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