Question Two. Whether God is the First Thing Naturally Known by Us in this State of Life

6. Next after this I ask whether God is the first thing naturally known by us in this state of life.

Argument that he is:

“As each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to knowledge,” from Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31; but God is the first being; therefore he is the first known thing.

7. Again, nothing is perfectly known save when it has been perfectly known; therefore, nothing is simply known save when it has been simply known. The consequence is clear, because in the case of things that exist per se, ‘as the greatest is to the greatest, so is the simply so to the simply so’, and conversely; from Topics 5.8.137b20-27.

8. Again the simply first object is the object of a power’s most perfect act; but God is the object of the most perfect act, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17; therefore, God is the simply first knowable object.

9. On the contrary:

All our knowledge arises from the senses, Metaphysics 1.1.980b28-81a12 and Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a3-b5; therefore God, who is furthest removed from the senses, is not the first thing known by our intellect.

I. Clarification of the First Question

10. In the first question [n.1] a distinction should not be made to the effect that God can be known negatively or affirmatively [Alexander of Hales, ST I q.2 n.1 ch.2], because negation cannot be known save through affirmation, On Interpretation 14.24b3-4, Metaphysics 4.4.1008a17-18.

Plain too is that we do not know any negations about God save through the affirmations that we use to remove, from those affirmations, the things incompossible with them.

Also, we do not supremely love negations.

Likewise too, a negation is conceived either precisely as a negation, or as a negation said of something. If a negation is conceived precisely, such as ‘non-stone’, this belongs as much to nothing as to God, because a pure negation is said of being and of non-being. Therefore, God is no more known in this than nothing is or a chimaera. If the negation is understood as a negation said of something then, about the underlying concept that this negation is understood to be true of, I ask the question: will it be an affirmative concept or a negative one? If negative I ask the question as before: is the negation conceived precisely or as said of something? If in the first way this belongs as much to nothing as to God; if said of something, I ask the question as before. And however far one proceeds with negations, either God would not be understood more than nothing is, or a stand will be made at some affirmative concept that is first.

11. Nor, second, should a distinction be made about knowledge what a thing is and knowledge whether it is [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.3], because in the issue at hand I am asking about a simple concept, the ‘it is’ of which is known by an act of the intellect combining or dividing. For I never know of anything whether it is if I do not have some concept of the term that I know the ‘is’ about; and the question being asked here is about that concept.

12. Nor third should a distinction about ‘whether it is’ be made as this ‘whether it is’ is a question about the truth of a proposition or as it is a question about the being of God [Henry of Ghent, ibid.]. Because if there can be a question about the truth of a proposition in which the ‘is’ serves as predicate of a subject, one must, in order to conceive the truth of the proposition or question, first conceive the terms of the question; and about the simple concept of that subject, whether it is possible, is the question [‘whether it is’] now being asked.

13. Nor, fourth, is it valid to draw a distinction between a natural concept and a supernatural concept [Henry of Ghent, ibid. and q.2], because the question is about the natural concept.

14. Nor, fifth, is it valid to draw a distinction about ‘naturally’ by speaking of nature absolutely or of nature in this present state [Bonaventure, Sent. I d.3 p.1 a.1 q.1; Henry of Ghent, ibid., q.6], because the question is precisely about knowledge in this present state.

15. Nor, sixth, is it of value to draw a distinction about knowledge of God in creatures or knowledge of him in himself [Alexander of Hales, ST I tr. Intro. q.2 m.2 ch.2], because if knowledge be obtained through a creature such that discursive knowledge begin from the creature, I ask in what term does the knowledge come to rest? If in God in himself, I have the intended conclusion, because I am asking for the concept of God in himself. If it does not come to rest in God in himself but in a creature, then the same thing will be the end of the discursive reasoning and the beginning of it, and so no knowledge will be had of God - at any rate the intellect is not in the final term of discursive reasoning as long as it rests in some object that is the beginning of the discourse.

16. About knowledge of ‘whether God is’ and ‘what he is’ (Godfrey of Fontaines in Quodlibet 7.11 rejects Henry of Ghent [ibid., a.22 q.4] on the distinction between ‘whether he is’ and that it is possible for there to be knowledge of ‘what he is’), note: the ‘what’ that is spoken of using the name is the ‘what’ that is the ‘what’ of the thing, and it is inclusive of ‘whether it is’, because Metaphysics 4.7.1012a23-24, “the idea of which the name is the sign is the definition.” However, the ‘what is’ of the name is more common than the ‘is’ and the ‘what’ of the thing, because being signified by the name belongs to more things than ‘is’ does. But where the two go together, they are the same - just as whiteness is not every color, yet the color that whiteness is is the same as whiteness. The example, however, is not altogether similar, because color is taken from some partial perfection. Not so here, but the whole ‘what’ is related to the name as to its sign, because the whole is related to the thing as quiddity to supposit. But I know the first relation about the same ‘what’ before the second. The question ‘what is?’ can be asked about a chimaera, which is not real, or is not an ‘is’, but a fiction. Color and whiteness are similar in that color is said of more things than whiteness is (just as ‘is’ is said of more things than exist, as of chimaeras). But if whiteness is said of the color that whiteness is, ‘whiteness’ and ‘color’ are the same. Of course, whiteness is only part of a white thing, or only a partial perfection or reality of the thing. But the ‘what’ in ‘what is’ is about the whole of that of which the name or word ‘what’ is said, because ‘what’ signifies the quiddity, the ‘whatness’, of whatever it is said of. But to know that the name or word ‘what’ relates to anything whatever, including fictional things (like chimaeras) and partial perfections (like whiteness), precedes knowing that it relates to the whatness of things that are supposits and not qualities (as whiteness) or fictions (as chimaeras). ²

Nor in this alone is there an order to these knowings (knowing of the same simple concept one relation before the other), but also in this, that the simple concept is in some way different in several things, namely definitions, because the first [supra: the ‘what’ that is said by the name] is confused, the second [supra: the ‘what’ that is of the thing] distinct. For the first either does not explain the parts of the concept, or if it does, not distinctly under compossibility or non-compossibility; the second does explain the compossiblity, and in this that the idea is true, and that from this ‘what’ it expresses the ‘what it is’ of a possible thing. ‘What’ said of a chimaera is said of an incompossible, because chimaeras are imaginary beings combining incompatible features, and have no real ‘what’ or quiddity. But this fact is not known in knowing merely the name or word ‘what’; it is known when the ‘what’ is referred to supposits that are really possible and have a real quiddity to describe and define. Dinosaurs, for instance, unlike chimaeras, are possible things, and have a real quiddity, even though they do not exist now. ³

17. Second [sc. second to n.16], note that the subject of the first science is at the same time already known. What is said by the name is both ‘if it is’ and ‘what it is’, because no science asks about its first subject ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’ [Metaphysics 7.1.1028a36-b2]. A science, strictly speaking, proves properties of its subject through the definition of the subject. The science of geometry proves the properties of a triangle through the definition of triangle, and therefore, qua science, it assumes that there are triangles and what they are. So with any science. Knowing that there is such a subject and what it is (say triangle) is prior to science and belongs rather to intellection. ⁴ Therefore either this is not a question at all, or only in a prior science; there is no science prior to the first science; therefore about its first subject in no way is there a question ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’. Therefore its concept is simply simple, therefore being is [simply simple]. Therefore (to anticipate), ‘being’ as it is the subject proper of the science of metaphysics is not analogical; for if it were it would not be simply simple. That, nevertheless, being is said in many ways is a truth proved in metaphysics, and proved of something that, in its first apprehension, is simply simple, that is, univocal. ⁵

The fact that a being can per se be put into doubt as to the compossibility of the parts of the concept Any concept can be questioned as to ‘if’ it is and ‘what’ it is, including God, because, as Scotus immediately says, the simply simple concept of being, whose ‘if’ and ‘what’ are beyond question, does not distinguish God (or anything) from anything else. So the concept of God too raises, for us, the questions if God is and what God is. God cannot, therefore, be the first subject of metaphysics, since the first subject of metaphysics is beyond all ‘ifs’ and ‘whats’. ⁶ is for this reason too, that ‘being’ is not God, because no idea simply simple is had of God that distinguishes him from other things. Therefore, about any such thing there is a question ‘if it is’ and a demonstration that the idea of it is not in itself false; therefore according to no concept possible for a wayfarer is God the first subject of metaphysics.

Again, whatever is proved of being is contained virtually in the idea of being, because just as a convertible simple property is included first in the subject, so too is a disjunct property; therefore in the subject is first included that some side of a disjunct property belongs to some being. In the idea of being is included, as convertible with it, the simple properties of good, true, one etc., and the disjunctive properties of actual or potential, first or derivative, finite or infinite, uncaused and caused, etc. ⁷ Therefore being first includes virtually this proposition ‘some being is first’, and therefore both the ‘if it is’ and the ‘what it is’ about this idea. The first being is included first in being; therefore also is included whatever is proved of the first being through the idea of this totality, or through the idea of being. Therefore metaphysics is theology finally and principally, because just as it is more principally about substance than about accident, Metaphysics 7.1.1028a18-19, so (by a further analogy) is it more principally about God; because always what is first in the order of perfection is included in the idea of the first subject - particularly the part of a disjunctive property that is simply more perfect. The disjunctive properties of being, as actual and potential, infinite and finite, caused and uncaused, are divided into the more and less perfect, and while being can be without the less perfect disjunct, it cannot be without the more perfect. So if only God existed and no creatures, there would still be uncaused being but no caused being. ⁸

18. On the contrary: no knowledge simply more perfect is included virtually in less perfect knowledge, but conversely; therefore, no knowledge about God that is naturally knowable to the wayfarer is more perfect than the concept of being, therefore than the speculation in which there is happiness [cf. n.5]. If this reasoning is probative, then also is that which the arguments for the first side [nn.1-4] suppose about a nonsimple concept. It is denied according to Henry; rather, a proper and simple concept of God, through movement from effect [to cause is asserted]. But then being is not common but analogous, and so the first science of being will be about the first being to which everything is attributed.

19. The meaning, then, of the question [n.1] is this, whether the intellect of the wayfarer could naturally have any simple concept, in which simple concept God is conceived.

II. Opinion of Others to Each Question

20. To this a certain doctor [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24]] speaks as follows: when speaking of the knowledge of something, a distinction can be drawn on the part of the object, that it can be known through itself or through an accident, in particular or universally.

God is not known really through an accident, because whatever is known about him is he himself; however, when knowing some attribute of his we know as it were per accidens what he is. Hence Damascene [Orthodox Faith I ch.4] says of the attributes, “They do not state the nature of God but what concerns the nature.”

He is also known universally, namely in a general attribute; not indeed universally according to the predication that is made about him (in which nothing is universal, because the quiddity is of itself singular), but universally as to what is only analogically common to him and creatures; yet it is conceived as if single by us, because of the nearness of the concepts, though they are diverse concepts [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2]

In particular is he not known from creatures but a creature is a foreign likeness of him in this way, that a creature is only conformed to God according to certain attributes that are not that nature in particular.     Therefore , since nothing leads to the knowledge of another save under the idea of what is similar, it follows etc     .

21. Again, he is known universally in three ways: most generally, more generally, generally.

‘Most generally’ has three degrees. For by knowing any being as it is very indistinctly this being, the being is conceived as part of the concept; and this is the first degree. And by removing the ‘this’ and conceiving ‘being’, there is the second degree; for now something as a concept, not as a part, is conceived that is common analogously to God and creatures. But if a distinction is made in the concept of being pertaining to God, namely by conceiving being that is indeterminate negatively (that is, not determinable by a concept of being that belongs to God analogically, which is being indeterminate privatively), there is now the third degree. In the first way [sc. negatively] the indeterminate is abstracted as form from all matter, as subsisting in itself and able to be participated; the indeterminate in the second way [sc. privatively] is a universal abstracted from particulars, which is in them something actually participated.

After these three degrees of conceiving ‘most generally’, God is conceived ‘more generally’ by conceiving any attribute, not simply as before, but with supreme eminence.

And God is conceived ‘generally’ by conceiving any attribute to be the same as his first attribute, namely ‘being’, because of its simplicity.

And God is not known through his proper species, because nothing is more simple than he, but by way of estimation, through some foreign species taken from creatures, and this in the three aforesaid ways.a

a.a [Interpolated text] just as the estimative power in brutes, by digging down below sensed intentions, knows non-sensed intentions, as of the harmful or beneficial, so does the intellect, which digs down, through sharpness of intelligence, below the species of creature (which species only represents the creature), to knowing the things that are and are said of God.

22. As to the second question [n.6], a distinction must, according to this opinion, be drawn between the way of conceiving naturally and the way of conceiving rationally.

In the first way God is the first object intelligible to us from creatures, because natural cognition proceeds from the indeterminate to the determinate. The indeterminate negatively is more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively, and so is conceived before it; and the indeterminate privatively is prior in our knowledge to the determinate, because “‘being’ and ‘thing’ are impressed by first impression on our intellect,” according to Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.6. Therefore, the indeterminate negatively is altogether first the object for our intellect, according to the mode of conceiving naturally.

Rationally, however, it is known later, after the creature is known according to the three degrees (most generally, then more generally, and last generally), because first is conceived this good, then universal good abstracted by second abstraction, namely what is indeterminate privatively, then good abstracted by first abstraction, which of course is the indeterminate negatively because, in the way of ratiocinative deduction, that from which abstraction is made must be known before what is abstracted is known.

23. An exposition of the first member, namely naturally [n.22], as to how in this way something is known first: because God as he is the first thing known is not distinguished from other things, both because of his simplicity and because he is the first being only as concerns the two first degrees of most generally conceiving [n.21] - neither of which pertains to any idea determining the attribute to God. But how God can be known and not distinguished from other things by our knowing intellect is explained by an example: it is like the way the eye sees light first, but does not, because of the subtlety of it, discern it, as it does discern color through light. Light is the actuality of the transparent; color is the limit of the transparent in a determinate surface. Light is thus not so much what we see as what we see through, but we see it in a sense first, because if there were not first transparency nothing would be seen. ⁹

III. Scotus’ own Response to the First Question

24. I respond differently to the first question [n.1], and on certain points, namely on five [nn.25, 26, 56, 58, 61], I will speak against the aforesaid position. The reasons for my position will show the opposite of this position.a

a.a [Note by Scotus]: Would this procedure really be good: to move this first question [n.1] first; second, because its solution depends on the third [n.108] (for everything in which is found the idea of primary object of vision is visible), to ask at once the third question, namely whether God is the first object of our intellect? And the arguments that are here addressed to the second question are proper enough to it [nn.22-23]. - Hence, as to the second question [n.6], the first thing is to distinguish a triple primacy [nn.69-99], and first about the primacy of adequation: and three opinions there: the first of Thomas Aquinas, an extreme one, ‘that not’ [nn.110-112]; the second of Henry of Ghent, an extreme one, ‘thus’ [n.125], and two reasons for it are touched on for the third question [n.108ff.]; third about the true, there at ‘Having seen these things’ [q.3 III].
     Having got these out of the way, in order to see about the first object in commonness [n.129], it would be necessary to ask whether any real concept is univocally common to all per se intelligibles [n.131]. The extreme opinion is that there is not, save only in things that are of one predicamental genus [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2]. In favor of this view are certain things [nn.152-157] that are introduced before the ‘Having seen these things’; against it are the reasons that are against Henry in the solution of the first question [nn.27-44]; and the way they are made clear in the third question, their conclusions are about substance and accident [nn.139-146]. The solution, that it is not by ultimate differences and properties (because of the four reasons in the third question [nn.132-135]), but by all the quidditative concepts [nn.137-146, 150-151]. - With this question solved, either there is no first object of the intellect, or it is first in two ways, because a single primacy, namely of virtuality or commonality to all things, is not found in anything; therefore a double primacy [nn.129, 137] comes together in being. - The distinction about the first object from the nature of the power and for this state of life [nn.185-188]; and there a response is excluded by defect of light [n.188]; hence the solution of this first question [nn.1, 25-26, 56-62], hence about the omitted double primacy [nn.71-98].
     In another way, because the per se object is manifest from the acts of the power; but the first object is deduced from many per se objects. Because the first object is adequate, and so extends itself first virtually to all per se objects, therefore let the extreme opinions be dealt with here: the first of Thomas Aquinas, ‘That it is not’ (it is put below in the third question [nn.110-112]); the second of Henry of Ghent, ‘That it is’ [n.125], in its proper concept (here, in this first question [nn.21, 26]), and against this let force be brought, because of the six reasons to the opposite [nn.27-44]. Let the third opinion be in the middle [of the extremes = Scotus’ own opinion], about a possible proper concept, but not now save in a common concept univocal to God and creatures; and then the whole third question, both as to the univocity of being and as to the idea of the true,     etc ., lies in what has been set down [sc. at the end of the first paragraph of this note].

A. A Quidditative Concept of God Can be Obtained

25. I say first, therefore     , that not only can a concept be naturally had of God, in which God is conceived as it were per accidens, namely in some attribute, but also can some concept be had in which God is conceived per se and quidditatively. My proof: by conceiving ‘wise [sc. God]’ a property is conceived, according to him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.3], or a quasi property, that perfects nature in second act; therefore by conceiving ‘wise’ I must pre-understand some ‘what’ in which I understand this quasi property to inhere; and so, in advance of the concepts of all the properties or quasi properties, I must look for a quidditative concept to which these properties are understood to be attributed; and this other concept will be a quidditative concept of God, because there can be a stand in nothing else.

B. About a Concept Univocal to God and Creatures

26. Secondly [n.24] I say that not only in a concept analogous to a concept of creatures is God conceived (namely in a concept that is altogether other than that which is said of creatures), but in some concept univocal to him and creatures. And so that there be no dispute about the name of univocity, I mean by a univocal concept a concept that is so one that the unity of it suffices for contradiction, for affirming and denying it of the same thing; suffices too for a syllogistic middle term, so that the extreme terms [sc. major and minor], when united in a middle term thus one, may be deduced, without the fallacy of equivocation, to be united between themselves.

27. [Reasons for univocity]. And univocity thus understood I prove in five ways. The Vatican editors remark that Scotus actually wrote ‘three ways’, but five is necessary because of parts of the text Scotus added later without being able to revise the internal references accordingly. ¹⁰ First as follows: every intellect, certain of one concept and doubtful of diverse ones, has a concept about which it is certain different from the concepts about which it is doubtful; the subject here [‘every intellect.’] includes the predicate [‘has a concept...’]. But the intellect of a wayfarer can be certain that God is a being while in doubt about whether he is finite or infinite, created or uncreated; therefore, the concept of being said of God is different from the former and latter concepts [sc. ‘finite’ ‘infinite’ ‘created’ ‘uncreated’], and so, of itself, it is neither of them and is included in each of them; therefore it is univocal.

28. The proof of the major is that no same concept is certain and doubtful; therefore either it is a different concept, which is the point at issue, or no concept - and then there will not be certitude about any of the concepts.

29. The proof of the minor is that every philosopher was certain that what he posited as first principle was a being, as that one of them was certain about fire that it was a being and another certain about water that it was a being;a but he was not certain that it were a created or an uncreated being, first or not first. For he was not certain that it was first, because then he would have been certain about what is false and the false is not knowable; nor certain that it was not the first being, for then the philosophers would not have posited the opposite [sc. that it was the first being]. There is a confirmation too, for someone seeing the philosophers disagreeing could have been certain that whatever one of them posited as first principle was a being and yet, because of the contrariety of their opinions, could have doubted whether the first principle was this being [sc. fire] or that being [sc. water]. And if a demonstration were given to such doubting person proving or destroying any lower concept (as that fire will not be the first being but will be a being posterior to the first being), the first concept certain to him, the concept he had about being, would not be destroyed but preserved in the particular concept that was proved about fire [sc. that fire is not the first being]; and hereby is proved the point at issue, the point supposed in the ultimate consequence of the reasoning [n.27, end], which was that the certain concept, which of itself is neither of the doubtful ones, is preserved in each of them.

a.a [Interpolated text] and univocally conceived being.

30. And if you do not care about the authority taken from the diversity of philosophizers’ opinions, but you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2] that everyone has in his intellect two concepts close to each other which, because of the closeness of analogy, seem to be a single concept - against this seems to be that then, by this evasion, the whole way of proving the univocal unity of any concept would be destroyed; for if you say that ‘man’ has one concept as referred to Socrates and Plato, it will be denied you, and it will be said that they are two but seem one because of their close similarity.

31. Besides, the two concepts are simply simple; therefore, not intelligible save distinctly and totally. Therefore, if they are not seen to be two now, not afterwards either.

32. Again, they are conceived either as altogether disparate, and it is a wonder how they seem to be one; or conceived as comparable according to analogy or to likeness or to distinctness, and then they are conceived as distinct at once or in advance. Therefore, they are not seen as one.

33. Again, in positing two concepts you posit two known formal objects. How are they two known formal objects and not objects known as distinct?

34. Further, if the intellect were to understand singulars in their proper idea, then, although the concepts of two things of the same species would be very similar (it is, however, not doubtful that they are much more similar than the two in the issue at hand [finite, infinite, created, uncreated, n.29], because these two differ in species), still the intellect would distinguish well between such concepts of singulars. This response [n.30] is also rejected in d.8 q.3 [d.8 p.1 q.3 n.7], as is one other response [d.8 nn.5-6] that denies the major [nn.27-28].

35. Secondly I argue principally as follows:a no real concept is caused naturally in the intellect of the wayfarer save by things that naturally move our intellect; but these things are phantasms (or an object shining forth in a phantasm) and the agent intellect; therefore no simple concept is naturally brought about now in our intellect unless it can be brought about by virtue of these. But a concept that would not be univocal to an object shining forth in a phantasm (but one altogether different, prior, to which the object would have an analogy) cannot be brought about by virtue of the agent intellect and the phantasm; therefore the sort of different, analogous concept that is posited will never exist naturally in the intellect of a wayfarer; and so a concept of God will not be able to be had naturally, which is false.

a.a [Note by Scotus] This second argument can be confirmed, against Henry, through what is found in d.8 p.1 q.3 n.4; but there is a response there.

Proof of the assumption [sc. “But a concept that would not be univocal to an object shining forth in a phantasm...”]: any object, whether shining forth in the phantasm or in the intelligible species, along with the cooperation of the agent or possible intellect, produces according to the ultimate of its power, as an effect adequate to it, its own proper concept,a and a concept of everything essentially or virtually included in it. But the other concept, which is posited to be an analogous concept, is not essentially or virtually included in this one; nor even is it this one; therefore, this one will not be brought about by any such moving object [sc. by an object that brings about the analogous concept].

a.a [Interpolated text (in place of “its own proper concept, and a concept of everything.. .any such moving object.”)] .its own proper and quidditative concept. For this is the offspring adequate to it in its being as knowable in itself, just as an offspring like it in nature would be adequate in natural being. So, in the understanding of anything that our intellect can operate on, that understanding will be more imperfect than its own [self-understanding], and consequently not per se attributable to it; because the more perfect is not attributed to the less perfect; therefore, in no way is it possible to have any knowledge naturally of God [cf. nn.48-49].

And there is confirmation of the reasoning (that ‘any object, whether.’ [previous paragraph]). Besides its proper concept, adequate to it and included in it in either of the two aforesaid ways [sc. ‘essentially or virtually’ - previous paragraph], nothing else can be known from this object save by discursive reasoning; but discursive reasoning presupposes knowledge of the simple thing to which the discourse leads. Let the reason, therefore, be formed as follows: that no object brings about in this intellect a proper simple concept of another object unless it contain that object essentially or virtually; but a created object does not contain an uncreated object essentially or virtually (and this under the idea under which it is attributed to an uncreated object as something essentially posterior is attributed to something essentially prior; because it is against the idea of the essentially posterior to include its prior virtually); and it is plain that a created object does not essentially contain an uncreated object according to anything altogether proper, and not common, to an uncreated object;     therefore it does not bring about a concept that is simple and proper to an uncreated being.

36. There is argument, third, as follows: the concept proper to a subject is an idea sufficient for proving of that subject all the things that can be conceived as necessarily being present in it; but we have no concept of God by which we could sufficiently know all the things conceived by us that are necessarily in him - it is plain about the Trinity and other necessary points of faith; therefore etc     .

The proof of the major is that we know any immediate truth to the extent we know the terms; so the major is plain about anything conceivable that is immediately present in the concept of the subject. But if it is present in it mediately, the same argument will be made about a middle term related to the subject; and wherever a stand is made, the proposed thesis about immediates is obtained; and further, through them will the mediates be known.

38. Again, fourth, an argument can be made as follows: either a pure perfection [lit.: a perfection simply] has an idea common to God and creatures, and the thesis is obtained. Or it does not but has only an idea proper to creatures; and then the idea of it will not belong formally to God, which is unacceptable. Or it has an idea that is altogether proper to God, and then it follows that, because God is pure perfection, nothing is to be attributed to him; for this is to say nothing else save that, because its idea as it belongs to God states ‘pure perfection’, therefore is it posited in God; and so will perish Anselm’s doctrine in the Monologion ch.15, where he maintains that ‘passing over relations, in the case of all other things, whatever is simply better it than not it is to be attributed to God, just as whatever is not such is to be removed from God’. According to Anselm, then, first something is known to be such [sc. ‘better it than not it’] and second it is attributed to God; therefore, it is not such precisely as it is in God. This is also confirmed in that then no pure perfection would exist in creatures. The consequence is plain, because of no such perfection does even a concept belong to creatures, save an analogical concept that, from the hypothesis, is of itself such - for an analogical concept is imperfect, and in nothing is its idea better than not it, because otherwise it would be posited, according to that analogical idea, in God.

39. This fourth reason is also confirmed as follows:a every metaphysical inquiry about God proceeds in this way: by considering the formal idea of something and taking away from that formal idea the imperfection that it has in creatures; and by keeping hold of the formal idea and attributing to it an altogether supreme perfection, and attributing it thus to God. An example about the formal idea of wisdom, or intellect or will; for this is considered in itself and by itself, and from the fact that this idea does not include formally any imperfection or limitation, the imperfections that are concomitant with it in creatures are removed from it and, with the same idea of wisdom and of will retained, these are attributed most perfectly to God.b Therefore, all inquiry about God supposes the intellect to have the same univocal concept it has taken from creatures.

a.a In place of the text from the beginning of n.36 up to here, which were clearly added later, are the words, canceled by Scotus, ‘Thirdly it is argued as follows’

b.b [Note by Scotus] For this there are certain middle terms [taken from Augustine, Anselm, Dionysius] in distinction 8 question 3, ‘against the first opinion’ [d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.8-9].

40. But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.32 q.4] the formal idea of the things that belong to God is different - from this follows something unacceptable, that from no idea proper to them as they are in creatures can they be proved of God, because the idea of the former is altogether different from the idea of the latter. Indeed, from the idea of wisdom that we grasp from creatures, it will no more be proved that God is formally wise than that God is formally a stone. For a concept different from the concept of a created stone can be formed, to which concept of stone, as it is an idea in God, this stone has an [analogous] attribution; and so ‘God is a stone’ would be asserted formally according to this analogous concept [of stone], just as ‘God is wise’ would be asserted formally according to the analogous concept [of wise].

41. An argument for this is also, fifth, made as follows: a more perfect creature can move [the intellect] to a more perfect concept of God. Therefore, since some vision of God, for example the lowest, does not differ from any given abstractive intellection of him as much as the highest creature differs from the lowest, it seems to follow that, if the lowest can move [the intellect] to some abstractive intellection, that the highest creature, or any creature below it, will be able to move [the intellect] to an intuitive intellection, which is impossible.

42. But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.6] that there are as many degrees in abstractive intellection of God as there are created species, though the intellects at the extremes are not as distant from each other as are the species at the extremes, which is very possible, because any degree in intellections is less distant from the degree next to it than the created species moving [the intellect] to that one is distant from the species moving it to another one - on the contrary: the difference of abstractive intellections is not merely numerical, because they are caused by causes of different species and through the proper ideas of those species, not insofar as they include something common as the way about univocity says. Therefore it follows that between the lowest abstractive intellection and the lowest intuitive intellection there are more intermediates than between the lowest species of being and the highest, or there are as many. But if the consequent is unacceptable, then, through the consequent, the antecedent too. Therefore, the species of abstractive intellection are fewer than those of beings. Therefore, by beginning from the lowest from this side and that, a species of being is left that is higher than the one that causes the highest abstractive knowledge. Therefore, that higher one will cause intuitive knowledge of God.

43. Again, why are so many species of intellections of the same object posited, if the object moves [the intellect] to a proper concept?

44. Again, as to the principal conclusion [the univocity of being, n.26], it seems to be that every multitude is reduced to unity [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2 ad 2]. Therefore the same holds of concepts.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] Note, about the second point [n.26], there are ten arguments: first about certain and doubtful concept [n.27], second about the impossibility as wayfarer of understanding God [n.35], third that we do not know all the things that necessarily inhere in God [n.36], fourth that some pure perfection is common [n.38], fifth about the order of intellection alongside the order of creatures moving [the intellect] to them [n.41], sixth can be next to it, that there would be infinite abstractive intellections if the species are infinite. These reasons are specific [to the question]. Common reasons are: coming to a stand at unity [n.44], number and otherness [Ord. I d.8 p.1 q.3 n.12], comparison [ibid.], and ‘truest etc.’ in Metaphysics 2.993b24-27.
     As to the first argument, in Ord. I d.8 nn.5-8, are the three responses of Henry; the two first are attacked there, and the second here [n.30; for the third see n.46]. - To the second argument, Henry infra in Ord. I d.8 nn.4-5 and the rejection of him there; and here below the argument is dealt with so as to be a common difficulty against both sides, but by way of giving an exposition of the opinion about the analogy of concepts for those very concepts [n.54]. - To the third it is said [by Henry] that some proper concept can be had of a subject, a confused non-definitive concept, by which nothing, even what is most immediately inherent in a subject, is evident about it (an example: one does not know through a confused concept of man that he is capable of laughter); and every concept of ours, though a proper concept, is yet not perfect as a concept definitive of a creature is. There is a confirmation because in Ord. II d.3 p.2 q.2 [nn.7, 11] the article concedes that an angel has in natural things a proper concept of God, and yet in the prologue [Ord. prol. nn.152] theology is set down as naturally known to God alone. - To the fourth, that is said to be a pure perfection [by Henry, Summa a.32 q.4, a.42 q.1 ad 1] which is of a nature to possess concepts that have an analogy of the imperfect to the perfect, so that the idea of ‘pure perfection’ is not attributed to something that is simply one even in concept. But the deduction of the saints and the masters seems to confirm that [cf. Ord. I. d.8 nn.8-9]. - To the confirmation there [n.40], that ‘God is a stone’, response is given in I d.8 n.9. - The fifth [nn.42-43] is solved here, where the argument is [n.41]. But to the point against the response [n.42], I reply: one must state it by holding to the specific difference of intellections. One must concede that there are as many species of abstractive conceptions of God as there are species of objects moving [the intellect]. The same is against you, Henry, because the words proper to creatures are as many in species as there are creatures (it could be argued there that, if the species of words for creatures are fewer than the things named, then some creature can cause an intellection more perfect than any word for a creature, and so cause the vision of God). In the way the response is made here [above, first paragraph of this note], it is made to the abstractive intellections of God through creatures, because on both sides there are as many intellections as there are objects moving [the intellect]. - The sixth argument [first paragraph of this note] is likewise against you, Henry, because it is necessary to concede an infinity of words, each of which is lower than the vision of God, if the hypothesis is retained about infinite, necessity, eternity, as they are precisely modes [n.55], because thus are they simply simple concepts.
     Therefore, you should care about the first reason and the fourth alone, both because they are not equally difficult for both sides, and because they do not go too far in proof beyond the proposed conclusion [n.26]. For they do not prove that no concept proper to God can be had, but that some concept cannot be. And the first negation [sc. no concept proper to God can be had] seems false.
     But really, will many quidditative concepts come through the different creatures moving the intellect, and are they of different species or the same, and will several concepts or one always be intended at the same time when several creatures are moving the intellect? - Again, you deny intelligible species [n.251].

45. But of what sort the univocity of being is, how many and what things it extends to, will be spoken of rather in the question about the first object of the intellect [nn.130-151].

46. [Objections against the aforesaid reasons] - Against these reasons is objection made. Against the first reason about the total disjunct [n.27], and the response is set down in d.8 p.1 q.3 n.68, and is more weakly refuted than others are [supra, second paragraph of added note to n.44].

47. As to the second (as it is briefly stated [n.35]), the major is denied, because, on account of their connection, the effect can produce some concept of the cause, though not as perfect as the cause can about itself. For it is conceded that the conclusion produces knowledge of the principle in a demonstration of the ‘that’ [sc. as opposed to a demonstration of the ‘why’]; but that is not the most perfect knowledge of a principle; rather that knowledge is by which the conclusion is known through terms perfectly known. For why (unlike in the case of concepts) will an effect simply apprehended cause some simple habitual knowledge of the cause?

48. To the proof of the major [n.35, third paragraph], I say that although an equivocal effect has no power over the existing equivocal cause, nor over anything of the same idea as the cause [sc. to produce a concept of them], yet it does have power over some knowledge of it, which knowledge is more imperfect not only than the very cause in itself, but also than the cause in the very equivocal effect of the cause, namely than a perfect concept of it. But let the major be taken in this way: “no object has power for a concept of anything unless it contain that concept virtually or essentially.” This seems manifest from the idea of cause and equivocal effect [infra n.429], and although action be attributed to the intellect, according to some (I care not), the object, in whatever way it is required, has no power for a concept more perfect than a concept adequate to itself; such is the proper quidditative concept;     therefore etc     . The proof of the minor [“such is the proper quidditative concept”] is that, in the case of equivocal effects of the same cause, that effect is most perfect which is most like the cause; such is the intellectual offspring, or the perfect word, of this object. The proof of the major [“the object.. .has no power for a concept more perfect.”] because then [sc. if the major were false] the perfection of intelligence would exceed the whole power of the memory.

49. It seems one must absolutely concede that, by the action of a created object, no concept of God could come to be in us that is more perfect than the perfect concept proper to that object, nor consequently [could there come to be in us] a concept to which this concept, proper to the moving object, may be attributed [sc. analogically]; indeed further, the concept of God is more imperfect than this word, because an equivocal effect is less like the cause. It is necessary, therefore, to depart from the opinion of Henry if he posit that the concept of a stone is attributed [sc. by analogy] to the concept that the stone causes of God. It is possible to preserve the attribution precisely of the object conceived to the object, but not the attribution of the concept to the concept. And this is possible enough, for it is about a more perfect concept that a more imperfect concept is obtained rather than about a more imperfect concept. And how is it reasonable that, in the same intellect, a proper concept of God is simply more imperfect than a concept of stone or white? And how will natural beatitude exist in the knowledge of God (from Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17)?

50. But there seems to be the same difficulty against the univocity of being [sc. as against analogy, n.49], because every concept of God will be less perfect than the perfect proper concept of white, since every such concept is contained in whiteness as a common concept is contained in a special one, and the common concept is simply less perfect, because it is a potential and partial one with respect to the special concept. How then, according to univocity, will beatitude exist in natural knowledge of God?

51. Response. Any concept simply simple [n.71], namely of univocity, is more imperfect positively than the word [sc. the intelligible word, or the concept] of white, that is, it does not posit as much perfection; however it is more perfect permissively, because it abstracts from limitation and so is conceivable under [the idea of] infinity; and then the concept, simple indeed but not simply simple, namely ‘infinite being’, will be more perfect than the [intelligible] word of white, and it will be proper to God, but not the prior one that is common and abstracted from whiteness. Hence the way of univocity holds that every concept proper to God is more perfect than the word of any created thing, but the other way not so.

52. But there is a twofold objection against this response: first by arguing that the difficulty remains against the way of univocity, because from two concepts, each of which is more imperfect than the word [concept] of white, there does not seem to come to be a concept more perfect than that word. But the concept of being, as is conceded [n.51], is more imperfect than the concept of white or of line. And the concept of the infinite likewise; the proof is that the infinite is conceived by us through something finite, the finite conceived through a line, or some such object, moving us to a concept of the property [of finitude]. Therefore, the concept of the infinite is more imperfect than the concept of line. There is a confirmation of the argument, that a concept that includes affirmation and negation is not more perfect because of the negation, or at least is not more perfect than by conceiving the affirmation of the negation; here [in the way of univocity] infinite being is not a concept of something positive besides being; therefore infinity does not make the concept perfect, or at any rate there will not be a more perfect concept of infinite being than of finite being.

53. A second objection in favor of Henry is made in a similar way: that although a simply simple concept is more imperfect than the word or concept of a creature, as the argument says, [n.51], yet many such concepts can be put together, and one will determine the other, and the whole concept will be more perfect. And there is no greater difficulty here [in the way of analogy] than there [the way of univocity] save on two points: first that here any concept [‘infinite’, ‘being’], whether determining or determinable, is posited as proper to God, and there one is common [‘being’ as univocal] and the other proper [‘infinite’ as proper to God]; second: that here some concept proper to God is conceded to be more imperfect than the word of a creature [n.52], there that none is [n.51, end]. Now the first of these points is not unacceptable, because the property does indeed determine the subject (as in ‘man’ and ‘capable of laughter’), and yet both terms [‘man’ ‘capable of laughter’ - and similarly ‘being’, ‘infinite’] are equally common [sc. in what they are predicated of]. The second point one should altogether concede, because of this second argument here [n.53] - when speaking of the concept, that is, of the act of conceiving, but not of the object conceived.

54. As concerns these objections [nn.52-53], it seems that a response sufficiently fitting is that each opinion [sc. the opinions of analogy and of univocity] posits a simply simple concept more perfect than the word of that which moves to a part [of that simply simple concept; n.51 end, n.53 beginning]. But the objection made in the arguing [sc. for Henry, nn.52-53] seems to be against both opinions, because however many things are put together, each of the concepts is impressed [on the intellect] by a creature moving [the intellect]. Therefore, each is more imperfect than the word of the creature. How will an aggregation of more imperfect concepts make a concept that is intensively more perfect? The confirmation too [n.52] objects well against the point about the infinite. Not for this reason, then, must the opinion [of the univocity of being] be rejected, because the difficulty is common to both, and equally so, if the analogy of concepts be expounded about concepts.

55. Perhaps the objections [nn.52-53] do well prove that an act [of the intellect] about God is not the most perfect intensively; and this is not required for natural beatitude to exist there, but [it is enough] that there be union with the most perfect object (Parts of Animals 1.5.644b31-33). And perhaps some creature is more intensely loved than God, and yet it does not, when loved, beatify as God does (about this in Ord. IV d.49 p.1 qq.1-2 [nn.1-4 19-32], ‘how we are beatified in the object’). This point about the infinite being [sc. ‘an act about God is not the most perfect intensively’] would be true if ‘infinite’ were precisely the mode under which the object were conceived, and not a part of the concept, or were the mode such that the concept in itself is conceived - the way the distinction was drawn [Ord. I d.2 n.183] in the question of the unity of God, about singularity as conceived and as the mode precisely under which something is conceived; the way too that a certain degree of intensity is precisely the mode under which this whiteness is seen. But we do not understand ‘infinite being’ thus, but as including two concepts, albeit one of them [‘infinite’] determine the other [‘being’]. And perhaps the privative concept of the infinite [sc. the infinite conceived as the privation or negation of finitude, from Henry of Ghent n.35] does not posit anything, although it does give a positive understanding, such that, if we do have a positive concept of the necessary, God, the simply necessary being, is more perfectly understood in it positively. But perhaps we conceive neither the necessary nor the eternal except as negation of imperfection: for example, of the potency to be differently disposed or of ability to be in flux, of beginning or end - the eternal states an infinite of a sort, for an infinity in duration is not at all more perfect than one in quantity of perfection, just as an infinite magnitude would be more perfect than an infinite time.

C. God Cannot be Known under his Proper Idea

56. I say third [n.24] that God is not known naturally in particular and properly by the wayfarer, that is, under the idea of this essence as this and in itself. But the reason set down for this in the preceding opinion [n.20] is not probative. For when the argument is made that a thing is only known through a likeness, it either understands by ‘likeness’ the likeness of univocity or that of imitation. If in the first way then nothing is known of God according to that opinion, because in nothing does God have a likeness of univocity in that way [n.20]. If in the second way, and creatures not only imitate the essence under the idea of general attribute but also imitate this essence as this essence, or as it is existent bare in itself, according to him [Henry], for thus is it rather an idea or exemplar than taken under the idea of a general attribute - then the creature could, because of this likeness, be a principle for knowing the divine essence in itself and in particular.

57. There is, then, another reason for this conclusion, namely that God as this essence in himself is not known naturally by us, because under the idea of such a knowable he is a voluntary object, not a natural one, save only in respect of his own intellect. And so by no created intellect can he be naturally known under the idea of this essence as it is this, nor does any essence naturally knowable by us sufficiently display this essence as it is this, not by likeness of univocity nor by likeness of imitation. For univocity only exists in general ideas; imitation too is deficient, because imperfect, for a creature imperfectly imitates God.

Now whether there be another reason for this impossibility, namely because of the idea of first object, as others posit [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.88 a.3] - about this in the question about the first object [nn.110-119, 185-187].

D. About the Concept of Infinite Being

58. Fourth [n.24] I say that we can reach many concepts proper to God that do not belong to creatures, of which sort are the concepts of all perfections simply in their sum totality. And the most perfect concept (in which we most perfectly, in a certain quasi description, know God) is by conceiving all perfections simply and in their sum. However, a concept possible for us that is more perfect, and at the same time more simple, is the concept of ‘infinite being’. For this is more simple than the concept ‘good being’, or any similar concept, because ‘infinite’ is not a quasi-attribute, or property, of being, or of what it is said of, but it states a mode intrinsic to that entity, such that when I say ‘infinite being’ I do not have a concept composed, as it were, per accidens of subject and property, but a concept that is of the subject per se in a certain degree of perfection, namely of infinity -just as an intense whiteness does not state a concept per accidents, as ‘visible whiteness’; rather intensity states a degree intrinsic in itself to whiteness. And so the simplicity of this concept ‘infinite being’ is plain.

59. The proof of the perfection of this concept is, first, that, among all the concepts conceivable to us, this concept includes virtually more things - for just as being includes virtually in itself the true and the good, so infinite being includes the infinite true and the infinite good and every perfection simply under the idea of the infinite; second, that by a demonstration-that, the existence of an infinite being is what is ultimately proved, as appears from the first question of the second distinction [Ord. I d.2 nn.74, 111-136, 147]. And those things are more perfect that are known from creatures last of all by a demonstration-that, for to prove them from creatures is difficult, on account of their distance from creatures.

60. If you say of supreme good or supreme being that this states a mode intrinsic to being, and includes virtually the other concepts - I say that if ‘supreme’ is understood comparatively [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.41 q.2], in this way it states a respect to something outside it; but ‘the infinite’ states a concept in respect of itself. But if you understand the supreme absolutely, that is, that the perfection of it could not, from the nature of the thing, be exceeded, this is conceived more expressly in the idea of infinite being, for ‘supreme good’ does not in itself indicate whether the thing is infinite or finite. - From this the rejection becomes clear of what was said [n.20] in the preceding opinion, that it is most perfect to know the attributes by reducing them, on account of the divine simplicity, to the divine existence - for knowledge of the divine existence under the idea of the infinite is more perfect than knowledge of it under the idea of simplicity, because simplicity is shared in common with creatures, and infinity (in the way it belongs to God) is not.

E. God is Known through the Species of Creatures

61. Fifth [n.24] I say that the things known about God are known through species of creatures, because either the more and the less universal are known through the same species of the less universal, or each has its own intelligible species proper to it; at any rate, what can impress a species of the less universal on the intellect can also cause in it a species of anything more universal; and thus can creatures, which impress their proper species on the intellect, also impress species of the transcendentals that belong in common to them and to God. And then the intellect can, by its own proper virtue, use many species together to form a joint concept of that of which these are the species, as for example by the species of ‘good’ and the species of ‘supreme’ and the species of ‘act’ to conceive a ‘supreme and most actual good’. This is plain through an argument a minori: for the imaginative power [sc. which is lesser than the intellectual power] can use the species of diverse sensible things to imagine something composed of those diverse things, as is plain when imagining a golden mountain.a

a.a [Interpolated note] I say that our intellect knows God to be a being infinite, supremely good and the like, in this way: For the concept of being is included in the concept of creature; therefore our intellect, in conceiving this being, as white or stone, can, by ascending and abstracting from it, know the conceptual content of being, and stop at it; likewise it can abstract supremeness from this supremeness and that, and can thus know what supreme is, and can conjoin the conceptual content of supremeness with that of being or of good and can thus know supreme being and supreme good, and so on as to infinite being - in the same way does the imaginative power imagine a golden mountain, where only the extreme terms exist in reality and not the conjunction itself of them. In this way, then, by abstracting common conceptual contents from creatures and conjoining them, we can know God in universal terms, and even the concept asserted of God that most belongs to him as he is known by us.

62. From this is evident a refutation of what is said in the preceding opinion [n.21, interpolated text] about [cognitive] ‘digging down’; for never through digging is what is not under the dig found by the dig. But never does there exist under the concept of a creature a concept or species representing something proper to God that is of an altogether different idea from what belongs to a creature - as was proved by the second argument in the second article [n.35]. Therefore, by digging down no such concept is found there. -And as to what is added about a similarity with the estimative power [n.21, interpolated text], I say that it seems one falsehood is being used to confirm another falsehood. For, if a sheep remain in the same nature and with the same natural affection for the lamb and yet it were changed, by a miracle, to be like a wolf in all sensible accidents, as color, shape, and sound and the rest, the lamb would flee a sheep thus altered as it would flee a wolf. And yet in the sheep thus altered there would be no conceptual idea of the harmful but of the agreeable. Therefore, the estimative power of the lamb would not dig down to discover under the sensible species the conceptual content of the agreeable, but would be precisely moved by its sense appetite in the way the sensible accidents would move it. If you say that the conceptual idea in it of the agreeable does not reduplicate itself, because there are no accidents present of the sort to be agreeable to such an idea, and the idea of the agreeable is not reduplicated without agreeable accidents - this is nothing, because if a lamb were to flee a wolf because of the perception of something harmful conceived by its estimative power, and if the perception is not reduplicated along with the sensible accidents (because it is not reduplicated with them in this supposed case), then either there is here a digging down of the lamb to an idea of the harmful that is null [because not reduplicated], or if the lamb does not flee here because of digging down to it, then not in the other case either.

IV. To the Arguments of the First Question

63. [To the initial arguments] To the arguments for this question [nn.1-4]. As to the first [n.1], I say that the comparison must be understood with respect to the first activation of the intellect by the object; for the phantasm there has, along with the agent intellect, the office of being the activating first object. But it must not be understood as to every act that follows on the first activation; for the intellect can abstract any object that is included in the activating first object, and can consider what is abstracted without considering that from which it abstracts. And, when considering what it has abstracted, it in this way considers what is common to the sensible and to the non-sensible, because what is non-sensible is, just like what is sensible, considered in the universal. And the intellect can consider this abstraction and that other abstraction in respect of what is proper to that other one, namely to the non-sensible. But the senses do not abstract, and therefore in any act, both first and second, they require some proper object to move them, and the phantasm is not related to the intellect in this way.

64. To the second [n.2] I say that the Commentator [n.2, interpolated text] expounds the Philosopher’s simile of the difficult and not of the impossible. And his reason is that then it would be otiose for nature to make those abstract substances intelligible and impossible to understand by any intellect. But this reason of his is not valid: first because the goal of those substances, insofar as they are intelligible, is not that they be understood by our intellect (and so, if this did not belong to them, they would not for this reason be intelligible in vain); second because the inference ‘they are not intelligible by our intellect, therefore not by any intellect’ does not hold, for they could be understood by themselves. And so there is a fallacy of the consequent here. Hence, although the authority of the Philosopher could be expounded in many ways, I say that the eye of an owl has only intuitive and natural knowledge, and that, as to these two conditions, the Philosopher’s authority can be expounded as being about impossibility, because just as it is impossible for the eye to consider that object [=the sun] intuitively, so it is impossible for our intellect to know God naturally as well as intuitively.

65. To the third [n.3] I say that the potential infinite is unknown, because each thing is knowable insofar as it is actual. However, the infinite is not so unknown that it is repugnant for it to be understood by an infinite intellect; but the infinite cannot be known by any intellect knowing it according to the manner of its own infinity. For the manner of its own infinity is by taking one thing after another, and an intellect that would in this way know one thing after another would always know the finite and never the infinite. However, an infinite intellect can know the whole simultaneously, not part after part. -Also, when argument is drawn from Metaphysics 2.2.994b22-23 about infinites and the infinite, I say that the case is not alike, because knowledge of objects numerically infinite would prove the infinity of the knowing power (as was plain in the first question of the second distinction, article 2, relating to infinity [Ord. I d.2 n.127]), namely because an increase in number on the part of the object would prove an increase in size of virtue in the intellect. But the understanding of some infinite does not prove infinity, because it is not necessary for the act to have the sort of real mode that the object has; for an act under the idea of the finite can relate to an object under the idea of the infinite, unless the act were comprehensive of it; and I concede that we do not have such an act about an infinite object, nor can we have it.

66. As to Gregory [n.4], I say that he must not be taken to mean that contemplation stops at some creature under God (because this would be to enjoy things that should be used, which would be extreme perversity, according to Augustine 83 Questions q.30). But the concept of that essence [of God] under the idea of being is more imperfect than the concept of that essence as it is this essence; and because it is more imperfect therefore is it inferior in intelligibility. But contemplation, by general law, stops at such a common concept, and therefore it stops at some concept that is of lesser intelligibility than God is in himself as he is this essence. And therefore it must be understood with reference to something that is under God, that is, to something under the idea of intelligibility whose intelligibility is inferior to the intelligibility of God in himself, as this singular essence.

67. [To the other arguments]. To the arguments for the first opinion [of Henry, n.20]. When it is argued that God cannot be understood in any concept common univocally to him and creatures, because he is a certain singularity, the consequence is not valid. For Socrates is singular insofar as he is Socrates, and yet many predicates can be abstracted from Socrates. And so the singularity of a thing does not make it impossible for some common concept to be abstracted from that which is singular. And although whatever is there in the thing is, in existing, singular of itself, such that nothing contracts anything else to singularity, yet that same thing can be conceived as a this in reality, or indistinctly in some way, and thus as singular or common.

68. What Henry says about knowledge per accidens in favor of that opinion [n.20] does not need to be refuted, because [God] is known quasi per accidens, but not precisely, in an attribute, as was proved [n.25].

V. Scotus’ own Response to the Second Question

69. To the second question [n.6] I say that there is, in the issue at hand, a triple ordering of intelligibles: one is the order of origin (or order in accord with generation); another is the order of perfection; third is the order of adequacy or precise causality.

70. Of the two first primacies there is discussion in Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, “Things prior in generation are posterior in substance.” Of the third primacy there is discussion in Posterior Analytics I.4.73b32-33, in the definition of ‘universal’, that first there does it state precision or adequacy.

A. About the Order of Origin of Intelligibles

71. Speaking first, then, of the order of origin, one must look first at actual cognition, second at habitual cognition.

[About actual cognition]. As to the first I premise two things, the first of which is that a concept simply simple is a concept that is not resoluble into more concepts, as the concept of being or of ultimate difference. Now I call a simple concept, but not a simply simple concept, whatever can be conceived by the intellect in an act of simple intelligence, though it could be resolved into further concepts that are separately conceivable.

72. I premise, second, that it is one thing to understand something confused and another to understand confusedly. For the confused is the same as the indistinct, and just as there are two possible distinguishings relative to the issue at hand (namely of the essential whole into its essential parts and of the universal whole into its subjective parts), so there are two non-distinguishings, namely of the two aforesaid wholes relative to their parts. A thing confused, then, is understood when something is understood that is not distinct in either of the aforesaid ways. But something is said to be understood confusedly when it is conceived as it is expressed by the name, distinctly when it is conceived as it is expressed by the definition.

73. Taking these points as understood to begin with, I set down first the order of origin, in actual knowledge, of things understood confusedly. And thereon I say that the first thing actually known confusedly is the most specific species, a singular instance of which moves the senses more effectively and more strongly first,a and this on the supposition that the instance is present to the senses in the proportion due. Hence if you posit some case in which the senses do not sense first the specific nature (as that it is not at once apparent whether a color is reddish or green), and consequently a case in which the intellect would not, by that sensation, immediately apprehend the specific nature, I always posit an undue proportion of the singular to the senses - either because of an imperfection in the sense power, which this visibility exceeds (the visibility of a nature of this sort as it is a nature), or because of a defect in the medium (of light or something of the sort), or because the thing is too far distant.

a.a [Interpolated text, from Lectura I d.3 n.70] whether it is audible or visible or tangible. For the species of whatever individual moves the senses more strongly is known first with confused knowledge.

74. Hereby is plain an answer to the following objection: ‘two eyes are at the same distance from something red, one of which immediately perceives the redness, the other confusedly; therefore the specific nature is not at once sensed when there is the right proportion - Response: the right proportion for one eye is not the right proportion for the other eye, because of a lack of proportion in the eye acted on.

75. On the contrary: if [the object] generates a species of red up to point a, and beyond point a generates a species of color or a color confusedly representing red, then, if the eyes are beyond a, neither eye will see the red distinctly. - Response: whatever holds of the medium (whether the proper species is in it everywhere or a confused species beyond a certain distance), at least in a less well disposed eye, other things being equal, the species will be more confused, at any rate beyond a determinate distance.a

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] in place of ‘whatever holds.. .determinate distance’: whatever singular could not be understood under its proper idea (about which elsewhere [Ord. II d.3 p.1 aa.5-6, n.17, p.2 q.1 n.15, q.2 n.9]), for the present I am speaking about those things that, according to the common opinion, it is certain can be understood [n.348].

76. I prove the proposed conclusion as follows [n.73]: a natural cause, when it is not impeded, acts for its effect according to the utmost of its power; therefore it acts first for the most perfect act that it can first produce. All the things that come together for this first act of the intellect are natural causes merely, because they precede all act of the will -and they are not impeded, as is plain. Therefore they produce first the most perfect concept they are capable of; but that concept is only the species of the most specific produced thing. But if some other concept, namely the concept of something more common, were the most perfect that they were capable of, then, since a concept of what is more common is more imperfect than the concept of the most specific species (as a part is more imperfect than the whole), it would follow that they would not be capable of a concept of the species, and so they would never cause that concept.

77. Second as follows, because (Avicenna, Metaphysics 1 ch.3) metaphysics is last in the order of teaching.     Therefore , the principles of all other sciences, and their terms, can be conceived before the principles of metaphysics. But this would not be the case if it were necessary for the more common concepts to be conceived first before the concepts of the most specific species; for then being and the like would have to be conceived first, and so it would follow rather that metaphysics was first in the order of teaching; therefore etc     .

78. Third, because if it were necessary to conceive the more universal concepts first before the concept of such and such species, then, since the senses are posited to be in act about the singular that moves the senses, and the intellect is free of this, a long time would have to be posited before the species of this sort of first sensed singular was conceived; for it would first be necessary to understand, in order, all the common predicates said of the ‘what’ of the species.a

a.a [Interpolated text, from Lectura I d.3 n.74] From this is evident the reason why the intellect understands one concept before another, although the species of several of them are present to it. For this does not come from the will (since then the intellect would not possess its [own] act of understanding), but the reason is of this sort, that the singular of one moves the senses more strongly than the singular of another. - This about confused knowledge.

79. As to the first of these three reasons [n.76], note that the order in the case of generations that proceed through the imperfect as intermediary is here the response -otherwise a definitive concept would be caused by the object first of all (for the object is capable of that), or there will never be a cause of it.

Why is a definitive concept not caused first? What perfection does any cause of that concept acquire through discursive reasoning, through division, etc.? - Response: a definitive concept is a concept explicative of several partial concepts, so each of these must be understood first - first in nature at least, and for us first in time, because a single concept is made known to us through its parts.

80. I speak, secondly [n.69], about the actual knowledge of things distinctly conceived - and I say that this is the converse of the general concept, because the first thing thus conceived is the most common, and those closer to it are prior and those further away are posterior.

I prove this as follows: because from the second premise [n.72] nothing is distinctly conceived except when everything is conceived that is present in its essential idea; being is included in all lower quidditative concepts; therefore no lower concept is distinctly conceived unless being is conceived. Now being can only be distinctly conceived because it has a simply simple concept. It can therefore be distinctly conceived without the others, and the others not distinctly conceived without it having been distinctly conceived. Therefore being is the first concept that is conceivable distinctly. From this follows that what is closer to being is prior, because knowing distinctly is obtained through the definition, and the definition is acquired by way of division, starting from being and proceeding to the concept of the defined thing. Now, in the case of division, the prior concepts occur first, as genus and difference, wherein a more common concept is distinctly conceived.

81. Second I prove that metaphysics (according to Avicenna as cited before [n.77]) is first in the order of knowing distinctly, because it has to certify the principles of the other sciences; therefore its knowables are the first distinctly knowable things. Nor does Avicenna contradict himself in the fact that he makes it last in the order of teaching and first in knowing distinctly. For (as was plain from the question about propositions known self-evidently through themselves [Ord.1 d.2 n.19]) the principles of the other sciences are known self-evidently on the basis of a confused concept of the terms; but when metaphysics is known, there is afterwards the possibility of investigating the quiddity of the terms distinctly. And in this way are the terms of the special sciences not conceived, and their principles not understood, prior to metaphysics. Thus, too, can many things be clear to metaphysico-geometry that were not known to geometry previously from its confused concept. An example: a geometer qua geometer uses for his self-evident principles only those that are evident at once from the sort of confused concept of the terms that comes from sensibles, as that ‘a line is a length’ etc., without caring what genus line belongs to, as whether it is substance or quantity. But now, after geometry and the other special sciences are known, metaphysics about the common concepts follows, and from these common concepts a return can be made, by way of division, to an investigating of the quiddities of the terms in the (already known) special sciences. And then, from the quiddities thus known, the principles of the special sciences are known more distinctly than before. Also known are many principles that were not known before from the confusedly known terms. And in this way is it plain how metaphysics is first and how it is not first.

82. But, when comparing the order of conceiving confusedly with the order of conceiving distinctly, I say that the whole order of conceiving confusedly is prior, and therefore what is first in that order [n.73] is simply first, and the proof of this is the aforesaid authority of Avicenna [n.77] about the order that metaphysics has to the other sciences.

83. Against this is the objection made that in Physics 1.1.184a21-22 it is said “confused things” (that is, the more universal things) “are known first”, which is plain because “children first call all men ‘father’, and later discern them individually.” Therefore, the child knows its father first under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

84. This same fact does Avicenna prove about something seen in the distance, because someone is known first under the idea of body before that of animal, and under the idea of animal before under the idea of man, and under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

85. This is seen too from the fact that, in the case of arguing, the way of composition is prior to the way of resolution. Therefore, so is it in the case of simple conceptions.

86. To the first [n.83] of these points [nn.83-85] I say that, as the confused is twofold, namely the ‘universal whole’ and the ‘essential whole’, so each is first in its own order. But that is simply first which is first in the order of knowing confusedly, because the natural process is from imperfect to perfect through a middle. Now knowing confusedly is a sort of middle between not knowing and knowing distinctly; and therefore knowing confusedly comes before knowing anything distinctly. - And as to what is said about the child [n.83], I concede that the species is understood first before the singular (I did say that the species is the first intelligible [nn.73-78]); but the argument does not hold of genus and species, for whiteness is conceived actually before color is in the order of confused knowledge, because color under the idea of color is not known save under the idea of a greater abstraction than the abstraction of whiteness from this whiteness; and this greater abstraction is more difficult, because from things less alike.

87. To the next point [n.84], from Avicenna, I say that when an object is not nearby in the required way it does not move [the senses] to knowing it under its most perfect idea but under an imperfect one. And then the intellection, which follows the sensing of such an object, needs to be of the sort of universal that, under the idea of the singular, the senses were of. But when the object is in the right proportion for being able to move the senses under its own proper and perfect idea, then the intellect, following such senses, has knowledge of such an object under its specific idea confusedly first before under the idea of its genus confusedly - not that the more imperfect real idea, from which the genus is taken, is the reason for moving [the senses] when the object is at a greater distance, and the more perfect idea, from which the difference is taken, is the reason for moving [the senses] when it is at a lesser distance (rather the reason for acting from a greater distance is a more effective active idea), but the specific form is the reason for its imperfectly assimilating [the senses to itself] at a great distance and for perfectly assimilating [them] at a proportionate distance. It does not follow then that the color generates no species of itself, but that it does not do so then, but only this whiteness does or this blackness - not the ‘this’ but the nature.

88. How will it be, then, with the intelligible species of the more universal and the less universal [n.61]?

It can be said that both are generated by the same phantasm.

89. Or in another way: the more universal, as it is virtually contained in a lower universal [n.365 infra], is generative of the intelligible species, because it is thus per se intelligible, not of the sensible species, because it is thus not sensible - for the senses are of the existent as it is existent.

90. Against this [n.89]: for you [sc. Scotus] the senses are not of the singular but of the nature in the singular [n.87]. Again, even if one posits a proper sensible species and a proper phantasm of whiteness and another proper to color, yet one cannot posit one proper to quality or to being, because these, in their indifference [to this or that particular], surpass the genus of sensible things, and cannot as such shine forth in a phantasm - and yet are the proper intelligible species of them caused [in the intellect]. Not caused therefore by diverse phantasms, nor by themselves as they are distinct, existing virtually there [sc. in the singular], because under these ideas they are not there in a way that represents them, nor in a way that does not represent them, as is plain [sc. because then they would not cause any idea of the more and less universal]. Therefore, the other way [sc. both are generated by the same phantasm, n.88].

91. To the third [n.85] I say that on both sides, in the case of simples [= concepts] as in that of complexes [= propositions], there is a process from what includes to what is included -. But in the case of sensibles what includes is lower, in the case of complexes what includes is the principle in respect of the conclusion.

92. [About habitual and virtual knowledge] As to habitual or virtual knowledge [n.71] I first explain what I understand by the terms.

I call knowledge ‘habitual’ when the object is present to the intellect in the idea of an intelligible in act in such a way that the intellect can immediately have an elicited act about it. I call knowledge ‘virtual’ when something is understood in a thing as a part of the thing understood first, but not as the thing understood first - as for example when ‘man’ is understood, ‘animal’ is understood in ‘man’ as part of the thing understood, but not as the thing understood first, the totality, which is the term of the act of intellection. This is properly enough called ‘the thing virtually understood’ because it is close enough to the thing actually understood; for it could not be more actually understood unless it were understood in an intellection proper to it, which would be an intellection of it as it is the first and total term.

93. As to this habitual and virtual knowledge I say that the things known first by way of generation are more common.

The proof is that just as diverse forms, which perfect the same perfectible in a certain order, are of a nature to perfect it more mediately or more immediately, so, if the same form contain virtually in itself the perfection of the ordered forms, it will perfect the perfectible in, as it were, a like order of nature - just as if the form of body, of substance, and of the rest were different forms, and if the form of substance were to inform the thing first and then the form of body     etc ., An implicit reference to the famous Tree of Porphyry, where the branches, after substance, are: material substance or body, then living body, animal, man, and finally these and those individual men. ¹¹ so, if one form virtually include all of them, it will, as it were, perfect matter first under the idea of substance before it does so under the idea of body, and always in this way of generation the more imperfect will be prior because process is made from potency to act. Therefore     , just as several concepts, more common and less common, habitual or virtual, are of a nature to perfect the intellect by way of generation, so the more imperfect concept is always prior - so if one concept virtually include all of these concepts, it will perfect under the idea of the more common and universal concept first before under the idea of a particular concept. - This as to the idea of origin or generation.

94. On the contrary: why is it not similar in the case of actual knowledge? - Reply: here [in the case of habitual knowledge, n.93] such concepts have, in their moving [of the intellect], a natural ordering, but in duration they are simultaneous; not so there [in the case of actual knowledge], but the concepts move successively and the more potent concept moves [the intellect] more strongly and prevents the others from then moving it there; not so here. When one is actually knowing an insect, like an entomologist actually studying an insect, one is knowing it under the idea of this kind of living sensitive body, for this is the more potent concept, the concept that is driving one’s actual knowing. So one is not actually knowing it under the idea of sensitive body (for then it would not be distinct from a bird) or of living body (for then it would not be distinct from a plant) or of material body (for then it would not be distinct from a stone), though of course one is not denying, whether actually or habitually, any of these realities. But when one knows an insect virtually, then included simultaneously in the concept of insect thus virtually known (though according to a certain order) are the concepts of sensitive, living, material, substance. ¹²

B. About the Order of Perfection (and of Adequacy) in Intelligibles

95. Now about the order of perfection [n.69]. And I make the distinction that a thing more perfectly intelligible for us can be understood in two ways, either simply or according to proportion. An example: the eye of an eagle is simply more perfect with respect to the sun than is my vision with respect to a candle, and yet my vision is more perfect proportionally, that is, it has more of the idea of vision in proportion to the visibility of the candle than the vision of an eagle may have in respect of the visibility of the sun.

96. This distinction is obtained from the Philosopher, Parts of Animals I.5.644b31-33, where he maintains that, although we have least knowledge of immaterial things (‘least’ is to be understood as to proportion), yet this knowledge is more desirable than the considerable knowledge that can be had of material things, which is considerable in relation to those knowables.

97. Speaking, therefore, of the order of the knowledge that is more perfect simply, I say that the most perfect thing knowable by us, even naturally, is God (hence the Philosopher places happiness herein, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17), and, after him, the most specific species that is more perfect in the universe, and then the species next to it, and so as far as the ultimate species; and after all the most specific species comes the proximate genus abstracted from the most perfect species, and so on by always making resolution [sc, to the next proximate genus]. And the reason for all these is that the attainment of a more actual and more perfect object is a simply more perfect intellection, because this intellection has an essential perfection on the part of the intellect equal to any other intellection, or not less, and a perfection much greater on the part of the object, both of which, namely the perfection of the power and the perfection of the object, are cause of the most perfect intellection.

98. If we speak of perfection or of a knowledge more perfect in proportion to the knowable thing, I say that sensibles from more perfect senses, and sensibles that move them more effectively, are, according to proportion, knowable more perfectly, in that our intellect reaches them more according to the degree of their knowability; and the sensibles that are more remote from them are less knowable, according to proportion to their knowability.

99. The third primacy, namely of adequacy [n.69], will be spoken of in the next question [nn.108-201], or elsewhere [in the Ordinatio].

VI. To the Arguments for the Second Question

100. [To the initial arguments] To the arguments of this question [nn.6-8]. As to the first [n.6], I say that the consequence ‘it is the first being, therefore it is the first known’ is not valid, although it does follow that it is the first knowable as far as concerns it in itself. And in this way must the truth be understood that the Philosopher speaks of in Metaphysics 2 [n.6], that [this truth] stands for the evidence of the thing in itself, or for its intelligibility on the part of itself. And it is not necessary that, as a thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to being known, save as to its being known by the intellect that has regard to all intelligibles according to the proper degree of their knowability. Our intellect is not of this sort but knows sensibles most of all.

101. To the second [n.7] I say that the consequence is not valid, save in the case of precise causes. The point is plain in an example: if an eclipse is knowable by a double cause through two powers, namely by the senses and by the intellect possessing the demonstration, it is never most perfectly known unless the principle of demonstration is known. But it does not follow that therefore it is never known save when the principle of demonstration is known, for an eclipse has another cause by which it can be known, because the first cause is not [by itself] the precise cause. However, it cannot be known by the other cause as perfectly as by this cause, because this cause, namely the demonstration whereby it is known by the intellect, is a more perfect cause of the knowledge of it than the other cause by which it can be known, namely by the senses. An eclipse of the moon is the interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon [cf. n.236], and an eclipse of the sun is the interposition of the moon between the sun and the earth blocking the sun’s light on the earth. These definitions are the principle of demonstration, as in: ‘there is an eclipse of the moon; an eclipse of the moon is the interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon; therefore, there is an interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon’. An eclipse seen without knowledge of the cause is knowledge of the eclipse but not perfect knowledge (primitive peoples, for instance, saw eclipses but are said to have thought the reason was some god or a dragon or the like). The intellect’s knowledge of the cause is thus necessary for the most perfect knowledge of an eclipse. Of course, until we perceive an eclipse with our eyes, we do not know that the cause is in place. So the two powers, intellect and senses, are necessary to know an actual eclipse (they together are the precise cause of knowing the eclipse). But the intellect provides a more perfect knowledge than the senses do, for the senses know only the fact, while the intellect knows the reason for the fact. ¹³

102. So it is in the issue at hand. Any creature has, besides the cause of the knowledge of it, which is the divine essence, another cause of that knowledge, namely its own essence, which is of a nature to generate knowledge of it. But never is a thing through its own motion [on the intellect] as perfectly known as it is through the divine essence. Therefore, when arguing from effect to cause, this does not follow: ‘if most perfectly then most perfectly, therefore if simply then simply’. For the ‘most perfectly’ that is taken can be the precise cause, which is the ‘most perfectly’ in genus; but the ‘simply’ that is taken is not the precise cause of the effect in genus.

103. To the third [n.8] I say that the major is true when speaking of the primacy of perfection but not of the primacy of adequacy. An example: vision of something is never under the idea of color so precisely that it is not under the idea of this color or that color, as of white or black, save in the case of what is seen from a remote distance, or imperfectly. Now vision of something under the idea of color is precisely not the most perfect vision but the most imperfect [sc. because while color is discerned, the precise particular color is not]. That therefore the most perfect operation of a power is about its first object is true - not of the object first in adequacy but first in perfection, namely because it is the most perfect of the things contained under the first adequate object. And therefore does the Philosopher say, Ethics 10.7.1178a5-6, that perfect delight is in an operation about the best of the objects that fall under the power, that is, about the best object contained under the object adequate to the power. This reason, therefore, proves that God is the first object, that is, the most perfect object (which I concede), but not the most adequate object - about which in the next question [nn.108-121].

104. [To the other arguments] As to what the opinion, then, [n.22] says in the first member in response to the first question (about the indeterminate negatively and privatively), if the understanding is about the primacy of origin, I contradicted it in the first member of the second question [nn.73-78].

105. And when it is argued that ‘the indeterminate negatively is more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively’ [nn.80-81] I deny it, when speaking of indeterminacy relative to the issue at hand (namely the issue of what sort it is in first understanding), because the ‘indeterminate negatively’ is the singular, and such is not more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively. Now negative indetermination, namely repugnance to being determined, although it is in some way greater than privative indetermination, is however not the sort of indeterminate that first occurs to the intellect, because it is the sort that is not a confused but a most distinct knowable, as was said before [n.80].

106. Also, what [Henry] argues in the second member [n.22], that God is the last thing known by rational knowledge, because the first known is that from which the abstraction is made - this is not true save by positing that abstraction is a sort of discursive reasoning from one known thing to another, such that that from which the abstraction is made is something known and the other [sc. what is abstracted from it] is something known through it. And if Henry does so understand abstraction, such knowledge by abstraction is not the first knowledge of the abstracted thing. For if God is thus known through a creature, it is necessary first to have some concept of God to which the discourse proceeds, because discursive reasoning presupposes some concept of the term to which it goes. Either then the proposition that Henry takes is false, or, if it is true, it proves that God is known first before he is known through reason, which perhaps he would concede [Henry, Summa a.21 q.2].

107. Now as to what he adds, that God as he the first thing naturally known is not distinct from other things, because he is not conceived in anything where he is discriminate from the creature [n.23] - in this he seems to contradict himself. For he first said that the first thing known naturally by the intellect is the negatively indeterminate [n.22], and he says that in this concept he is distinct from the creature, because this does not belong to the creature [n.21].