if an infinite number of essentially ordered causes were to come together in the production of some effect, and if, from the third difference [n.51], all essentially ordered causes exist together at once, it follows that an infinite number of things exist together at once in causing this effect.” ⁷⁷ which no philosopher has posited. - Next, third, that the prior is what is nearer to the beginning, Metaphysics 5.11.1018b9-11; therefore where there is no beginning, nothing is essentially prior. - Next, fourth, that the superior cause is more perfect in causing, from the second difference [n.50]; therefore what is infinitely superior is infinitely more perfect, and so possessed of infinite perfection in causing, and consequently it does not cause in virtue of another, because anything of this latter sort causes imperfectly, as being dependent in causing on another cause. - Next, fifth, that an effective thing does not necessarily posit any imperfection; therefore it can be in something without imperfection.Interpolation: “because what involves no imperfection can be supposed to exist without imperfection among things.” ⁷⁸ But if no cause is without dependence on something prior, it will not be in anything without imperfection. Therefore independent effective causality can exist in some nature, and this nature is simply first; therefore effective causality simply first is possible. This is enough, because from this the conclusion is later [n.58] drawn that such a first effective cause, if it is possible, exists in reality. And thus by five reasons is a made plain.

54. Proof of b [n.52], namely that an infinity in accidentally ordered causes is impossible unless a stand is posited in essentially ordered causes, because an accidental infinity, if posited, is not simultaneous, clearly, but only successive, as one after another, such that the second in a way flows from the prior. Yet it does not depend on the prior in causing; for it can cause when the prior does not exist just as when it does exist, as a son generates when his father is dead just as when he is alive. Such an infinity of succession is impossible save from some nature that endures permanently, on which the whole succession and any part of it depend. For no deform-ness is perpetuated save in virtue of some permanent thing that is no part of the succession, because all the successive members of the succession are of the same nature;Interpolation: “and because no part of a succession can persist along with the whole succession, for then it would not be part of the succession.” ⁷⁹ but something is essentially prior, because any part of the succession depends on it, and that in another form of order than on the proximate cause which is some part of the succession.Interpolation: “Everything therefore that depends on a cause accidentally ordered depends more essentially on a cause per se and essentially ordered; nay rather, when an essential order is denied the accidental order will be denied, because accidents do not have an order save by means of something fixed and permanent, nor consequently are they multiplied to infinity.” [In other words, an infinite series of accidentally ordered causes must at least have an abiding matter underlying it, and this matter will underlie it as a per se and essentially ordered cause.] ⁸⁰ So b is plain.

55. There is proof too of c [n.52], that if an essential order is denied, an infinity is still impossible. The proof is that since, from the first reason here adduced, namely that nothing can be from nothing [n.43], it follows that some nature is effective, if an essential order of active causes is denied then this nature causes in virtue of nothing else; and although it be in some individual posited as caused yet in another it is not caused, which is the proposed conclusion about nature; or, if it be in anything posited as caused, at once a contradiction is implied if one denies an essential order, because no nature can be in anything posited as caused such that there be an accidental order under it without an essential order to some other nature.

56. To the second instance posited above, which says that the reasoning proceeds of contingents and so is not a demonstration [n.43],Interpolation: “when I say ‘some nature has been truly brought about, therefore something is the efficient cause of it’.” ⁸¹ I respond that one might argue thus: some nature is effected because some subject is changed, and so the term of the change begins to be in the subject, and so that term or composite is produced or effected; therefore there is some efficient thing, by the nature of correlatives, and then the first reason [n.43] can in truth be contingent, but it is manifest. - However, one can argue thus, by proving the first conclusion [n.43] in this way: this reasoning is true, ‘some nature is effectible, therefore some nature is effective’. The proof of the antecedent is that some subject is changeable, because some being is possible, by distinguishing the possible from the necessary [Prior Analytics 1.13.32a18-20: ‘the contingent is that which, whether it exists or not, nothing impossible follows’], and by proceeding in this way from necessaries. And then the proof of the first conclusion is about quidditative being or about possible being, but not about actual existence. But actual existence will be proved further in the third conclusion of that of which possibility is being proved now [n.58].

57. The second conclusion about the first effective thing is this, that the simply first effective thing cannot be caused [n.42]. The proof is that it is an in-effectible independent effective thing. This is clear first [n.43] because, if it is causative by virtue of another or is effectible by another, then either there is a process to infinity, or a circle, or a stand at some in-effectible independent effective thing; that thing I say is first, and anything else is plainly not first, from the things you have granted. Therefore there is also this further conclusion: if that first thing is in-effectible then it is un-causable, because it is not causable by an end, or by matter, or by form. The proof of the first consequence, namely that if it is in-effectible then it is not causable by an end, is that the final cause only causes because the final cause moves metaphorically the efficient cause to bringing about its effect, for the entity of a thing with an end does not in any other way depend on the end as on something prior; but nothing is a cause per se unless the caused thing essentially depends on it as on something prior. - Now the two other consequences, namely that if it is in-effectible then it is not causable by matter or by form, are proved together because what does not have an extrinsic cause does not have an intrinsic cause either, because the causality of an extrinsic cause implies perfection without any imperfection, but the causality of an intrinsic cause necessarily implies some imperfection annexed to it, because an intrinsic cause is part of the caused thing; therefore the nature of an extrinsic cause is naturally prior to the nature of an intrinsic cause. So once the prior is denied so is the posterior. - The same consequences are also proved by the fact that intrinsic causes are caused by extrinsic ones, whether in their existence, or insofar as they cause the composite, or in both ways, because intrinsic causes do not cause the composite by themselves without an agent. - From these statements the second conclusion is plain.

58. The third conclusion about the first effective thing is this: the first effective thing is actually existing and some nature is truly actually existent in the way it is effective [n.42]. Its proof: if that to whose nature it is repugnant to be from another can exist, it can exist from itself; but it is repugnant to the nature of the simply first effective thing to be from another, as is plain from the second conclusion [n.57]; likewise too it can exist, as is plain from the first conclusion where the fifth proof for a was set down [n.53], which proof seems to establish too little and yet it establishes this. But the other proofs for that very a [n.53] can be brought to bear on the existence which this third conclusion proposes, and they are about contingents, though manifest ones; or let them be taken of the nature and quiddity and possibility of a, and they proceed from necessities. Therefore a simply first effective thing can be from itself. But what is not from itself cannot be from itself, because then a non-being would bring something into being, which is impossible, and further it would then cause itself and so would not be altogether un-causable. - This last point, namely about the existence of the first effective, is made clear in another way, because for the universe to lack a possible supreme grade in its being is discordant.

59. In accord with the three conclusions shown about the first effective thing, note a certain corollary, that it contains as it were the three proved conclusions, namely that the first effective thing is not only prior to other things but, because a contradiction is involved in something else’s being prior, thus, to the extent it is first, it exists. The proof is as in the preceding [n.58]; for un-causability is most included in the idea of such a first, as is proved from the second [n.57]; for if it can be (because this does not contradict its being, as proved from the first [nn.53, 56]), it follows that it can be of itself, and so it is of itself.

60. In accord with the first three conclusions about the efficient cause I propose three similar conclusions about the final cause.

Some final cause is simply first, that is, it is neither orderable to another nor is it naturally end of other things in virtue of something else. And it is proved by five reasons similar to those set down for the first conclusion about the first effective thing [n.53].

61. The second conclusion is that the first final cause is un-causable. The proof is that it is not causable by an end, otherwise it would not be first; and, further, therefore it is in-effectible. The proof of this consequence is that every per se agent acts for an end, from Physics 2.5.196b17-22, where the Philosopher intends this to hold also of nature, about which it is less evident than about an agent that acts from deliberate choice. But that of which there is no per se efficient cause is not effectible, because in no genus can the per accidens be first, as is plain in the proposed case, especially about causes acting per accidens, which are chance and fortune, that according to Aristotle, Physics 2.6.196a5-13, are necessarily reduced to causes acting per se as to things prior, namely to nature and intellect and deliberate choice. Of that therefore of which there is no per se agent there will be no agent; but of that of which there is no end there is no per se agent; therefore it will be in-effectible, for what is causable by an end is excelled in goodness by the end and consequently in perfection, - and so on, as was proved of the first effective cause [n.57].

62. The third conclusion is that the first final cause is actually existent and that to some actually existing nature that primacy belongs. The proof is from the first way about efficient causality [n.58].

63. A corollary: it follows that the first is so first that a prior being is impossible, and this is proved like the corollary in the prior way [n.59].

64. To the three conclusions about both orders of extrinsic causality I propose three similar conclusions about the order of eminence.

Some eminent nature is simply first in perfection. This is plain because an order among essences is essential, for according to Aristotle forms are related like numbers, Metaphysics 8.3.1043b33; in this order there is a stand, which is proved by the five ways above about a stand in effective causes [n.53].

65. The second conclusion is that a supreme nature is un-causable. The proof is that it is not causable by an end, from the points preceding [nn.57, 62]; therefore it is in-effectible and, further, therefore un-causable. These two consequences were proved in the second conclusion about efficient causes [n.57]. Again, that the supreme nature is in-effectible is proved because every effectible has some essentially ordered cause, as is plain from the proof of b itself in the first conclusion about the first effective thing [n.54]; but an essentially ordered cause excels its effect.

66. The third conclusion is that a supreme nature is something actually existing, and it is proved from the preceding [nn.58, 62].

67. Corollary: that there be some nature more eminent or superior to it involves a contradiction; the proof is like the corollary about the effective thing and the end [nn.59, 63].

68. [Second partial article] - As to the second article [n.41] I say that the first efficient cause is the ultimate end.Cf. Averroes Metaphysics 10 com.7, 12 com.6: “the formal, final, and moving principles are not three in number, but one in subject and three in idea.” ⁸² The proof is that every efficient cause per se acts for an end, and a prior efficient cause for a prior end; therefore the first efficient cause for the ultimate end. But it acts principally and ultimately for nothing other than itself; therefore it acts for itself as for an end. Therefore the first efficient cause is the first end.Interpolation: “For if it were to act per se for an end other than itself, then there would be something more noble than the first efficient cause, because an end which is something separate from the agent intending the end is more noble than the agent.” ⁸³

69. Likewise, the first efficient cause is the first eminent cause. The proof is that the first efficient cause is not univocal with other effective natures, but is equivocal; therefore it is more eminent and more noble than they. Therefore the first efficient cause is most eminent.

70. [Third partial article] - As to the third article [n.41] I say that since that in which there is the triple primacy is the same thing, for that in which one primacy is the others are too, there is also in it a triple identity such that the first efficient cause is only one in quiddity and in nature. To show this I show first a certain preliminary conclusion, and second the principal conclusion.

Now the preliminary conclusion is that the efficient cause that is first by this triple primacy is necessarily existent of itself. The proof is that it is through and through un-causable, for there is a contradiction involved in something’s being prior to it in the genus of efficient or final cause and consequently in the genus of any cause at all;     therefore it is altogether un-causable. From this I argue: a thing cannot not be unless there is something positively or privatively incompossible with it that can be; but in the case of that which is from itself and is through and through un-causable there cannot be anything which is positively or privatively incompossible with it; therefore etc     . The major is plain, because no being can be destroyed save by what is positively or privatively incompossible with it. The proof of the minor is that that incompossible thing can either be from itself or from another; if it can be from itself and it is from itself, then two incompossible things will be at the same time, or neither of them exists, because each destroys the being of the other; if it can be from another, then to the contrary: no cause can destroy some being on account of the repugnance of its effect to that being unless it give to its effect a more perfect and intense being than is the being of the other destructible thing; of no being from another is its being from its cause nobler than is the being of something necessary of itself, because every caused thing has dependent being, but what is from itself has independent being.

71. Further, to the intended proposition, there is proof from this of the unity of the first nature, which is the thing principally intended in this third article. This is shown by three reasons.

First in this way, that if two natures are necessarily existent they are distinguished by some real proper reasons, and let them be called a and b. The reasons are either formally necessary or not. If they are,Interpolation: “and, beside this, those two natures are formally necessary through that in which they agree.” ⁸⁴ then each nature will be necessarily existent by two formal reasons, which is impossible, because since neither of the reasons per se includes the other, each of the natures, when taken separately, would be necessarily existent.Interpolation: “through the other nature, and so there would be something necessarily existent that is no less necessarily existent when the thing through which it is so has been taken away [n.177].” ⁸⁵ But if by the reasons by which they are distinguished neither one of them is formally necessarily existent, then the reasons are not reasons for necessarily existing, and so neither of them is included in necessary existence, because whatever is not necessarily existent is of itself possible, but nothing possible is included in necessary existence.Interpolation: “because necessary existence includes nothing that is not necessarily existent or the reason for necessarily existing [n.177].” ⁸⁶

72. The second proof is that there cannot be two most eminent natures in the universe; therefore neither can there be two first effective things. The proof of the antecedent is that species are related as numbers, Metaphysics 8.3.1043b33, and consequently there cannot be two in the same order; therefore much less can there be two first or two most eminent natures.

73. This is also plain, third, by reasoning about the idea of end, because if there were two ultimate ends, they would have two coordinate orders of beings related to them such that these beings here would have no order to those beings there, because they would have no order to the end of those beings either, for things that are ordered to one ultimate end cannot be ordered to another end, because there cannot be two total and perfect causes in the same order of the same caused thing; for then something would be in some order a per se cause such that, when it was not posited, the caused thing would nevertheless be. Therefore things ordered to one end are in no way ordered to another end, nor consequently ordered to things that are ordered to the other end, and so from them no universe would come to be. - There is also a general confirmation of this, that there cannot be two things that are the total term of the dependence of some one and the same thing, because then a thing would be the term of a dependence such that, when it was removed, the dependence would no less have a term, and so it would not be a dependence on that thing. But other things are essentially dependent on the efficient and eminent and final cause. Therefore there cannot be two natures that are the first terms of other things according to that triple dependence. There is therefore precisely some one nature which is the term of beings in accord with that triple dependence, and so which has that triple primacy.

B. The Existence of an Infinite Being is Made Clear

74. Having shown the relative properties of the first being, I proceed further as follows to show the infinity of the first being and consequently the existence of an infinite being: first I show that the first efficient cause has intelligence and will such that its intelligence is of infinites distinctly and that its essence is representative of infinites (which essence indeed is its intelligence), and from this will be shown, secondly, its infinity. And thus, along with the triple primacy already shown, there will be a fourfold means for showing its infinity. But yet as to the fourth means, namely that the first efficient cause has intelligence and will, from which, as from a means added to the other three, its infinity is proved, I make a certain assumption with respect to it until distinction 35 [Ordinatio I d.35 q. un. n.2].

1. Conclusions preliminary to infinity are proposed and demonstrated

75. Now, that the first being has intelligence and will I argue thus: some agent is a per se first agent, because to every cause per accidens some cause per se is prior, Physics 2.6.198a8-9, where Aristotle intends this of nature, about which it is less evident; but every agent per se acts for an end.

76. And from this there is a twofold argument.

First thus: every natural agent, precisely considered, would act of necessity and just as much if it were not to act for any other end but was acting independently;     therefore if it does not act save for an end, this is because it depends on an agent that loves the end; of such a sort is the first efficient cause, therefore etc     .

77. Again, if the first agent acts for an end, then that end moves the first efficient cause either as loved by an act of will or as only naturally loved. If as loved by an act of will, the intended conclusion is gained. If only naturally loved, this is false, because it does not naturally love an end other than itself in the way the heavy loves the center and matter loves form; for then it would in some way be in relation to an end because inclined to an end. But if it only naturally loves the end which is itself, this is nothing save itself being itself, for this does not preserve the doubleness of idea in itself.The point seems to be that if the first being’s love of the end is natural then, first, this end cannot be something other than itself (as it is in the case of other things that naturally tend to an end, as a heavy thing tending downwards), and, second, if therefore this end is just itself and it naturally loves it, then there is in it no doubleness of end and natural love of the end (as in the case of a heavy thing tending downwards), so that its being is its very self-loving, which is a knowing and willing itself. ⁸⁷

78. Another argument, by as it were bringing together the reason already made, is as follows: the first efficient cause itself directs its effect to an end;     therefore it directs either naturally or by knowing and loving the end. Not naturally, because a non-knower directs nothing save in virtue of a knower; for it belongs first to the wise to order things, Metaphysics 1.2.982a17-18; but the first efficient cause directs in virtue of nothing else, just as neither does it cause in virtue of anything else, - for then it would not be first; therefore etc     .

79. Again, something is contingently caused; therefore the first cause causes contingently, therefore it causes willingly.

80. Proof of the first consequence: any second cause causes insofar as it is moved by the first cause; therefore if the first cause moves necessarily, any other cause is moved necessarily and anything else is caused necessarily;     therefore if some second cause moves contingently, the first cause too will move contingently, because the second cause, to the extent it is moved by the first cause, does not cause save in virtue of the first cause.

81. Proof of the second consequence: there is no principle of contingent operation save the will or something concomitant to will, because any other thing acts from the necessity of nature, and so not contingently; therefore etc     .

82. There is an instance against this reason, and first against the first consequence the argument is as follows, that our own willing could yet cause something contingently, and so there is no requirement that the first cause contingently cause it.

83. Again, the Philosopher conceded the antecedent, namely that something is contingently caused, and he denied the consequent in the sense of understanding it of will, namely that the first cause causes contingently, by positing contingency in inferior things, not because God wills contingently, but as a result of motion, which causes necessarily insofar as it is uniform but has deformity, and so contingency, following from its parts.

84. Against the second consequence, ‘if it causes contingently, therefore it causes willingly’: this does not seem to hold, because some of the things that are moved naturally can be impeded, and so the opposite can - contingently and violently - come about.

85. To the first [n.82] one must say that if God is the first moving or efficient cause with respect to our will, the same follows about it as about other things, because he necessarily either moves the will immediately or he moves another thing and this other thing, having been necessarily moved, would necessarily move the will, because this other thing only moves from the fact that it is moved. The ultimate result is that what is proximate to the will would necessarily move the will, even if what is proximate to the will is the will itself; and so it will necessarily will, and it will be necessarily willing. And further the impossibility follows that he necessarily causes whatever is caused.

86. To the second [n.83] I say that I do not here call contingent what is nonnecessary or non-eternal, but something whose opposite might happen when that something happens; therefore I said ‘something is contingently caused’ [n.79], and not ‘something is contingent’. Now I say that the Philosopher cannot deny the consequent by saving the antecedent through recourse to motion [n.83], because if that whole motion is from its cause necessarily, any part of it is necessarily caused when it is caused, that is, it is caused inevitably, so that the opposite cannot then be caused; and further, what is caused by any part of the motion is caused necessarily and unavoidably. Either therefore nothing happens contingently, that is avoidably, or the first thing causes immediately in such a way that it might also not cause.

87. To the third [n.84] I say that if some cause can impede it, this is only in virtue of a superior cause, and so on right up to the first cause, and if the first cause necessarily moves the cause immediate to itself, there will be necessity right up to the end; therefore it will impede necessarily, and consequently no other cause can naturally exercise its causality.Interpolation: “and because just as the first cause does everything by necessity of causality (as everyone supposes, for otherwise it would be a changeable cause), so also do all other causes. -These things that he [i.e. Scotus] says do not seem to be true, one could use the same reasoning to argue that nothing exists by chance or fortune in caused things unless the first cause acts by chance or fortune, and that as everything happens determinately in respect of the first cause so also in respect of other causes. Therefore one could reply to what he says that causes moved by the first mover do not so receive motion in a uniform way that of necessity they secondarily move in like manner as they are moved by the first cause, such that the ‘in like manner’ states the manner of moving on the part of God who makes them move; for they are indeed moved in like manner as they are moved by the first cause if the ‘in like manner’ states the manner of moving on the part of the causes that are moved. For the manner of the moving cause is not always being received in the moved cause, but the motion in the latter is received according to the mode of the receiver; therefore motion exists in it in a way other than it does in the first cause.” ⁸⁸

88. Thus therefore it seems to have been shown in a triple way that the first agent has intelligence and will, the first of which ways is that nature acts for an end and only because it is dependent and directed to the end by a knower [n.76]; the second is that the first agent itself acts for an end [nn.77-78], and the third that some effect is, when caused, contingently caused [nn.79-87].

89. Further, as to the question preliminary to infinity, I prove second that the first agent’s understanding and will are the same as its essence, and first of the volition of itself as of an object such that the act of love of the first cause is essentially the same as the nature of that cause and as the nature of every act of its will.

Proof. The causality and causing of the final cause is simply first, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 6 ch.5 (95rb), who says that “if there is knowledge about any cause whatever, knowledge about the final cause would be noblest;” for this cause, as concerns its causality, precedes the efficient cause, because it moves the efficient cause to act, - and therefore the causality of the first cause and of its causing is, according to any causation in any genus of cause, through and through un-causable. But the causality of the first end is to move the efficient cause as a thing loved; but it is the same thing for the first end to move the first efficient cause as a thing loved by it and for the first efficient cause to love the first end, because for an object to be loved by the will is nothing other than for the will to love the object. Therefore that the first efficient cause loves the first end is through and through un-causable, and so is necessary of itself, and so it will be the same as the first nature. And there is as it were a reversal of the reasoning from the opposite of the conclusion, because if the first loving is other than the first nature, then it is causable, and consequently effectible; therefore it is from some per se efficient cause which loves the end. Therefore the first loving would be caused by some love of the end prior to that caused first loving, which is impossible.

90. Aristotle shows this fact about intelligence, Metaphysics 12.9.1074b17-21, because otherwise the first thing will not be the best substance, for it is through understanding that it is honorable.

91. Second, because otherwise the continuance of its activity will be laborious for it. Again, if it is not that [sc. the same as its essence], it will be in potency to its contradictory; on that potency labor follows, according to him.Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.9.1074b28-29: “If [the first mover] is not intelligence but potentiality, the continuing of its understanding will reasonably be laborious for it.” ⁸⁹

92. These reasons can be made clear by reason.

The first [n.90] thus: since the ultimate perfection of every being in first act exists in the second act whereby it is conjoined to what is best, especially if the best acts and does not merely make (for every intelligible is active, and the first nature is intelligible, from the previous conclusion [nn.75-88]), the consequence is that its ultimate perfection will be in second act;     therefore if this act is not the substance of it, its substance will not be best, because its best is some other thing.

93. The second reason [n.91] can be made clear thus: a potency merely receptive is a potency for the contradictory; therefore since it is not of this sort [sc. in potency to the contradictory], therefore etc     . - But because according to Aristotle this reason is not demonstrative but only probable, let the intended proposition be shown in another way, from the identity of the power and of the object in itself; therefore they will have the same act. But the consequence, plainly, is not valid; an instance is that an angel understands itself and loves itself and yet an angel’s act of loving and of understanding are not the same as its substance.That is, an angel’s power of knowing and loving and what it knows and loves are the same, namely itself; but its act of knowing and loving is not itself or its substance but an accident of its substance. One cannot therefore argue from identity of power and object to identity of act of power and object. One cannot therefore use this argument to prove that the first being’s knowing and loving itself is identical with its substance. Scotus seems here to be criticizing an argument found in St. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.14 a.2 and ad 2; a.4. ⁹⁰

94. This conclusion, namely that the divine essence is the same as its willing itself, is true from corollaries: for it follows first that that the will is the same as the first nature, because willing exists only in the will;     therefore the will whose willing is un-causable is also un-causable;That is, if the will were caused, its act of willing would be caused, because that act would exist in something caused. ⁹¹ therefore etc     . And likewise, willing is understood to be as it were posterior to the will; yet willing is the same as the first nature; therefore the will more so.

95. Again, second, it follows that understanding itself is the same as the first nature, because nothing is loved unless it is known; therefore if loving itself is necessarily existent from itself, the consequence is that understanding itself is necessarily existent from itself.

96. And if understanding is closer to the first nature than willing, then the consequence further is that the intellect is the same as the first nature, as was just argued about the will from willing [n.94].

97. There is a fourth consequence too, that the idea of understanding itself is the same as itself, because the idea necessarily exists of itself if understanding necessarily exist of itself, and if the idea of understanding itself is as it were pre-understood in the intellect itself.

98. Having shown of self-understanding and self-willing that they are the same as the essence of the first being, I show from other things the proposition intended, namely about all its understanding and willing.

And let the third conclusion be this: no understanding can be an accident of the first nature. The proof is that it has been shown of the first nature that it is in itself the first effective thing [nn.43-56]; therefore it has from itself the resources whence, after everything else has been removed, it can cause anything causable, at least as first cause of the causable. But with its knowledge removed it does not have the resources whence it might cause the causable; therefore knowledge of anything else whatever is not other than its nature. - The proof of the assumption is that nothing can cause except from love of the end, by loving it, because it cannot otherwise be a per se agent, because neither can it act, for an end; as it is, however, there is pre-understood in its willing of anything for the end its understanding of it; therefore before the first moment in which it is understood to be causing or willing a, necessarily it is pre-understood to be understanding a; so without this it cannot per se bring a about, and so in the case of other things.

99. Again, the same thing is proved because all understandings of the same intellect have a like relation to the intellect, according to their essential identity or accidental identity with it (as is clear of every created intellect and its understandings), because they seem to be perfections of the same genus; therefore if some of them have a subject that receives them, then all of them do, and if one of them is an accident each of them is. But it cannot be that any of them is an accident in the first thing, from the preceding conclusion [n.89], because an accident would be a non-understanding of itself; therefore none of them will there be an accident.

100. Again, understanding, if it is what can be an accident, will be received in the intellect as in a subject; therefore received also in the understanding which is the same as the intellect, and thus a more perfect understanding will be in the receptive power in respect of a more imperfect understanding.

101. Again, the same understanding can be about setting several objects in order, therefore the more perfect it is the more the objects; therefore the most perfect understanding, with which a more perfect degree of being understood is incompossible, will be the same as the understanding of all objects. The understanding of the first thing is most perfect in this way; therefore it is the same as the understanding of all objects, and the understanding which is of itself is the same as itself, from what has just preceded [n.89]; therefore the understanding of all things is the same as itself. And I intend the same conclusion to be understood about willing.

102. Again, the intellect is nothing but a certain understanding; but this intellect is the same for all things, and so is something that cannot be for any other object; therefore neither can it understand any other thing. Therefore the intellect is the same as the understanding of all things. - It is the fallacy of the accident to conclude from the identity of certain things among themselves to their identity with respect to a third thing with respect to which they are extraneous;The point seems to be that one cannot conclude from identity of intellect in respect of all things to its identity with its act of understanding all things. ⁹² and it is plain from a similitude: to understand is the same as to will; ‘if therefore to understand itself belongs to something, then to will itself too belongs to the same thing’, does not follow, but it only follows that to will belongs to it; which willing indeed is something that belongs to the same thing, because one must so understand ‘same thing’ that the inference can be drawn in a divided, not a conjoined, manner, because of being an accident.The point seems to be that one cannot infer from identity of understanding and will to identity of objects understood and willed, for objects are logically extraneous to acts, and so to infer identity of the first from an identity of the second is to commit the fallacy of the accident. ⁹³

103. Again, the intellect of the first thing has one act that is adequate to itself and coeternal, because understanding itself is the same as itself; therefore it cannot have any other understanding. - The consequence is not valid. An example about the blessed who at the same time see God and something else even if they see God according to the utmost of their capacity, as is posited about the soul of Christ, and still he can see something else.

104. Again an argument: this intellect has in itself through identity the greatest perfection of understanding; therefore it has every other understanding. - Response: this does not follow, because an understanding that is lesser can be causable and therefore can differ from the un-causable, but the greatest understanding cannot.

105. The fourth principal conclusion about the intellect and the will of God is this: the intellect of the first thing understands always and with a distinct and necessary act any intelligible thing naturally before that thing exists in itself.

106. The proof of the first part is that the first thing can know what is thus intelligible; for this belongs to perfection in the intellect, to be able distinctly and actually to know any intelligible thing, nay to posit this is necessary for the idea of intellect, because every intellect is of the whole of being taken in the most common way, as will be determined later [I d.3 p.1 q.3 nn.3, 8-12, 24]. But the intellect of the first thing can only have an understanding the same as itself, from what was just said [n.98]; therefore it has actual and distinct understanding of any intelligible whatever, and this the same as itself and so always and necessarily.

107. The second part, about priority, is proved thus, that whatever is the same as itself is necessarily existent, as was plain above [n.106]; but the being of things other than itself is not necessarily existent. Necessary existence is of itself prior in nature to everything non-necessary.

108. It is proved in another way, that the existence of anything else depends on the first thing as on a cause and, as a cause is of something causable, knowledge of the causable on the part of the cause is necessarily included; therefore the knowledge will be naturally prior to the very existence of the known thing.

109. The first part of the conclusion is also proved in another way, that a perfect artisan distinctly knows everything to be done before it is done, otherwise he would not operate perfectly, because knowledge is the measure by which he operates; therefore God is in possession of distinct and actual knowledge, or at any rate habitual knowledge, of all things producible by him prior to those things.

110. Against this: there is an instance about art, that universal art suffices for producing universal things [Scotus, Metaphysics I q.5 nn.3-4, VII p.2 q.15 n.1] - Look there for a response [ibid. VII p.2 q.15 n.9]. response [ibid. VII p.2 q.15 n.9].

2. The infinity of God is proved directly

111. Having shown these preliminaries I argue for infinity in four ways.

[First way] - First by way of efficacy, where the intended proposition will be shown in a twofold way: first because it is the first efficient cause of all things, second because the efficient cause, plainly, knows distinctly all make-able things; third, infinity will be shown by way of the end, and fourth by way of eminence.

The first way, on the part of the cause, is touched on by the Philosopher, Physics 8.10.266a10-24, 266b6-20, 267b17-26 and Metaphysics 12.7.1073a3-13, because it moves with an infinite motion; therefore it has an infinite power.

112. This way is confirmed as to the antecedent as follows: the intended proposition is proved just as much whether it can move through an infinity as whether it does move through an infinity, because the existence of it must be actual just as much as the power of it is; the thing is clear of the first thing to the extent it exists of itself [n.58]. Although therefore it may not move with an infinite motion in the way Aristotle understands, yet if that antecedent is taken to be what, for its part, can move, the antecedent is held to be true and equally sufficient for inferring the intended proposition.

113. The consequence [n.111] is proved thus, that if it exists of itself, it does not move with an infinite motion by virtue of another;     therefore it does not receive its thus moving from another, but it has in its own active virtue its whole effect all at once, because it has it independently. But what has in its virtue an infinite effect all at once is infinite; therefore etc     .

114. The first consequence [n.111] is confirmed in another way thus: the first mover has all at once in its virtue all the effects that can be produced by motion; but those effects are infinite if the motion is infinite;     therefore etc     .

115. Against these clarifications of Aristotle, whatever may be true of the antecedent, yet the first consequence does not seem well proved.

Not in the first way [n.113], because a greater duration does not add any perfection, for a whiteness that persists for one year is not more perfect than if it persisted for only one day; therefore a motion of however long a duration is not a more perfect effect than the motion of one day. Therefore from the fact that the agent has all at once in its active virtue a moving with an infinite motion, the perfection is not proved to be greater in this case than in that, save that the agent moves for a longer time, and of itself; and so one would need to show that the eternity of the agent would prove its infinity, otherwise it could not be proved from the infinity of its motion. - Then as to the form of the argument: the final proposition of the confirmation [n.113] is denied, save of infinity of duration.Interpolation: “Let us inquire, therefore, how the aforesaid reasoning of the Philosopher [n.111] is conclusive! If the way of efficient causality is preferable to the other ways (the point is plain above where the ways are compared, because this way entails the others [n.111]), and if infinity is not proved by this way, how will it proved by the others?” ⁹⁴

116. The second confirmation [n.114] of the consequence is also refuted, because a greater intensive perfection is not proved by the fact that any agent of the same species can go on successively producing as much and as long as it lasts, because what has power for one such thing in one stretch of time has power by the same virtue for a thousand such things if it last a thousand stretches of time. And, among philosophers, an infinity is not possible except a numerical one of effects producible by motion (namely of effects that can come to be and pass away), because in species they posited a finitude. Therefore an intensive infinity in an agent no more follows from the fact that it has power for an infinite number of things in succession than if it has power for two things only; for only a numerical infinity is possible according to philosophers. - But if someone prove an infinity of species to be possible, by proving some of the heavenly motions to be incommensurable and so never able to return to the same form, even if they endure an infinite time and even if conjunctions infinite in species cause generable things infinite in species, whatever may in itself be true about this, yet it is nothing to the intention of the philosopher, who denied an infinity of species.

117. The ultimate probability that occurs for making clear the consequence of the Philosopher is as follows: whatever has power for many things at once, each of which requires some perfection proper to itself, is shown by the plurality of such things to be more perfect. Thus it seems one should conclude about the first agent that if it can cause infinite things all at once then its virtue must be infinite, and consequently that if the first agent has all at once the virtue to cause infinite things, then, as far depends on itself, it can produce them all at once; even if the nature of the effect does not permit of this, yet the infinity of the thing’s virtue follows. The proof of this ultimate consequence is that what cannot cause a white and a black thing is not thereby less perfect, because these things are not simultaneously causable; for this non-simultaneity comes from a repugnance in them and not from a defect in the agent.

118. And from this I prove infinity as follows:Interpolation: “...because the agent has virtue with respect to both at the same time, provided both are of themselves compatible. Let this be the major then: whatever agent has a virtue whereby, as far as depends on itself, it has power for infinite effects at the same time, even if the incompossibility of the effects prevents them being in place at the same time, that agent possesses infinite virtue [n.117]. The first agent is of this sort; therefore etc. The major was already made clear before [n.117], because a plurality of effects demonstrates a greater perfection in a cause which, as far as depends on itself, has power for that plurality at the same time; therefore an infinity of the things that it has power for at the same time, as far as depends on itself, proves the infinity of its power. Proof of the minor, because.” ⁹⁵ if the first thing had all causality formally at the same time, although the causable things might not be able to be put into being all at once, it would be infinite, because, as far as depends on itself, it could produce infinite things all at once; and having power for several things at once proves a greater power intensively; therefore if it has this power more perfectly than if it had all causality formally, its intensive infinity would follow all the more. But all the causality for anything whatever as to the whole of what exists in reality itself is had by it more eminently than if it was had by it formally.

119. Although, therefore, I believe that omnipotence properly speaking, according to the intention of theologians, is a matter of belief only and cannot be proved by natural reason, as will be said later [I d.42 q. un. nn.2-3; below n.178], nevertheless an infinite potency can be naturally proved that, as far as depends on itself, has all at once of itself all the causality able to produce infinite things, provided these infinite things are capable of being made to be all at once.

120. If you object that the first thing does not of itself have power for infinite things all at once, because it has not been proved to be the total cause of infinite things,Interpolation: “although it has all the causality of the second cause more eminently than this causality exists in the second cause, yet it does not, of itself, have power for the effects of all the second causes, because this more eminent way of possessing causality does not show that without the second causes it can be the total and immediate cause of all the effects, and so the minor premise is not gained, that the first cause has of itself power for infinite effects.” ⁹⁶ this objection poses no obstacle, because if it had all at once the source whence it was the total cause, it would be in nothing more perfect than it is now when it has the source whence it is first cause. - Also because the second causes are not required for its perfection in causing, because then a thing more removed from the first cause would be more perfect because it would require a more perfect cause. But if second causes are, according to the philosophers, required together with the first cause, this is because of the imperfection of the effect, so that the first thing along with some imperfect cause might cause an imperfect thing, because according to them it could not cause it immediately. -Also because, according to Aristotle [Metaphysics 5.16.1021b31-32, 12.7.1072b28-34], the totality of perfections is more eminent in the first thing than if their formalities themselves were present in it, supposing they could be present in it; the proof of which is that a second cause proximate to the first cause has the whole of its causative perfection from the first cause alone; therefore the first cause has that whole perfection more eminently than the second cause, which has it formally. The consequence is plain, because the first cause is the total and equivocal cause with respect to the second cause [n.69]. One may ask a similar question of the third cause with respect to the second cause or with respect to the first; if the answer is with respect to the first [sc. that the third has its whole causative perfection from the first cause], the proposition intended is gained; if with respect to the second, it follows that the second contains eminently the total perfection which is formally in the third. But the second has from the first that it thus contains the perfection of the third, from what has just been shown above [n.120]; therefore the first has to contain more eminently the perfection of the third than the second does, and so on in all other cases right up to the last cause. Wherefore that the first cause possesses eminently the whole causative perfection of all the causes, and possesses it more perfectly than if it had the causality of all of them formally, were that possible, seems in my judgment capable of being proved by the argument of Aristotle posited above [n.111] about the infinite substance, which is taken from the Physics and Metaphysics.Interpolation: “In addition to the proof just stated, which deduces the infinite virtue of the first thing from the infinite number of effects that that first thing, as far as depends on itself, is at the same time capable of, one can take a similar proof from the infinite number of causes as follows: if the first thing were able to possess formally in itself all the secondary causalities along with the first causality, it would, as far as depends on itself, be of infinite virtue in some way; therefore much more will it be infinite if it has more eminently than formally all those secondary causalities. But a reply can be made to these two proofs of the consequence given by Aristotle: As to the first of them I concede that when any one of several things requires some proper formal or at least virtual perfection in its cause, a cause that is capable of more things is more perfect than what is capable of fewer [n.117], because at the very least the several formal perfections that would be proper to those several things would be contained virtually in such a cause; only what possesses several formal perfections virtually is infinite in perfection. But whether the cause is at once or successively capable of several things none of which requires a proper formal or virtual perfection in that cause, one cannot from those several things deduce a greater perfection in the cause. Such is what the philosophers would say in the proposed case, because the infinite number of things that the first thing is capable of, as far as concerns itself, would only posit an infinity of things in number but a finitude of things in specific natures [n.116]; as it is, however, only a distinction of specific nature in the effect, and not a distinction of number, requires some other formal or virtual perfection in the cause. From this there is a response to the second proof, that second causes are not infinite in species according to Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.2.994a1-2; therefore what has virtue for all those causes is not proved by this alone to be infinite in intensity. Against the first response: what is capable at the same time of more things is more powerful than what is capable of fewer things, whether these things are of different species or of the same species; therefore what is of itself capable at the same time of an infinity of things is infinite and possessed of infinite power. Against the second response: if all the secondary causalities existed formally in the first cause, there would be some virtual infinity, at least in extent, in that first cause; therefore if they exist in it more eminently, it will have some infinity in it. But not an infinity in extent, because eminence, on account of which the secondary causalities are unitive, takes away extensive infinity; therefore there will be some infinity there other than extensive; therefore an intensive infinity. To the first counter-argument [sc. against the first response]: one should deny the antecedent and say that simultaneity does nothing to prove a greater power; the case is like this fire which, if there were an infinite number of bodies in due proportion spherically surrounding it, would act on them all at the same time just as it acts now on the finite number of parts of the body spherically surrounding it. To the second counter-argument [sc. against the second response]: it would follow from this that the sun, nay that any perpetual cause capable of an infinite number of effects in succession, would be infinite. Therefore the reasoning, although it seem probable, is nevertheless sophistical, because the proposition on which the reasoning rests seems false in itself, namely that ‘all things that posit in themselves an exensive infinity posit, so as to be possessed more eminently, some virtual infinity’. This proposition is false, because they can be possessed more eminently in a finite equivocal cause; nor is it proved by this other proposition, that when things are lacking in infinity they are lacking in eminence with respect to their infinite effects; for this proposition is false, because eminence produces unity and so takes away the material extensive infinity that was there before; yet neither does it posit an intensive formal infinity, because a finite formality sufficiently contains eminently a material and extensive infinity.” ⁹⁷

121. According to this way of efficacy there is an argumentThe argument is found in St. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.45 a.5 ad 3, and also in Henry of Ghent. ⁹⁸ that it has infinite power because it creates, forInterpolation: “a virtue that has power over extremes infinitely distant is infinite; but divine virtue is of this sort in the case of creation.” ⁹⁹ between the extremes in the case of creation [sc. the extremes of creator and created] there is an infinite distance.Interpolation: “just as there is between something and nothing.” ¹⁰⁰ But this antecedent is set down only as something believed [n.119], and it is true thatInterpolation: “[it is true] about creation in the real order, namely such that...” ¹⁰¹ not-being would in duration as it were precede being,Interpolation: “the real being of the creature’s existence” ¹⁰² not however in nature as it were, after the way of Avicenna.Metaphysics 6 ch.2 (92ra): “Creation...is the giving of being to a thing after its absolute non-being; for a caused thing as far as concerns itself is that it not exist, but as far as concerns its cause it is that it should exist. But what belongs to a thing of itself in the intellect is prior in essence, not in time, because it belongs to it from something other than itself; therefore every created thing is a being after non-being by posterity of essence.” ¹⁰³ - The antecedent is shownInterpolation [after ‘not however’]: “it is [not however] less believed about creation in the order in which being follows not-being, the way Avicenna speaks of creation in Metaphysics 6 [quoted in previous footnote], but it has been sufficiently demonstrated” [Reportatio IA d.2 n.59]. ¹⁰⁴ by the fact that at least the first nature after God is from him and not from itself, nor does it receive being on the presupposition of anything else; therefore it is created.Interpolation: “For if it is the first efficient cause, then anything else other than it has its whole being from it, because otherwise that other thing would, in respect of some part of itself, not depend on it, and then it would not be the first efficient cause; but what thus takes its whole being from something, such that it receives by its nature being after not-being, is created; therefore etc.” ¹⁰⁵ But if one takes being and not-being as in this way prior in nature, then they are in that case not extremes of a change which that virtue would cause, nor does the causing of the effect require a changing.

But whatever may be true of the antecedent, the consequence is not proved, because when there is no distance intermediate between the extremesInterpolation: “as in the case of the continuous, whose extremes are two points” [n.60]. ¹⁰⁶ but the extremes are said to be distant precisely by reason of being extremes between each other, then there is as much distance as there is an extreme that is greater. An example: God is infinitely distant from the creature, even than the highest possible creature, not because of any distance between the extremes but because of the infinity of one extreme.

122. It is in this way, then, that contradictories are not distant by anything intermediate, because contradictories are immediate [Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.2.72a12-13] - such that however little anything recedes from one extreme it is at once under the other extreme - but they are distant because of the extremes in themselves.     Therefore the distance is as great as the extreme which is more perfect; that extreme is infinite; therefore etc     .

123. There is a confirmation, that the total power over the positive term of a distance of this sort is power over the distance or the transition from extreme to extreme; therefore, from power over that transition infinity does not follow unless it follows from total power over its positive term. That term is finite.Interpolation: “Therefore power over transition to that term does not demonstratively prove an active infinite virtue.” ¹⁰⁷

124. Now as for what is commonly said, that contradictories are infinitely distant, it can be understood thus, that is, indeterminately, because just as there is no distance so small that it does not suffice for contradictories, so there is no distance so great that, even if it were greater than the greatest possible, it would not stretch itself to the contradictories. Their distance then is infinite, that is, indeterminate to any magnitude, great or small; and therefore from such an infinity of distance the consequent about an infinite power intensively does not follow, just as neither does it follow on the smallest distance in which an infinite distance is thus preserved; and what does not follow on the antecedent does not follow on the consequent either.Interpolation: “Contradiction therefore is the greatest distance and opposition, but by way of privation and indeterminately; contrariety however is the greatest distance positively, as is plain from Metaphysics 10.4.1055a9-10, 38-b4.” ¹⁰⁸

125. [The second way] - Having shown the intended proposition by way of the first efficient power, because the first efficient power involves infinity, the second way follows, from the fact that it distinctly understands all make-able things. Here I argue as follows: the intelligibles are infinite, and that actually, in an intellect that understands everything; therefore the intellect that understands them actually all at once is infinite. Of this sort is the first intellect.

126. Of such an enthymeme I prove the antecedent and the consequent.

As to all things that are infinite in potency, such that in taking one after another no end can be reached, if all these things are actual at once, they are actually infinite; intelligibles are of this sort with respect to a created intellect, as is plain, and in the divine intellect all things are at once understood actually that are understood successively by a created intellect; therefore an infinity of things is in the divine intellect actually understood. Of this sort of syllogism I prove the major (although it seems sufficiently evident), because all such things that can be taken one after another are, when they are simultaneously existent, either actually finite or actually infinite; if they are actually finite, then by taking one after another one can in the end actually take them all; therefore if they cannot all be actually taken, then if such things are actually simultaneous, they are actually infinite.

127. The consequence of the first enthymeme [n.125] I prove thus, that where a plurality requires or involves a greater perfection than a fewness does, there numerical infinity involves infinite perfection. An example: being able to carry ten things requires a greater perfection of virtue than being able to carry five; therefore being able to carry an infinite number of things involves an infinite moving virtue. Therefore, in the proposed case, since to understand a is a perfection and to understand b is similarly a perfection, there is never one and the same understanding of a and b, and with as much distinctness as two understandings would have, unless the perfections of the two understandings are included eminently in that one understanding; and thus about three understandings, and so on about an infinite number.Interpolation: “Response: numerical difference does not imply any other perfection.” ¹⁰⁹ Likewise one might also argue about the very idea of understanding what has been argued about intellect and about act, that a greater perfection in an act of understanding is implied from a plurality of things where there is the idea of distinctly understanding them, because this act must include the perfections eminently of all understanding’s proper operations, each of which, according to its proper idea, posits some perfection; therefore infinite operations involve infinite perfection.

128. Second, following on this way about the understanding of the first thing I show the intended proposition thus: a first cause to which, in accord with the utmost of its causality, a second cause adds some perfection in causing, does not seem able on its own to cause as perfect an effect as it can cause along with the second, because the causality of the first cause alone is diminished in respect of the causality of both; therefore if that which is naturally from the second cause and from the first simultaneously is much more perfectly from the first alone, the second cause adds no perfection to the first; but every finite thing adds some perfection to a finite thing; therefore such a first cause is infinite.

129. To the proposed case: the knowledge of a thing is naturally generated by that thing as from the proximate cause, and especially the knowledge which is vision or intuitive understanding; therefore if that knowledge is, without all action of such an object, in any intellect merely by virtue of another prior object which is naturally a superior cause with respect to such knowledge, the result is that that superior object is infinite in knowability, because the inferior object adds nothing in knowability to it; such a superior object is the first nature, because from the mere presence of it in the intellect of the first thing, without any other objection accompanying it, there is in the intellect of the first thing knowledge of any object whatever. Therefore no other intelligible adds anything to it in knowability; therefore it is infinite in knowability. Therefore it is such in its reality, because each thing is related to existence as it is to knowability, from Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31.

130. [Third way] - Again in the third way, namely on the part of the end [n.111], the argument is as follows: our will can desire and love, as the intellect can understand, some other thing greater than any finite thing; and it seems that the inclination to loving an infinite good supremely is more natural, for a natural inclination in the will to something is argued from this, that free will of itself, without a habit, promptly and with delight wants it; thus it seems that we experience an infinite good in an act of loving it, nay it seems that the will does not perfectly rest in some other thing. And how would it not naturally hate that other thing if it were the opposite of its object, just as it hates not-being (according to Augustine On Free Choice of the Will 3 ch.6 n.18, ch.8 n.23)? It also seems that, if the infinite were repugnant to good, the will would, under the idea of the infinite, in no way rest in good, nor would it easily tend to good, just as neither to what is repugnant to its object. This reason will be confirmed in the next way [n.136], about the intellect.

131. [The fourth way] - Again, fourth, the intended proposition is shown by way of eminence [n.111], and I argue thus: it is incompossible with the most eminent thing that something else be more perfect, as was plain before [n.67]; but with a finite thing it is not incompossible that there be something more perfect; wherefore     etc .

132. The proof of the minor is that an infinite thing is not repugnant to real being; but the infinite is greater than everything finite. There is another way of arguing for this and it is the same: that to which it is not repugnant to be intensively infinite is not supremely perfect unless it is infinite, because if it is finite it can be exceeded or excelled, because to be infinite is not repugnant to it; to real being infinity is not repugnant; therefore      the most perfect real being is infinite. The minor here, which is taken up in the preceding argument, does not seem capable of being shown a priori, because as contradictories contradict by their proper ideas and as this fact cannot be proved by anything more manifest, so non-repugnant things are non-repugnant by their proper ideas and it does not seem possible for this to be shown save by explaining their ideas. Real being is not explained by anything more known, the infinite we understand through the finite (I explain this vulgarly thus: the infinite is that which no given finite thing exceeds precisely by any finite relation, but beyond any such assignable relation there is still excess).

133. Thus, however, may the intended proposition be proved: just as anything whose impossibility is not apparent is to be set down as possible, so also is that whose incompossibility is not apparent to be set down as compossible; here no incompossibility is apparent, because finitude is not in the idea of real being, nor does it appear from the idea of real being that finitude is a property convertible with real being. One or other of these is required for the aforesaid repugnance; for the properties that belong to the first real being, and are convertible with it, seem to be sufficiently known to be present in it.

134. Again there is proof thus: the infinite is not in its mode repugnant to quantity, that is, by taking part after part; therefore neither is the infinite in its mode repugnant to real being, that is, by being in perfection all at once.

135. Again, if quantity of virtue is simply more perfect than quantity of bulk, why will an infinite be possible in bulk and not in virtue? But if it is possible it is actual, as is plain from the third conclusion above, about effective primacy [n.58], and it will also be proved below [n.138].

136. Again, because the intellect, whose object is real being, finds no repugnance in understanding something infinite, nay rather the infinite seems to be the most perfect intelligible. Now it is remarkable if to no intellect a contradiction of this sort about its first object is made plain although discord in sound so easily offends the hearing; for if the discordant offends as soon as it is perceived, why does no intellect naturally flee from an intelligible infinite as from something not concordant that thus destroys its first object?

137. Hereby can be colored the reasoning of Anselm about the highest thinkable good in the Proslogion, [nn.11, 35] and his description must be understood in this way:Interpolation [in place of what follows]: “There is a supreme thinkable; the supreme thinkable is infinite; therefore there is an infinite. Proof of the major: a supreme thinkable can be thought of as existing in reality, and it cannot be thought to exist from another; therefore from itself; therefore it is from itself. Therefore that a greater than what exists only in the intellect can be thought that exists in reality must not be understood to be about the same thing [n.138]; but because the merely thinkable is merely possible, something of itself necessary is greater than any possible. - Alternatively, the highest thinkable is intuitable; not in another; therefore in itself [n.139].” ¹¹⁰

God is that than which, when known without contradiction, a greater cannot be thought without contradiction. And the fact that ‘without contradiction’ must be added is plain, for a thing in the knowing or thinking of which contradiction is included is said not to be thinkable, because in that case there are two opposed thinkables with no way of producing a single thinkable thing, because neither determines the other.Interpolation: “hence, that man is irrational is unthinkable. Hence, just as in reality nothing exists save it be simple or composed of potency and act, so in concepts; but contradictories make nothing that is one, whether simple or complex.” ¹¹¹

138. The aforesaid highest thinkable without contradiction can exist in reality. This is proved first about quidditative being, because in such a thinkable the intellect supremely rests; therefore in that thinkable is the idea of the first object of the intellect, namely the idea of real being, and this in the highest degree. - And then the argument further is made that it exists, speaking of the being of existence: the supremely thinkable is not in the thinking intellect only, because then it would both be able to exist, because it is a possible thinkable, and not be able to exist, because existing by some cause is repugnant to its idea,A fallacy of equivocation over the term ‘possible’ seems to lurk in Scotus’ reasoning here. The existence of an infinite being is possible intrinsically because its idea involves no contradiction (unlike, say, a round square, which does involve contradiction); but if it does not in fact exist its existence is not possible extrinsically, because nothing extrinsic could make it to exist. Yet such a non-existent infinite being, although it could never in fact exist, would still, in its idea, contain no contradiction (unlike square circle). So there is no problem in supposing that an infinite being is both able and not able to exist since the ‘able’ in each case is different. ¹¹² as was clear before in the second conclusion [n.57] about the way of efficacy; therefore what exists in reality is a greater thinkable than what exists in the intellect only. But this is not to be so understood that the same thing, if it is thought on, is thereby a greater thinkable if it exists, but rather that something which exists is greater than anything which is in the intellect only.

139. Or it [Anselm’s reasoning] is colored in another way thus: what exists is a greater thinkable; that is, it is more perfectly thinkable because visible or intelligible to intuitive intellection; when it does not exist, whether in itself or in something nobler to which it adds nothing, it is not visible. But what is visible is more perfectly thinkable than what is not visible but intelligible only in the abstract; therefore the most perfect thinkable exists. - The difference between intuitive and abstract intellection, and how the intuitive is more perfect, will be touched on later [I d.3 p.1 q.1-2 nn.29, 11, 18-19; q.3 nn.24, 10, 28], and elsewhere when there will be place for it [e.g. n.394 below, d.1 n.35 above].

140. Finally the intended proposition is shown from negation of an extrinsic cause, becauseInterpolation: “matter is terminated by form as potency by act and perfection and the formal existence of it, and conversely.” ¹¹³ form is limited, or made finite, through matter;Interpolation: “as act by potency; form” ¹¹⁴ therefore what is not of a nature to be in matter is infinite.Interpolation: “of which sort is God.” ¹¹⁵,This reasoning seems to be taken from St. Thomas Aquinas. ¹¹⁶

141. This reasoning is not valid, because according to them an angel is immaterial; therefore it is in nature infinite. - Nor can they say that the existence of an angel limits its essence, because according to them existence is an accident of essence and naturally posterior; and thus in the first moment of nature the essence in itself, as prior to existence, seems to be intensively infinite, and consequently it will, in the second moment of nature, not be limitable by existence.

142. I respond briefly to the argument, for any real being has intrinsic to it its own grade of perfection, in which grade it is finite if it is finite and infinite if it can be infinite, and not by anything accidental to it.

143. There is also an argument ‘if form is limited in relation to matter, then if it is not in relation to matter it is not limited’; it is the fallacy of the consequent,The phrase ‘form is limited in relation to matter’ is really equivalent to ‘if form is in relation to matter it is limited’, so to argue ‘but some form is not in relation to matter, therefore it is not limited’ is to argue from the denial of the antecedent to the denial of the consequent, which is a fallacy. ¹¹⁷ just like ‘body is limited in relation to body, therefore if it is not in relation to body it will be infinite’; ‘therefore the furthest heaven will be actually infinite’. The sophism is the one in Physics 3.4.203b20-22, that just as body is limited first in itself,Interpolation: “by its proper terms before it is limited in reference to something else, as in the case of the heavens, therefore.” ¹¹⁸ so a finite form is finite first in itself before it is limited in relation to matter, because of such a sort is nature in real beings, that it is limited, that is, before it is united to matter, for a second finitude presupposes a first and does not cause it. Therefore in some moment of nature it will be finite in essence, therefore not made finite by existence; therefore it is not, in a second moment, made finite by existence.

144. I assert briefly one proposition, that any absolute essence finite in itself is finite as pre-understood to every comparison of itself to another essence.

145. [Epilogue] - From what has been said the solution to the question is plain. For from the first article [nn.41-73] one gets that some existent real being is simply first with a triple primacy, namely of efficacy, of end, and of eminence [nn.42-58, 60-61, 6466], and so it is simply that which is incompossible with something else being first [nn.59, 63, 67]. And in this article existence is proved of God as to the properties of God in respect of creatures, or insofar as he determines the dependence of respect of creatures on himself [n.39].

146. From the second article [nn.74-144] one gets in a fourfold way that the first thing is infinite: namely first because it is the first efficient thing [nn.111-120], second because it is the first knower of all make-able things (the second way [nn.125-127] containsInterpolation: “and on account of the second way there were prefaced there [four conclusions etc.].” ¹¹⁹ four conclusions about the intelligibility of the first thing [nn.75-110]), third because it is the ultimate end [n.130], fourth because it is eminent [n.131-136]. By occasion of the first way there is excluded a certain useless way about creation [nn.121-

124], by occasion of the second another way is touched on about the perfection and intelligibility of the first object [nn.128-129], by occasion of the fourth exposition is given of the argument of Anselm in Proslogion, ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [nn.137-139, 11, 35]; lastly there is excluded a useless way inferring infinity from immateriality [nn.140-144].

147. From the premised conclusions, proved and shown, the argument to the questionInterpolation: “Therefore join the conclusions of the first two articles with the conclusion of the third as follows:” ¹²⁰ goes as follows: some real being triply first among beings actually exists [nn.41-73, 145]; and that triply first thing is infinite [nn.111-141, 146]; therefore some infinite real being actually exists [n.1]. And it is the most perfect conceivable, and the most perfect, absolute conceived, that we can naturally have about God, that he is infinite, as will be said later [I d.3 p.1 qq.1-2 n.17].

And thus it has been proved that God exists as to his concept or existence, the most perfect conceivable or possible to be had by us of God.

IV. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

148. To the arguments of this question.

To the first [n.1] I say that an infinite cause, active by the necessity of its nature, does not allow of anything contrary to it, whether something be contrary to it formally, that is, according as something agrees with it essentially, or virtually, that is, according to the idea of its effect which it virtually includes. For in each way it would impede whatever was incompossible with its effect, as was argued before [n.3].Interpolation: “God acts freely and voluntarily with respect to everything that is extrinsic to himself.” ¹²¹

149. On the contrary: is it really the case that the philosophers, when positing that God acts from the necessity of his nature, did not posit that there was anything bad in the universe?

150. I reply: as was made evident in the proof that God is an agent through knowledge [n.86], the philosophers could not save the idea that something evil can happen contingently in the universe, but only that one order of courses would produce something that was receptive of a perfection, while another order would of necessity produce the opposite of that perfection; such that this perfection would not then be produced when all the causes came together, although absolutely a thing produced by some of the causes, when considered according to the idea of its species, would be receptive of the perfection whose opposite necessarily comes about.Interpolation: “Therefore, according to them, just as efficient causes in one and the same order act necessarily, so impeding efficient causes in another order act necessarily in impeding; hence the sun acts to dissipate things with the same necessity as Saturn acts to condense them. Since therefore every defect of matter is reduced to efficient causes that are defective in virtue, then, if any efficient cause whatever acts necessarily, no defect whether of monstrosity or of malice will exist in the universe without happening necessarily.” ¹²² But what the philosophers can say about our free choice and about badness of morals must be discussed elsewhere.

150. To the second [n.4] I say that the consequence is not valid. For proof of the consequence I say that there is not a similar incompossibility of dimensions in filling up a place and of essences in existing simultaneously. For a single entity does not so fill up the whole nature of real being that no other entity can stand along with it (but this must not be understood of spatial filling up but of, as it were, essential commensuration), but one dimension fills up the same place according to the utmost of its capacity. Therefore one entity can exist at the same time along with another, just as, in respect of place, there could exist along with a body filling the place another body not filling the place. Likewise the other consequence [n.4] is not valid, because an infinite body, if it existed along with another body, would become a greater whole than either by reason of dimensions, because the dimensions of the second body would be different from the dimensions of the infinite body, and of the same nature as them; and therefore the whole would be greater because of the diversity of dimensions, and also the whole would not be greater because an infinite dimension cannot be exceeded. Here, however, the whole quantity of infinite perfection receives, in the idea of such quantity, no addition from the coexistence of another thing infinite in such quantity.

151. To the third [n.5] I say that the consequence is not valid unless that which is pointed to in the antecedent, from which other things are separate, is infinite. An example: if there were, per impossibile, some infinite ‘where’, and an infinite body were to fill up that ‘where’, it would not follow that ‘this body is here such that it is not elsewhere, therefore it is finite according to where’, because the ‘here’ only points to something infinite; so, according to the Philosopher, if motion were infinite and time were infinite, it does not follow that ‘this motion is in this time and not in another time, therefore it is finite according to time’. So, in relation to the intended proposition, it would be necessary to prove that what is pointed to by the ‘here’ is finite; but if it is assumed, then the conclusion is being begged in the premises.

152. To the final one [n.6] I say that the Philosopher infers that ‘it is moved in non-time’ from this antecedent, that ‘infinite power exists in a magnitude’, and he understands ‘it is moved’ properly in the consequent, in the way motion is distinguished from mutation; and in this way the consequent involves a contradiction, and the antecedent too, according to him.Interpolation: “The Philosopher argues: ‘God is possessed of infinite power; therefore he moves in non-time.’ Declaration of the consequence:” ¹²³ But how the consequence might hold I make clear in this way: if a power is infinite and acts from the necessity of its nature, therefore it acts in non-time. For, if it acts in time, let that time be a. And let some other virtue be taken, a finite one, which acts in a finite time; let it be b. And let the finite virtue which is b be increased according to the proportion which b has to a, to wit, if b is a hundred or a thousand times a, let a hundred or a thousand times virtue be assumed for that given finite virtue. Therefore the virtue so increased will move in the time a, and so this virtue and the infinite one will move in an equal time, which is impossible if an infinite virtue moves according to the utmost of its power and necessarily so.

153. From the fact, then, that the virtue is infinite it follows that, if it act of necessity, it acts in non-time; but from the fact that it is posited in the antecedent as existing in a magnitude [n.152], it follows that, if it act about a body, it would properly move that body, which he says of extensive virtueInterpolation: “because the Philosopher calls virtue in a magnitude extensive virtue” [n.6]. ¹²⁴ per accidens. But such virtue, if it acted about a body, would have the parts of such a body at different distances with respect to it, to wit, one part of the body closer and another part further away; it also has some resistance in the body about which it acts; which two causes, namely resistance and the diverse approximation of the parts of the moveable thing to the mover, make there to be succession in the motion and make the body to be properly moved. Therefore from the fact that in the antecedent the virtue is posited as existing in a magnitude, it follows that it will properly move. And so by joining the two things together at once, namely that it is infinite and that it is in a magnitude, it follows that it will move properly in non-time, which is a contradiction.

154. But this does not follow in the case of an infinite virtue which does not exist in a magnitude; for although it act in a non-time if it acts necessarily, because this is consequent to infinity, yet it will not properly move, because it will not have in the thing it acts on those two ideas of succession [n.153]. The Philosopher, therefore, does not intend that an infinite power properly move in non-time, in the way the argument proceeds [n.6], but that an infinite power in a magnitude would properly move and in non-time [n.152], which are contradictories; and from this it follows that such an antecedent involves contradictories, namely that an infinite virtue exist in a magnitude.

155. But in that case there is a doubt. Since he posits a motive power that is infinite and naturally active, it seems to follow that it would necessarily act in non-time although it would not move in non-time, nay it will in that case not move any other thing, properly speaking; and that this follows is plain, because the thing was proved before through the reason of an infinite power acting necessarily [nn.152-153].

156. Averroes replies, Metaphysics 12 com.41, that in addition to the first mover which is of infinite power there is required a conjoint mover of finite power, such that from the first mover there is infinite motion and from the second there is succession, because there could not otherwise be succession unless the finite thing acted along with it, because if the infinite thing alone acted it would act in non-time. This is refuted later [I d.8 p.2 q. un nn.3, 8-20], where an argument on this point is directed against the philosophers who posit that the first thing does of necessity whatever it does immediately. But the argument is not difficult for Christians, who say that God acts contingently; for these can easily reply that, although an infinite power acting necessarily do according to the utmost of itself, and so in non-time, whatever it immediately does, yet an infinite virtue acting contingently and freely does not; for just as it is in its power to act or not to act, so it is in its power to act in time or to act in non-time; and so it is easy to save the fact that the first thing moves a body in time although it is of infinite power, because it does not act necessarily, nor according to the utmost of its power, namely as much as it can act, nor in as brief a time as it can act.

Question 3. Whether there is only one God

157. I ask whether there is only one God.

Argument that there is not:

I Corinthians 8.5: “As there be gods many and lords many.”

158. Again thus: God is; therefore Gods are.

The proof of the consequence is that singular and plural indicate the same thing although they differ in mode of signification;     therefore they include the same predicate taken proportionally. Therefore as the singular includes the singular predicate so the plural includes the plural.The point seems to be that if ‘God’ includes the predicate ‘is’ then ‘Gods’ must include the predicate ‘are’ because the difference between singular and plural is in mode and not in thing signified. A parallel would be ‘God is masculine’ (‘Deus’ is a masculine word in Latin] therefore ‘Gods are masculine’ (i.e. each occurrence of ‘Deus’ is an occurrence of a masculine). The error here is exposed below n.185. ¹²⁵

Proof in a second way is that just as God is that than which a greater cannot be thought [n.11], so Gods are that than which greaters cannot be thought; but things than which greaters cannot be thought exist in fact, as it seems, because if they did not exist in fact greaters than them could be thought; therefore etc     .

159. In addition, every real being by participation is reduced to something such by essence; created individuals in any species are real by participation, otherwise they would not be many;     therefore they are reduced to something such by essence; therefore there is some man, some ox by essence, etc     . But whatever is by essence and not by participation is God;     therefore etc     .

160. Again, more goods are better than fewer; but whatever is better should be posited in the universe;     therefore etc     .

161. Again, anything that, if it is, is a necessary being is simply a necessary being; but if there is another God it is a necessary being;     therefore etc     . Proof of the major: grant the opposite of the predicate, ‘it is not simply a necessary being’, and the opposite of the subject follows, namely that, if it is, it is a possible being and not a necessary being.

Response: the opposite of the subject should be inferred in this way, ‘it is not a necessary being if it exists’, where the relation of antecedent and consequent is denied.

162. To the contrary:

Deuteronomy 6.4: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God;” and Isaiah 45.5:

“Beside me there is no God.”Interpolation: “The argument for this is by means of the Philosopher Metaphysics 12.8.1074a31-37: if there are two [gods], one of them would have matter. And (ibid. 1076a4): a plurality of principles is not good; therefore there is one ruler. And Damascene De Fide Orthodoxa 1.5 sets down three reasons: this god would lack that one, that one differs from this; second, neither would be everywhere; third, they would regenerate things badly - and this agrees with the second reason. The Master [Lombard, I d.3 ch.3]: one of them would be superfluous. - Again, by reason, because as he [Aristotle] says above, unity is the principle of duality and of every multitude; Proclus Institutio Theologica ch.21. - Again, how would they come together under a genus or a species? Composition follows either way. This agrees with the first reason of the Philosopher.” ¹²⁶

I. To the Question

163. [The opinion of others] - InInterpolation: “When setting down this concept of God in this question, that he necessarily exists of himself, or is independent in existence, or is an uncreated being, or the unmovable first mover, one will be able to make use of the opinion of Aristotle about the intelligences [Metaphysics 12.8.1073a14-74b14], if they are thus Gods, which is dealt with in I d.8 p.2 q. un. nn.3-11. - As to the fourth concept, there is no demonstration of the affirmative if, according to Aristotle [ ibid. 12.6-7.1072a9-23], one of them moves with a diurnal motion and the other moves the zodiac and each exists of itself. But this concept is saved by setting down this concept or description of God: a being of infinite intellectuality, will, goodness, power; a necessary being, existing of itself. Hence, in advance of this question, one must prove all the following things of God: thus, that some being is altogether first with a triple primacy was proved in the preceding question [nn.42-67], and that it necessarily exists [n.70], and is infinite [nn.111-136]; and the same about the intellect, will, and power, in the same place [nn.75-100]. Thus the question is not being begged here.” ¹²⁷ this question the conclusion is certain. But some say that this conclusion is not demonstrable but only accepted on faith; and for this there follows the authority of Rabbi Moses [Maimonides], Guide of the Perplexed I ch.75: “the unity of God is received from the Law.”

164. This is also argued by reason, that if it could be known by natural reason that God is one, therefore it could naturally be known that God is naturally a singular; therefore the singularity of God and his essence as singular could be known, which is false, and the contrary was said above in the question about the object of theology [Prol. nn.167-168].

165 [Scotus’ own opinion] - However it seems that the unity might be shown by natural reason, and that by taking a way, first, from infinite intellect, second from infinite will, third from infinite goodness, fourth from the idea of infinite power, fifth from the idea of an infinite absolutely, sixth from the idea of necessary being, seventh from the idea of omnipotence.

166. [First way, from infinite intellect] - On the part of infinite intellect the argument is first as follows: an infinite intellect knows most perfectly any intelligible whatever insofar as it is intelligible in itself;Interpolation: “because it is the whole of being, for a finite intellect has this power, although not most perfectly nor all at once.” ¹²⁸ therefore, if there are Gods - let them be a and b - a knows b most perfectly, namely insofar as b is knowable. But this is impossible. The proof is that either it knows b through the essence of b or it does not. If it does not and b is knowable through its essence, then a does not know b most perfectly and insofar, that is, as it is knowable. For nothing knowable through its essence is most perfectly known unless it is known through its essence, or through something more perfect which includes the essence which it is in itself; but the essence of b is included in nothing more perfectly than in b, because then b would not be God. But if a knows b through the essence of b itself, then the act of a itself is naturally posterior to the essence of b itself, and so a will not be God. Now the proof that the act of a itself is posterior to b itself is that every act of knowing which is not the same as the object is posterior to the object; for an act is neither prior to nor simultaneous in nature with anything other than the act, because then the act might be understood without the object, just as conversely.

167. If it be said that a understands b by the essence of a itself, which is most similar to b itself, namely in this way, that a understands b in the idea of a species common to a itself and to b itself, on the contrary: neither response saves the fact a understand b most perfectly, and consequently a is not God, because the knowledge of a thing in a similar and a universal only is not a knowledge most perfect and intuitive of that thing, and so a would not know b intuitively nor most perfectly, which is the conclusion intended.

168. The argument second on the part of the intellect is as follows: one and the same act cannot have two adequate objects; a is the adequate object of its own intellection, and b would be the adequate object of the same intellection if a could understand b; therefore it is impossible that a understand in a single intellection perfectly all at once both a and b. If a have intellections that are really distinct then it is not God.Interpolation: “because a has its own essence as adequate object; therefore it does not have essence b as adequate object. But b would be the adequate object for intellection a if that intellection could understand a and b perfectly all at once.” ¹²⁹ The major is plain, because otherwise the act would be adequated to an object which, when removed, the act would no less be at rest in and adequated to, and so such an object would be in vain.

169. [The second way, from infinite will] - As to the second way the argument is as follows: an infinite will is correct, therefore it loves whatever is lovable insofar as it is lovable; if b is another God it is to be loved infinitely (sinceInterpolation [in place of ‘if b is another...since’]: “and with as much love as it can if it is infinite; but b is to be loved to infinity when it is set down as being another God, and consequently.” ¹³⁰ it is an infinite good) and to be loved infinitely by a will that is able thus to love it; therefore the will of a loves b infinitely. But this is impossible because a naturally loves itself more than b. Proof: for anything whatever naturally loves its own being more than the being of something else of which it is not a part or an effect; but a is nothing of b whether as a part or as an effect; therefore a naturally loves itself more than it loves b. But a free will, when it is correct, is in conformity with the natural will, otherwise the natural will would not always be correct; therefore if a has this correct will it loves itself with an elicited act more than it loves b; therefore it does not love b infinitely.

170. A second argument about will is as follows: a either enjoys b or uses it; if it uses it then a has a disordered will; if it enjoys b and enjoys a then a is blessed in two objects neither of which depends on the other, because just as a is blessed in itself so it is blessed in b. But the consequent is impossible, because nothing can be actually blessed in two total beatifying objects; the proof is that when either object is destroyed it would nevertheless be blessed; therefore it is blessed in neither.Interpolation: “Also it seems plausible that what is completely at rest in one adequate object could not be at rest in another object.” ¹³¹

171. [Third way, from infinite goodness] - About the third way, namely about the idea of infinite good, the argument is as follows: the will can in an ordered way desire a greater good and love more a greater good; but several infinite goods, if they were possible, include more goodness than one infinite good; therefore the will could in an ordered way love several infinites more than one infinite, and consequently it would not rest in any single infinite good. But this is contrary to the idea of good - that it be infinite and not give rest to any will whatever.

172. [The fourth way, from infinite power] - As to the fourth way, about infinite power, I argue thus: there cannot be two total causes of the same effect in the same order of cause [n.73]; but infinite power is the total cause in idea of first cause with respect to any effect, therefore there can be no other power in idea of first cause with respect to any effect, and so there is no other cause infinite in power.

173. The proof of the first proposition is that then it would be possible for something to be the cause of something on which that something did not depend. Proof: nothing essentially depends on a thing such that, when that thing does not exist, it would no less exist; but if c has two total causes, a and b, and in the same order, then when either of them does not exist, c would no less exist on the other of them, because when a does not exist c would no less exist on b, and when b does not exist c exists no less on a.

174. Next to this is an argument about the unity of any first thing in any of the aforesaid primacies [n.41]; for nothing is exceeded by two first exceeding things, or no finite thing is essentially ordered to two first ends; for there would be something in relation to an end such that, when the end did not exist, it would no less have an end, as was argued before [nn.173, 73], and it would be essentially exceeded by something such that, when that thing did not exist, it would no less have an essential exceeder by which it was essentially measured, and from which it would essentially receive its perfection, which is impossible; therefore it is impossible for there to be two first ends of any two finite things, or two first eminents of two exceeded things.

175. [The fifth way, from the infinite absolutely] - About the fifth way I say that an infinite cannot be exceeded, and I argue thus: whatever perfection can be numerically in diverse things has more perfection in several of them than in one, as is said in On the Trinity VIII ch.1 n.2; therefore the infinite cannot at all numerically be in many things.

176. [The sixth way, from necessary being] - About the sixth way I argue first thus: a species that can be multiplied, namely in individuals, is not of itself determined to a definite number of individuals, but as far as concerns itself it allows of an infinity of individuals, as is plain in all corruptible species;     therefore if the idea of ‘necessary existence’ is multipliable in individuals, it does not determine itself to a definite number, but, as far as concerns itself, allows of an infinity. But if there could be infinite necessary beings, there are in fact infinite necessary beings; therefore etc     . The consequent is false, therefore so too is the antecedent from which it follows.Interpolation: “Let this reason be stated under another form from the idea of primacy as follows: one thing of one idea that is disposed to many things of one idea is not determinate with respect to that plurality, or to a definite determination of them; there is no instance in nature with respect to supposits nor in cause with respect to things caused, unless you make an instance in the proposed case. But deity will be one thing of one idea, and according to you it is related to many things of one idea; therefore of itself it is not determinate to a definite plurality of singulars, nor can it be made determinate from elsewhere, because that is repugnant to the first thing; therefore deity exists in infinite supposits. This reasoning seems to be founded on the fact that primacy is indeterminate of itself.” ¹³²

177. Secondly I argue thus, and next to this way: if there are several infinite beings they are distinguished by some real perfections [n.71]; let those perfections be a and b. Then as follows: either those two things distinct by a and b are formally necessary beings by a and b or they are not. If they are not then a is not the formal idea of necessarily existing, and consequently not b either; therefore also what includes them is not a first necessary, because it includes some reality which is not formally the necessity of existing, nor necessary of itself. But if the two things are formally necessary beings by a and b, and if in addition to this each of them is a necessary being by that in which one of them agrees with the other, then each of them has in itself two reasons each of which is formally necessary being, but this is impossible, because neither includes the other; therefore when either reason is removed each would be this sort of necessary being by the other reason, and so something would be formally a necessary being by a reason such that, when the reason was removed, it would nevertheless be a necessary being, which is impossible [n.71].

178. [The seventh way, from omnipotence] - About the seventh way, namely omnipotence, it seems that it is not demonstrable by natural reason, because omnipotence - as will be plain elsewhere [n.119] - cannot be proved by natural reason in the way Catholics understand omnipotence, nor can it be proved by reason of infinite power.

179. Yet from omnipotence as believed the intended proposition may be argued for in this way: if a is omnipotent then it can cause being and not being in the case of anything else, and so it could destroy b, and so might make b impotent of everything, and the consequence is thus that b is not God.

180. This reasoning is not valid, just as some reply to it, because b is not an object of omnipotence since omnipotence has regard to the possible for its object; but b was posited as necessary [n.177] just like a. Therefore one argues in another way by declaring thus the reason of Richard [of St. Victor] in On the Trinity I ch.25:Interpolation: “where he speaks thus: ‘Any omnipotent that was such that everything else could do nothing will be able easily to effect things’.” ¹³³ just as the omnipotent by its willing can produce whatever is possible, so by its not willing it can impede or destroy anything possible; but if a is omnipotent it can will everything other than itself to exist, and so by its willing them to bring them into existence. But it is not necessary that b will all the things that a wills, because the will of b is contingently related to them, just as the will of a is to the things that b wills, if it is God [n.156]. But if b does not will them to be, then none of them exists. Therefore if there are two omnipotents, each of them would make the other impotent, not by destroying it, but by preventing by its non-willing the existence of the things willed by the other.

181. But if you say, by playing the sophist as it were, that they may agree in their will, although there is no necessity [n.180], but they would as it were make a pact, still I argue that neither of them will be omnipotent; for if a is omnipotent it can produce by its willing any willed possible other than itself; from this it follows that b could produce nothing by its own willing, and so it is not omnipotent. Now that this follows is plain from the fourth way [n.172], because it is impossible for there to be two total causes of one effect, because from the fact that the effect is totally caused by one, it is impossible that it be caused by the other.Interpolation: “I do not wish to adduce here certain arguments of some people relative to the question, on which one should rely because they are answerable and perhaps prove just as much that there is a single angel in a single species, if an angel is simple in its essence [an implicit reference to St. Thomas Aquinas]; or if they are proofs yet they do not proceed from what is naturally known to us. Nor should they be adduced as in need of being answered, because they are not opposed to the conclusion that I maintain.” ¹³⁴

II. To the Arguments

A. To the Arguments for the Other Opinion

182. To the arguments [nn.163-164, 157-160] - For first to those that are for the other opinion. I reply to the authority of Rabbi Moses [n.163] and I say that God’s being one is handed down in the Law; for because the people were uneducated and prone to idolatry therefore they needed to be instructed by the Law about the unity of God, although it could by natural reason be demonstrated. For it is thus received by the Law that God exists (Exodus 3.14: “I am who am”, and the Apostle says in Hebrews 11.6: that “he who comes to God must believe that he is”), and yet it is not denied that God is demonstrable; therefore by parity of reasoning it should not be denied either that it could be demonstrated by reason that God is one, although it be ‘received’ from the Law. Also, it is useful for things which can be demonstrated to be handed down to the community also by way of authority - both because of the negligence of the community in inquiring into truth, and also because of the impotence of the intellect and the errors of those who make inquiry by demonstration, because they mix many false things in with their truths, as Augustine says in The City of God XVIII ch.41 n.2. And therefore, because the simple who follow such demonstrators could be in doubt as to what to assent to, so an authority is a safe and stable and common way about the things it can neither deceive nor be deceived about.

183. To the second reason about the singular [n.164] I say that it is one thing for singularity to be conceived either as an object or as part of an object, and another thing for singularity to be precisely the mode of conceiving or that under which the object is conceived. An example: when I say ‘universal’, the object conceived is a plurality, but the mode of conceiving, that is, the mode under which it is conceived, is singularity; thus in the case of logical intentions, when I say ‘singular’, what is conceived is singularity, but the mode under which it is conceived is universality, because what is conceived, in the way it is conceived, is indifferent to many things. Thus I say in the proposed case that the divine essence can be conceived as singular such that singularity is conceived either as the object or part of the object; yet it does not follow that the essence can be conceived as it is singular, such that singularity be the mode of the concept; for thus to know something as singular is to know it as this, as a white thing is seen as this, and in this way it was said before [n.164] that the divine essence is not known under the idea of singularity; and therefore there is in the argument a fallacy of figure of speech [Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations 1.4.166b10-14], by changing thing to mode.

B. To the Principal Arguments

184. To the principal reasons [nn.157-160]. - I say that the Apostle [n.157] is speaking of idols, and so of ‘gods’ in name only; and he adds there: “but for us there is one God,” because “all the gods of the Gentiles are demons.”

185. I say to the second [n.158] that the consequence is not valid, because number is not a grammatical mode of signifying as are other grammatical modes that mean precisely a mode of conceiving a thing without any reality corresponding to such a mode of conceiving; hence they mean precisely some aspect in a thing by which the intellect can be moved to conceive such a thing.Interpolation: “although that which moves [the intellect] is not anything in reality; for masculinity does not require anything masculine in reality but something corresponding to masculinity, namely active power or something of the sort.” ¹³⁵ But number truly includes a subsumed thing; hence the inference follows ‘men are running, therefore several men are running’. But it is not like this in the case of the other co-signified things in a noun or a verb, because this inference does not follow ‘God exists, therefore God is masculine’Interpolation: “the inference ‘there are several men, therefore that are several rational animals’ holds, but the inference ‘God is a generator, therefore God is of the masculine gender’ does not hold.” ¹³⁶ [in Latin the word for ‘God’ is a masculine noun, ‘Deus’], because it suffices for masculinity that there is something in the thing from which the mode of conceiving might be taken, such as activity. I say therefore that only the term ‘Gods’ conceived in the plural mode includes a contradiction, because the mode of conceiving is repugnant to that which is conceived in that mode. - When therefore the consequence is proved that the same thing includes the singular and plural [n.158], I say that it includes the singular under a mode of conceiving fitting to the concept but it includes the plural in a mode impossible to that concept; and therefore the singular, insofar as it includes the concept and the mode of conceiving, includes an idea that is as it were in itself true, but the plural, insofar as it includes those two things, includes an idea that is as it were in itself false. And so it does not follow that the plural is true of the plural as the singular is of the singular, because about that whose idea is in itself false nothing is true [n.30].

186. Through this is plain the response to the other proof ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [n.158] because Gods are not thinkable without contradiction, because the mode is repugnant to the thing conceived; and therefore the major is to be glossed as was said before in the preceding question [n.137]. Now for sense and truth it is required that the idea of the subject not include a contradiction, as was said in the second question of this distinction [n.30].

187. To the third [n.159] I say that the major proposition is not first but is reduced to this ‘every imperfect thing is reduced to a perfect thing’; and because every being by participation is imperfect, and only that being is perfect which is a being by essence, therefore does the proposition follow.Interpolation: “namely that ‘every being by participation is reduced to a being by essence’ which being is perfect. So that the conclusion, then, might truly follow...” ¹³⁷ But this major about ‘imperfect’ has to be distinguished in this way: a thing is imperfect according to a perfection simply when the perfection does not necessarily have an accompanying imperfection, because it does not include in itself a limitation, as ‘this good’, ‘this true’, ‘this being’; and an imperfect of this sort is reduced to a perfect of the same nature, namely ‘good’, ‘being’, and ‘true’, which indicate perfections simply. But a thing is imperfect according to a perfection non-simply when the perfection includes a limitation in its idea, and so it necessarily has an annexed imperfection, as ‘this man’, ‘this ass’; and imperfects of this sort are not reduced to a perfect by essence absolutely of the same idea as to their specific idea, because they still include imperfection, because they include a limitation, but they are reduced to a first perfect that contains them super-eminently and equivocally. What is imperfect then in the first way is reduced to a perfect simply according to a perfection of the same nature, because something can according to that nature be simply perfect. But what is imperfect in the second way is not reduced to something perfect according to a perfection of the same nature; for because that nature includes imperfection, therefore it cannot be a perfect thing simply, because of the limitation, but it is reduced to some simply perfect equivocal that eminently includes that perfection. And for this reason an imperfect good is reduced to a perfect good, but a stone, which is imperfect, is not reduced to a simply perfect stone, but to supreme being and to supreme good, which include that perfection virtually [n.69].

188. To the final one [160] the response is that many finite goods are better than fewer finite goods, but not many infinite goods.

189. But this does not seem to respond to the argument, because it seems that all things that would be better if they existed should be posited within beings, and most of all within the supreme being, which is a ‘necessary being’, because there whatever could exist is good and must necessarily be there; but many infinite goods, if they existed, would be better; therefore it seems that many infinite goods should be posited in the nature of the supreme good.

190. To this I reply that when it is said in the major ‘things which would be better if they existed should be posited there’, I say that by the ‘if’ either a possible positing is implied or a positing of incompossibles is. If in the first way I say that the major is true and the minor false, because the implication in the minor is not possible but is of incompossibles. But if the ‘if’ implies a positing of incompossibles then the minor is true and the major false; for things that would only be better from a positing of incompossibles would not be better, nor are they even good, just as that which only exists from the positing of incompossibles altogether does not exist, just as neither does the posited thing on which it depends.