Single Question. Whether God the Father generated God the Son by Will

1. Concerning the sixth distinction I ask whether God the Father generated God the Son by will.

That he did:

Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity VI ch.17, after the other treatments of the production of the persons, says: “Do you wish to hear a brief word about what he have said? The fact that the ungenerated wishes to have from himself someone who is of the same form and dignity seems to me to be the same as that he generates a Son; and the fact that both generated and ungenerated wish to have someone of the same love seems to be the same as that they produce the Holy Spirit.” Thus, that the Father wants to have someone of the same form is to generate;     therefore just as he wants by will to have someone of the same form, so he generated by will.

2. From the same authority there is the following argument: in the same manner Richard concedes that ‘willing as it is of the Father’ is related to generating in the way that ‘willing as it is of the Father and Son’ is related to inspiriting; but now the Holy Spirit is inspirited formally by the will ‘as it is of the Father and Son’; therefore etc     .

3. Again, Augustine Against Maximinus II ch.7 (and the quote is placed in [Lombard’s] Sentences I d.20 ch.3 n.189) says: “If the Father did not generate the Son equal to himself, either he did not want to or he was not able to; if he did not want to, then he was envious.” - From this as follows: for envy only pertains to those things that are taken away by will and can be communicated by will, just as I am not envious if I do not make you wise because I cannot make science to be in your soul; therefore the Father generated an equal Son by will, because according to the aforesaid authority he would be envious if he did not generate an equal Son.

4. Again, Metaphysics 5.5.1015a26-30: “Everything involuntary is painful;” there is nothing painful in divine reality,     therefore there is nothing involuntary there; therefore the son is generated by will.

5. Again, the Word is love, as is plain, - and it is produced, because according to Hilary On the Trinity IV ch.10: “the Son has nothing save what is born;” the principle of produced love is the will; therefore etc     .

If it be said that it is love concomitantly, because first it is produced knowledge; -there is the same principle with respect to the first formal term as to anything concomitant with that term.

6. To the contrary:

Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.8: “Generation is a work of nature;” and the Master [Lombard] in the text [I d.6 ch. un. n.69], and it is a quote from Augustine

[Ps.-Augustine Dialogue on 65 Questions q.7]: “The will cannot precede knowledge.”

I. To the Question

7. In this question there seem to be two difficulties: one, in what way the Father generates the Son willingly, - the other how the fact may be saved that the Father does not generate the Son by the will as by productive principle.

A. How the Father generates the Son willingly

8. [The opinion of others] - As to the first article [n.7] the argument is given [from Godfrey of Fontaines] that the Father does not generate the Son ‘willingly’ but only by natural necessity (the way fire heats), although once the act of generating has been as it were posited the will of the Father is as it were much pleased.

9. The argument is as follows: the intellection of the Father precedes the will in some way; but the intellection of the Father as it is of the Father seems to be the generation of the Word as it is of the Son; therefore the generation of the Son as it is of the Son precedes any volition of the Father.

The first proposition [the major] is evident from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.27 n.50. - I prove the second [the minor], because there are not two acts of the same power, for powers are distinguished by acts, On the Soul 2.4.415a18-20; but to generate the Son or to speak the Word - which is the same thing in God - belongs to the intellective power, and so similarly does to understand;     therefore to speak is formally to understand something, and it only belongs to the Father as to the Father generating; therefore etc     .

10. [Against the opinion] - This reasoning rests on a false minor, namely on the identity of to understand and to speak, - and from it there follows a false conclusion, namely that the Father does not properly speak willingly. First then [nn.11-12] I show the falsity of the minor, second [n.13] that the ‘false consequent [conclusion]’ follows, third [n.14] I reply to the proof of the false minor, fourth [n.15] I show how the false consequent should be avoided and the opposite held, which is the principal point in this article [n.7].

11. On the first point [the falsity of the minor, n.10], I argue against the identity of these two, to understand and to speak, as follows:

First: to understand is a perfection simply; to speak is not;     therefore they are not formally the same. Proof of the first proposition [the major]: the Father, as to intellect, is formally blessed by intellection, - and, as to will, by volition; but he is only blessed by perfection simply; therefore , etc     . - Proof of the second proposition [the minor]: in that case [sc. if to speak were a perfection simply] the Son and the Holy Spirit would not be simply perfect, because they do not speak - taking to speak in this way - because they do not express word.

12. Second thus: because just as in creatures the idea of action and of making are formally distinguished (because action is ultimate term, - but of making the term is other, the thing produced by the making), so in divine reality the operation by which the Father formally operates seems to be distinguished from the production by which he formally produces; and this seems so because operation has an object as it were presupposed, but production has a term that is produced by it. Therefore to understand - which is the operation of the Father - is not formally to speak, which is the production of the Son by the Father.Text cancelled by Scotus: “This conclusion I concede.” ²⁷

13. To the second point [that the false consequent follows, n.10], which is also a confirmation of the first point, I argue thus:Text cancelled by Scotus: “because otherwise [sc. if to understand and to speak were formally the same], how it is that the Father generates the Son willingly would not be saved well, as was argued in the first argument [nn.11-12] - unless because he naturally generates so as later to will the generation already posited.” ²⁸ just as in the case of our intellect, when it naturally has its first intellection - which is not in our power -, the will is able to be much pleased in the intellection already posited, but properly speaking we do not elicit the act willingly but we will it to be, when it has been elicited, thus it would follow that, if to understand were formally to speak, the Father would not formally generate willingly, although the generating would later in some way much please the Father.

14. About the third point [the proof of the false minor, n.10], to the proposition ‘powers are distinguished by acts’, - I respond thus, that action in creatures is taken in one way for action in the genus of action, in another way for second act, which is an absolute quality, as was expounded before [I d.3 nn.601-604]. Of one power, then, there is only one act when speaking of the latter act only or of the former act only - but of one power there can very well be a double act, one of which acts is an action and the other is in the genus of quality; just as our intellect, which is of the sort that ‘to generate a word’ is action in the genus of action, yet it has another act in the genus of quality, namely the generated knowledge. So in the proposed case: the divine intellect has one act corresponding to our intellection, which is a quality, namely the act by which the intellect of the Father formally understands, - it also has an act corresponding to act in the genus of action, by which it expresses the Word. - A certain doctor [Henry of Ghent] says otherwise, that the intellect as it is intellect has the act which is to understand, - but that it also has the act which is to speak, according to the fact it has already been made to be in act by understanding; but this was rejected in distinction 2 [I d.2 nn.273-280, 290-296], where it was argued that the first act - which is to understand - is not the formal idea of generating the Word.

15. I say then about the fourth point [avoiding the false consequent, n.10] that the Father does in this way willingly generate, - because in the first moment of origin the Father understands formally, and then also he can have the act of willingNote by Scotus: “‘of willing’: - true, as to whatever is then known; the generating of the Son is not pre-known to its existence in itself. - Response: the essence is known, it can be willed not only in itself but as to be communicated; therefore, willing the essence to be communicated, he generates the Son, and thus he is willing, not to generate as it is to generate, but as it is a sort of to communicate.” ²⁹ formally; in the second moment of origin he generates the Son; and he does not will the generating by a volition that follows the generating, but by a volition possessed in the first moment of origin, by which the Father formally wills, presupposing already in some way the intellection by which the Father understands, but not presupposing already the generating of the Word.

B. How the Father does not Generate the Son by Will as by Productive Principle

16. As to the second article [n.7], it seems that the Father does not produce the Son by will as by productive principle, because a productive principle of one idea in divine reality cannot have two productions; for there is no production of one idea there save a single production, because it is an adequate production; since therefore the Holy

Spirit is produced by way of will as of productive principle, the Son will not be thus produced.

17. But in this article there is a difficulty, on account of the word of Augustine, because he seems to attribute generation to will in us as to productive principle, On the Trinity IX ch.7 n.13: “the word is conceived in us by love;” and by the same, ch.11 n.16, ch.3 n.6: “The will itself, in the way it was moving the sense to be formed by the object and, when it was formed, uniting it, so in this way it was converting the mental vision of the remembering soul to memory;” and in the same, ch.4 n.7: “The will, which brings hither and thither and brings back the mental vision that is to be formed and conjoins it when it is formed.” There are also many similar passages. - Therefore he intends that will have the idea of turning back mental vision before generation, and of retaining it in act.

18. Thus then it seems that in the Trinity - whose image is in the soul - the will has there some idea of principle with respect to production and generating, or has the idea of some superior applying a proximate principle to its act, just as it does in us.

The consequence is confirmed, because thus to conjoin belongs to the will from its perfection, insofar namely as it is first in the kingdom of the soul; therefore it belongs most of all to the most noble will.

19. The fact is also argued for in us, because if our generating were merely natural, it would in no way be in the power of the will, - and so we would always have the same word, about the same object, which is more strongly moving the intellect.

20. As to this article, although some [Henry] make a distinction that the ‘by will’ can be held adverbially, so that the sense is ‘he generated by will’, that is ‘he generated willingly’, - or it can be held ablatively, and then it indicates the cause and elicitive principle with respect to generating, and then the proposition is false, - but however it may be with this distinction, it does not seem that one should concede that the Father has produced the Son by will such that the will is the proximate or remote principle. That it is not the proximate principle has been proved [n.16], because a principle of one idea is only principle of one production; but that it is also not the remote principle is plain, because just as the will, as it is the operative principle in some way, operates posteriorly to the intellect, - so, as it is in some way the productive principle, it produces posteriorly to the intellect, and thus it will be a superior or prior cause in a production that belongs properly to the intellect.

21. However, because of the authorities of Augustine [n.17], one must understand that in us there is not only a single act of understanding (taking ‘act’ in the genus of quality), nor only a single act of generating (taking ‘act’ for action in the genus of action), because if there were only the single latter act and only the single former act, and the latter and the former act were the same, - our will would have no causality, either with respect to the act of understanding which is of the genus of quality, or with respect to the act of generating which is of the genus of action. In divine reality, therefore, since there is in the Father only a single act of understanding, with respect to that act the will of the Father will not have any idea of principle or cause, - since too there is only one act of speaking, the will with respect to it will not have the idea of principle, because the will -being principle in the way it is operator - in some way follows the intellect; therefore the act of speaking precedes every way of the will’s being a principle. But the will can have, as being well pleased - not as being principle -, an act with respect to the generating, from the fact that the will, as operating in the Father, does not presuppose the generating but only the intellection by which the Father formally understands.

22. But in us the authorities of Augustine are true, because the will moves mental vision to the act of knowing and holds it in knowing [n.17], - because once our first act has been posited, whether of the genus of quality or of the genus of action, we can have other later acts from the command of the will; but in the Father the will does not move the intelligence of the Father as needing to be formed by the memory of the Father, because there is in the Father only a single intellection formally, which precedes in some way the production of the Word, - nor does it move the memory with the object itself, so that the Word may be generated.

23. Against this [nn.21-22] there is an argument that Augustine understands it not only in us but also in God, because Augustine never seems to assign an act to the will as it is the third part of the image [of God], save that which is conjoining the parent with the offspring, and in this way it has some causality with respect to the generating of the offspring; therefore this part, as it is part of the image, will represent nothing in the prototype unless the divine will in some way has to conjoin in this way.

24. I reply. Although he frequently assigns that act to the will - as it is part of the image - yet sometimes he assigns another one to it, namely ‘love of the same object’ (which is the ‘object’ of the memory and intelligence), as is apparent in On the Trinity XV ch.20 n.39: “Hence it is possible,” he says, “for eternal and immutable nature to be recollected, considered, and desired” (which authority is set down at distinction 3 of the last question, I d.3 n.591); for there he expressly posits a trinity “in memory, intelligence, and will” as they have an act about the same object, namely uncreated truth. Likewise in XIV ch.8 n.11 he posits a trinity in the mind insofar as “it remembers itself, understands itself, and loves itself.” He also touches on both acts in XV ch.3 n.5: “The mind and the knowledge, by which it knows itself, - and the love by which it loves itself and its knowledge.”

25. And these two acts come well together in our will, because in loving the object the will also loves the knowledge of the same object, and from love of the object it moves the intelligence to understanding it, uniting it to memory (from which it is formed), and holding it in such uniting, and by this in actual understanding of one object.

26. Now of these two acts of the will, the more principal one in us is that which is ‘love of the object’, because it is sometimes cause of love, - but the other act, namely ‘love of the act’, is more universal, because even in respect of a bad object we love the act of knowing, although not the object, as Augustine says IX ch.10 n.15: “I define intemperance, and this is the word for it; I enjoy defining, although I do not enjoy incontinence.”

27. The will then in us, as it is part of the image, represents will in God, not as to the act of uniting, which belongs to our will, but as to the other act, namely insofar as our will is the principle of producing an act about the same object as belonged to our memory and intelligence; for will in divine reality is a principle of producing love adequate to the divine essence, which is the first object of the divine memory and intelligence and will, -and the love produced is the Holy Spirit, to whom corresponds in us the love produced, and this love is frequently called will by Augustine; but will properly in us - which is a power - does not correspond to the Holy Spirit but to the force of the inspiriting power in the Father and the Son, and this according to the act by which the will in us has to produce love of the object understood, though not primarily, to the extent it has to produce love of generated knowledge, and in no way, moreover, to the extent it is a superior cause of generated knowledge; if indeed the inspiriting force is the principle of producing the Holy Spirit in divine reality, who is love of the divine essence and also love of generated knowledge, - although perhaps according to a certain order, - yet the inspiriting force is in no way the productive principle of generated knowledge, because although the Father in the first moment of origin is willing and in the second moment generates, yet the will of the Father does not have the idea of principle with respect to the generating of the Word. - Thus then is it plain how the Father willingly generates and yet not by will as formal elicitive principle of generation.

28. However, as to Augustine’s intention ‘about the intention of uniting the parent with the offspring’ [n.23], a certain doctor [Henry] says that the uniting intention -speaking in respect of the act of sensing - is ‘inclination’, made in the power by the sensible species. Hence the five things that that doctor posits (namely sensible object, species, and made intention, and power of sensing, and act of sensing), he proves by one authority of Augustine On the Trinity XI ch.2 n.2, - and when Augustine enumerates ‘intention’, saying that “‘the intention of the spirit’ detains the sense of the eyes;” “behold the third,” says that doctor [Henry], “for what ‘detains’ the sense is not other than the excitation by the said inclination; but Augustine calls it” (according to him) “intention of the spirit causally, because by it the sense of the spirit becomes intent on perceiving the object.”

29. But this is not to the intention of Augustine there, because in the same place -distinguishing these things from each other - he says of intention that “it is the third of the soul alone;”     therefore , according to him, the intention which was ‘the third’ is not the excitation or inclination through the species; likewise, the ‘third’ is attributed to the will of which he says later that “the will carries the mental vision hither and thither” etc     ., -which is not true of inclination but only of will and the power of the soul.

II. To the Principal Arguments

30. To the principal arguments. - To the first, when Richard says “this seems to me”     etc . [n.1], - this does not ‘seem’ to Augustine, that the to will of the Father is formally to generate, because he says On the Trinity V ch.14 n.15 that the Holy Spirit proceeds “in some way given, not in some way born,” - that is, by way of will, freely, and not by way of nature; and therefore      one should expound Richard to mean ‘concomitantly’.

31. To the second [n.3] I say that ‘envy’ exists in taking away not only goods that can be communicated by an act of will, immediately, but also anything that ‘willing’ can communicate; but the Father willing generates, as was said [n.15], and therefore the argument of Augustine about ‘envy’ holds.

32. To the third [n.4] I say that nothing is involuntary there, and     therefore the generation of the Son is not involuntary (which I concede), - but it does not follow further ‘therefore it is by will as by elicitive principle’: for we make many things -whether with will preceding or with it being concomitant - of which the immediate principle is not will, but nature is in the case of some, necessity in the case of others, and others things of the sort in the case of others, etc     .