Footnotes

¹Reportatio IC d.4 p.1 q. un: “...but in a thing which is a ‘this’ no otherness falls as such; therefore      since one cannot there say ‘another entity’ or ‘another deity’, one could not there say ‘another God’, for ‘God’ in the manner of a concrete term responds adequately to deity. Hence when it is said ‘Socrates is other than Plato in humanity’, there is introduced a distinction between Socrates and Plato and an agreement of both in humanity, and the phrase introduces a distinction and a numbering of humanity in them. So since deity in divine reality is not numbered in the supposits, therefore this proposition is false ‘the Father is other than the Son in deity’.”

²See appendix point A. The Vatican editors opine that Scotus intended the lacunas in the Ordinatio to be supplied from materials in the two Reportationes. Hence they include the relevant sections of the Cambridge Reportatio in an appendix (the Parisian Reportatio is already in the process of being edited and published in separate volumes by the same Vatican editors).

³See appendix point B.

⁴An interpolated text is worth noting here: “namely, that formal predication is when the predicate agrees formally with the subject, - predication by identity when, because of the divine simplicity, the predicate is the same as the subject though not formally.”

⁵Peter of Spain Logical Summaries tr.12 n.32: “Hence the ancients say that the premises are double but the conclusion is not, because of a certain reason of this sort that they give: ‘whenever negation and distribution are included in the same phrase or single term, to whatever one of them is referred the other is too.’ Hence when a distribution, set down obliquely, does not reach the verb, neither does the negation, as in this case: ‘no thing seen is something seen’.” This sentence trades on a sophism, as if to see a no thing were like seeing a blue thing, so that to see nothing is really to see something. But ‘no’ is a negation and it is negating the word ‘seen’, not qualifying the word ‘thing’, so that ‘no thing seen’ means ‘not seeing’. In any event the sentence is false.

⁶See appendix point C.

⁷The following interpolated note [Reportatio IA d.5 nn.19, 21] may be helpful here: “Note, ultimate abstraction is when the formal idea of something is considered according to itself, apart from anything not included per se in it; if the idea of something is taken most precisely, nothing formally agrees with it save what is per se included in that idea.”

⁸The term for the quiddity of whiteness would be something like ‘whitness-eity’, which is as barbarous as Scotus’ albedineitas, but it serves its purpose.

⁹Note of Scotus: “This point ‘about multiple abstraction’ what is its validity? ‘This humanity’ is humanity, and ‘this whiteness-eity’ is whiteness-eity, - and universally, there can be no abstraction, however ultimate (provided, however, that the concept be common, as it always should be), without the abstracted thing being said of its singular ‘per se’; but this singular is not the supposit when the quiddity is abstracted from what has the quiddity; thus in the case of accidents the abstracted thing never has a supposit for singular.

Therefore in the case of accidents a multiple abstraction is posited, from a more remote and from a nearer subject [n.20], - as relation from its supposit (or subject) and from its foundation [n.21] - in the case of substance a single abstraction, from its supposit, but not from the singular

¹⁰An interpolated text is usefully noted here: “This name ‘God’ is not thus abstracted with ultimate abstraction, and therefore it can supposit for a person, as when it is said ‘God creates’, ‘God generates’ [d.4 n.11].”

¹¹Note by Scotus: “The assertion [Richard On the Trinity VI ch.22] ‘In himself the person of the Father is nothing other than ungenerated substance, and the Son nothing than generated substance’ could be expounded the way the Greeks take it [sc. understanding substance as hypostasis].”

¹²Note by Scotus: “Whether essence is communicating or communicated? - That it is not: then the things produced are [n.3]; it is proved in two ways, as above [n.3]. - On the contrary: On the Trinity XV ch.26 and John 10.29, “My Father who gave them to me.” - Solution: about the double term, first and formal [nn.27-29]; likewise about the double term, first and formal. - To the arguments...”

¹³Note by Scotus: “‘Predications per se’ are formal, Aristotle did not hand it down in ‘on identicals’ [ Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a21-73b26].”

¹⁴Note by Scotus: “On the Trinity V ch.5 n.6: in God there is a middle between ‘according to substance’ and ‘according to accident’ [to wit: ‘according to relative’].”

¹⁵Note by Scotus: “father generates; father is essence; therefore [essence generates; IA d.5 n.36]. -Response: the predication varies.”

¹⁶Note by Scotus: “The master in I d.27 ch.2 takes father only substantively.”

¹⁷Text cancelled by Scotus [quoting Henry]: “And if it is objected ‘essence is father, but it is not father except of the Son, therefore it is father of the Son or it is altogether not father’,” - response: “it is plain that there is a fallacy of figure of speech, because in the first proposition the term ‘father’ per se supposits for the whole person; but in the second proposition, when it is said that it is ‘father of the Son’, it combines only a property with the subject.”

¹⁸There are thus three ways of dealing with the proposition ‘essence is father of the Son’. First Alexander’s: true substantively, false adjectivally [n.35]; second Praepositini’s: simply true, because substantive only [n.35]; third Henry’s: simply false, because adjectival only [n.38]. Scotus also cancelled here a less full repetition of Henry’s remarks quoted in n.36.

¹⁹Henry of Ghent.

²⁰Scotus here proceeds to quote Henry of Ghent, Summa a.54 q.3 arg.7 of the third principle and response to arg.3.

²¹Text cancelled by Scotus: “The antecedent is also proved because otherwise this generation would not be univocal, because the formal idea of its term would not be the idea of the agreement of the generator with the generated; the consequent is discordant, as will be touched on in distinction 7 [I d.7 n.43].”

²²Text cancelled by Scotus: “Let the reason that is put fifth below be the second, and let the third be third, and let what is here second be the fourth, and let what is fourth be fifth.” Hence the paragraphs would have had to be renumbered thus: 64(71), 80(82), 76(79), 83(85), 72(75).

²³Text cancelled by Scotus: “The conclusion [nn.116-118] of the first difficulty [n.107] here [sc. in the Ordinatio] is argued against in the Oxford Collations question 1 and question 14, where is contained the first part of it [the conclusion], afterwards this part [here nn.117-118], - and there [question 14] the idea of act and potency is treated of; however the major can be denied, - it suffices that there be respect and foundation, - and it is precisely false about respect, because it is of itself related to the foundation. When there [in the Collations] the minor is denied, - on the contrary: ‘the person is per se one formally’ etc.”

²⁴From Henry’s [false] opinion that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father as from quasi-matter [n.52] is inferred the [false] conclusion that essence is subjectively generated.

²⁵Note of Scotus: “But it is objected: in the way in which generation precedes the Son - according to way of understanding - in what is it? Not in essence as essence is in the Father, because as it is in him it is not had by generation, - nor as it is in the Son, because it precedes him; and it is in something because it is not per se subsistent (because then it would be a person; not the first person, - therefore the second person would precede the Son) [sc. so it must be in ‘essence after the Father’ and so essence will be the subject of generation].

Response: in what is generation-passion? - it is the same question, nay a more difficult one because here can be given what is ‘in essence’ in a double way, both as in a foundation and as property of a person in the nature - in which the person is - and both without potentiality of essence; nor is the second way [sc. as property of a person in the nature] more difficult than about relation, because passive generation is the same property as filiation - only conceived in a different way.”

²⁶In other words [to quote the note of the editors of the Vatican edition], although we can say that a dog is a son [of some dog] and is of a man [as of its master], common speech does not allow us to go on to say ‘the dog is a son of a man’ because here ‘of a man’ indicates paternity and not, as it did originally, mastership.

²⁷Text cancelled by Scotus: “This conclusion I concede.”

²⁸Text 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.”

²⁹Note 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.”

³⁰The point seems to be that though ‘by paternity/deity’ are the same in verbal form (having in Latin a similar ablative termination) as to each statement, ‘he is Father by paternity/deity’ and ‘he generates by paternity/deity’, yet they are different in concept, because in the first statement they indicate the formal principle and in the second the acting principle.

³¹Note by Scotus: “Note here that the indeterminate thing is determined by itself, - otherwise there would be a process to infinity, because it would be determined to those effects because it was determined to others, and to those others because it was determined by yet others. - On the contrary: what is determined of itself to one opposite is incompossible with the other; again [what is determined of itself to one opposite] is     therefore determined to it in anything at all. - Response: this holds of contradictories; to the second, - in anything at all it has been determined, etc     . [sc. determined first to the first effect, second to the second etc.]”

³²What text of Boethius is here referred to is unclear. The name ‘Boethius’ may possibly be an error and perhaps a reference to an ‘argument’ is meant, as to that in n.22 [Vatican editors].

³³An interpolated text is here worth quoting: “community of form can be understood in a double way: one is the universal, which is by identity to many particulars under it, each of which is ‘it’ (in the way a universal is communicated to singulars), the other is by relation to many things each of which is ‘by it’ (in the way a form is communicated to matter) but is not ‘it’, - as was said above [I d.2 nn.379-380].” See also below, n.71, where it is pointed out that the second mode does not exist in creatures without the first mode.

³⁴Note by Scotus: “Note this for the order of production inwardly and outwardly.”

³⁵[From the Vatican editors:] The text of n.90 is a response to an argument that is lacking in this question of the Ordinatio, but it is found in the Lectura I d.7 n.21: “Further, against the one who has this opinion [cf. Ordinatio I d.7 nn.9-10], there is the following argument from his own words: for he himself posits that nature and will and everything essential in divine reality are only distinguished by reason, through an operation of intellect. If therefore - according to him - the principle of the generation of the Son is essential and, for the same reason, the principle of the inspiriting of the Holy Spirit is essential, then the principle of each production in divine reality will be essential, and consequently - according to him - the principles of each production are distinguished by reason. But that two real productions ‘of different reason’ are from the same principle simply - differing only in reason -, when the thing from the principle is adequate to the principle, is altogether impossible; therefore it is impossible that the essence be the formal production of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. It will not then be the case that the essence alone is the principle of producing.” The remark ‘from his own words’ points to Aquinas Sentences I d.13 q.1 a.2 and d.2 q.1 aa.2-3.

³⁶Text cancelled by Scotus: “and about this in book 2 [II d.18 q. un n.10 - although this reference corresponds not to the words here in n.91 but to the text of the Lectura I d.7 n.95], where there will be a discussion about seminal reasons, ‘how there can be univocal generation in animals’.”

³⁷For the arguments pro and con Scotus refers, by a symbol, to the Parisian Reportatio, IA d.2 nn.183-184.

³⁸Presumably because, if the sun can have another illumination, the one it has cannot be adequate after all.

³⁹Scotus gives no solution to this question here in the Ordinatio. One must presumably look in the Reportatio instead.

⁴⁰These words are in fact not Augustine’s but a prefatory comment by Lombard [Sentences I d.8 ch.4 n.85].

⁴¹I.e., if it is necessary existence through a and through b, then, if b is taken away, it will still be necessary existence through a; therefore it will not really be necessary existence through b, and so it will not be a necessary existence composed of a and b.

⁴²Sc. suppose the infinite combined with something, then by itself, or uncombined, it does not have it; therefore, when combined with it, it is more perfect.

⁴³No such ‘elsewhere’ is to be found in the Ordinatio.

⁴⁴Aquinas Contra Gentes II chs.53-54, I ch.22; ST la q.50 a.2 ad 3.

⁴⁵The essential parts of something are what define it; the subjective parts are the kinds it divides into. So ‘animal’, which is by definition ‘animate sensing body’, is taken wholly by the species ‘man’ (for man is a rational animate sensing body), but the subjective parts of animal are all the kinds of animals (horses, dogs, giraffes), and of course none of these is taken into the definition of man.

⁴⁶I.e. no perfection is of itself limited, but in creatures every perfection is limited, being a partaking of the perfection that is of itself unlimited [n.37]. Thus a limited perfection is a part of unlimited perfection, but in creatures this limited perfection is the whole creaturely perfection itself.

⁴⁷Note by Scotus: “For the commonness of being, besides the two argument of distinction 3 and their confirmations [I d.3 nn.27, 30, 35], there are these: comparison in being [n.83] (a); number of any beings whatever, and that the determinable of that which is ‘other’ is common to both the others [n.84] (b); Aristotle Metaphysics 2.1.993b23-29 [n.79] (c); Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.4 n.6 [n.71] (d); the confirmation that God is not called a stone [n.74] (e); Anselm On Free Choice ch.1 [n.72] (f); Dionysius On the Divine Names ch.7 sect.3, ch.2 sect.7 [n.73] (g); the masters [n.72] (k); against the one holding this opinion [sc. Henry of Ghent, nn.44, 53-54] (h).”

⁴⁸That is, since we could never naturally get this concept proper to God, we do not now have it, and so we do not now have a concept of God that is proper to God and not univocal with creatures; therefore any concept of God we do now have cannot be proper but must be univocal with creatures.

⁴⁹Probably Richard of Conington, according to the Vatican Editors, who give references to Robert of Walsingham, John Baconthorp, Giles of Nottingham, and Giles of Alnwick.

⁵⁰The relation corresponding to the relation of the thought-on being to the first being will, of course, be the relation of the first being to the thought-on being. Hence (or so goes the theory) to think this correlative relation is to think the first being as in some way the foundation of the relation, and so to have a non-univocal concept of this first being.

⁵¹A reference to an argument from I d.3 n.27: “Every intellect which is certain about one concept, and doubtful about diverse ones, has a concept about what it is certain of that is different from the concepts about what it is doubtful of; the subject includes the predicate. But the intellect of the wayfarer can be certain about God that he is a being, while doubting about finite or infinite being, created or uncreated being; therefore the concept of the being of God is different from this concept and from that; and so neither term [finite or infinite, created or uncreated] is, in itself and in each of those concepts, included in it [sc. included in the concept of the being of God]; therefore [the concept of the being of God] is univocal [sc. of the same meaning whether it is a concept of something finite or something infinite, of something created or something uncreated].”

⁵²Presumably from Richard of Conington et al.; see footnote to n.52 above.

⁵³The point seems to be that one cannot be certain about a given concept and doubtful about whether it does or does not include some other concepts unless one first conceives those other concepts (for otherwise what is one doubting about?).

⁵⁴Therefore, presumably, while one can know that something is, one does not know what it is, or does not have a concept of it (as opposed to a name for referring to it), until one asks what it is, and asking what it is will force one to come to a concept which, if not entirely adequate to the object, will be sufficiently adequate to itself that it is known to be the concept that it is and not, say, two concepts seeming to be one [cf. n.69].

⁵⁵An article that Scotus apparently intended to put together from the Cambridge and Parisian Reportationes: “otherness connotes some agreement of the extremes in their determinable, and also notes some non-identity corresponding to the same” [Rep. IA d.4 q.1 n.9], which non-identity would here be lacking [n.54].

⁵⁶Who these people are is unknown, but their arguments given here [nn.90-93] are reported by Thomas of Sutton.

⁵⁷Damascene ibid.: “Incorporeal substance embraces God, angel, soul, demon,” cf. also: “The most general genus is substance, for it has no genus above it.”

⁵⁸The two genera are substance and relation, n.130.

⁵⁹Cf. Scotus’ Lectura I d.8 n.92.

⁶⁰The Vatican editors refer this argument to David of Dinant and Albert the Great.

⁶¹This paragraph is marked as ‘p’ by Scotus. See footnote below to n.112.

⁶²The Vatican editors refer to nn.7-19, but the reference might be as well or better to nn.36-38.

⁶³See Appendix to this question point D.

⁶⁴Note by Scotus: “‘An intrinsic mode is not a difference, in any degree of form at all’; therefore there is no difference involved in this case. - On the contrary, ‘about infinite line’ [below n.117].”

⁶⁵Note by Scotus: “‘but those things...', - response: not those only, just as neither does color descend to whiteness only through the primacy and perfection of whiteness to the other colors, but also through the specific difference. - To the contrary. Nothing else contracts anything indifferent to God save the infinite, - because if something other than the infinite contracts it, what is the order of that other thing to infinity? Either the intrinsic mode will be posterior ‘to the quasi-extrinsic contracting mode’ just as the difference is, or the infinite understood as ‘infinite’ will be further contractible and potential.”

⁶⁶This paragraph is marked as ‘q’ by Scotus. See footnote below to n.112

⁶⁷This paragraph is marked as ‘s’ by Scotus. See footnote below to n.112.

⁶⁸Note of Scotus: “The negative [side of the question] - ‘nothing said of God is in a genus’: for this there are three reasons, two of which, p [n.101] and q [n.108], are from infinity (the instance r against them, through infinite line [n.117], and there two things: the intention of Aristotle and what is true in the thing); the third reason s [n.110] is about necessary existence - the fourth t from others [nn.118-119] (it will be refuted).

The affirmative [side of the question] - ‘anything said of God is transcendent’: where the first argument is v, about transcendents “But then there is a doubt” [n.113]; next x ‘to the contrary’, the one about the four predicates [n.120], - and y the other ‘to the contrary’, about the reality corresponding to the common concept [n.137] (a difficulty is at o [see footnote to n.136]), - the solution to them [sc. x and y, nn.212-127, 138-150].”

⁶⁹This paragraph is marked as ‘v’ by Scotus. See footnote above to n.112.

⁷⁰Aquinas On Power q.7 a.3.

⁷¹This paragraph is marked as ‘t’ by Scotus. See footnote above to n.112.

⁷²This paragraph is marked as ‘r’ by Scotus. See footnote above to n.112. See also appendix point E.

⁷³This paragraph is marked as ‘x’ by Scotus. See footnote above to n.112.

⁷⁴Those whom Scotus is criticizing are arguing that if a genus or definition is predicated in the ‘what’, then something predicated of God in the ‘what’ must be a genus or definition, and they are arguing thus on Aristotle’s authority. But, first, this argument is the fallacy of the consequent (for even if genus and definition are predicated only in the ‘what’ it does not follow that anything predicated in the ‘what’ is only a genus or definition, for perhaps something else might be so predicated), and, second, they are arguing destructively from Aristotle and saying that if Aristotle spoke of nothing else as predicated in the ‘what’ then he denied that anything else could be predicated in the ‘what’. Scotus is arguing constructively, that since Aristotle denied definition of simples he would admit that anything predicated of a simple in the ‘what’, as in the case of God, could not be a definition or a genus.

⁷⁵Because (Vatican editors) he posited that God was substance (first, eternal, and immutable), and that being is said of substance in the first mode of saying per se, etc.

⁷⁶But (Vatican editors) one should in some things respond with an instance, that is, by using that objection, Topics 4.6.128b6-9: “Non-being follows everything that comes to be (for what comes to be is not), but it does not convert (for not everything which is not comes to be); but non-being is not the genus of what comes to be; for, simply, there are no species of non-being.”

⁷⁷Note by Scotus: “Note how some intention is first about a and b indifferently, and nothing of one idea corresponds to it in reality, but the formal objects first diverse are understood, in one first intention, although both imperfectly.” This note is marked as ‘o’ by Scotus, see above footnote to n.112.

⁷⁸This paragraph is marked as ‘y’ by Scotus, see above footnote to n.112.

⁷⁹This and the previous two paragraphs [nn.138-140] are marked by Scotus with a reference back to n.111.

⁸⁰The Vatican editors remark that nn.154-156 have the nature of notes (not of finished discussion).

⁸¹Scotus seems to be following, somewhat freely, Henry’s report of this opinion (with which opinion Henry himself did not agree), and the Vatican editors suggest that Henry’s report is not fully accurate to, e.g., Sutton’s own view. They quote the following from Sutton [Quodlibet II q.2]: “Therefore the divine intellect, insofar as it is the same, never distinguishes several reasons in its essence. But, once all respect to creatures is removed, the divine intellect is, in knowing its essence, only disposed in one and the same way alone; therefore it does not distinguish several reasons of attributes without respect to creatures, but it has one reason of the essence, by which it perfectly knows the essence... The divine intellect knows distinct attributes through respect to the human intellect distinguishing the attributes.” Again: “For because our intellect - on account of its imperfection - cannot know in one conception the perfection of the divine essence, therefore it has need to understand it in diverse conceptions, which are diverse reasons that it receives from creatures and attributes to God.” Again: “For because the created intellect cannot know the one divine perfection, in the way it is, according to its own single reason, therefore it has need, because of its imperfection, to know it under many distinct reasons.” They also quote the following from Bernard of Auvergne criticizing Henry [Quodlibet V q.1]: “But as to his [Henry’s] imposing on this position that ‘only one concept can be formed of the divine essence’, it is false, because the position says that ‘one complete concept is formed of the divine essence and that concept God forms, who conceives himself completely; but the created intellect can form many concepts of the divine essence, because it cannot capture the whole perfection all at once’; hence that position is true.”

⁸²Scotus’ arguments here [nn.167-173] are, according to the Vatican editors, freely based on statements by Henry of Ghent (indicated by the quotation marks).

⁸³Scotus again quotes, somewhat freely, from Henry.

⁸⁴Note by Scotus: “This response is rejected in distinction 13, by argument against the third opinion [I d.13 q. un n.5].”

⁸⁵Note by Scotus: “[Henry of] Harkeley [argues] otherwise - first proposition: a thing one in reality can be many in the intellect (Commentator Metaphysics XII com.39 [n.166], ‘the intellect is of a nature to divide what is united in reality’); the reason is that one cause can have many equivocal effects, because none is adequate to the virtue of the cause; conception or intellection is an equivocal effect with respect to the object. Second proposition: yet two intellections have two formal objects (namely in cognized being), although they have the same material object in reality, - or they have the same object under this idea and that, and then there is a difference of reason only, and not of formal objects.

From these propositions the argument is as follows: on the supposition from distinction 3 [I d.3 n.35] that the creature can cause in our intellect some absolute concept ‘proper to God’ - either it will be a single concept differing only in reason (for whether it is a composition of the intellect according to logical reasons, or a composition outwardly, there are no differences in conception about an absolute concept save only relations of reason), or there will be many concepts having several formal objects, which may by diminution be the same object in cognized being, because they are reasons of it as it exceeds [the intellect].

In the first way it is easy to save the distinction of attributes in any intellect, even the divine one, because any intellect can understand the same absolute object under one or another relation of reason; as to relations outwardly the thing is plain, - and no less plain as to relations inwardly, to the persons; since indeed the essence is understood by God ‘to differ in reason from the person’. But then in knowing all the attributes of God there is no real science, because the same formal object about him is not known, but the first proposition [above] holds; but as it is under an idea, if it has the idea of ‘knowable of itself’, it only exists on account of the reason under which it is understood, which in some way distinguishes it from itself as absolutely understood, or it is under another idea. - In the second way, several absolute concepts can be posited.

But it seems difficult to distinguish these [sc. several absolute concepts] in a blessed intellect, because there is only one concept as existent, intuited by that intellect; again, one ‘object in itself’ has, in the intellect to which it is present in itself, one concept, adequate to itself according to the virtue of that intellect, otherwise it cannot show itself to it as it is intelligible. - On the contrary, it can cause every concept that can be had about it, and if something else - to wit its effect - can cause imperfectly, yet it itself can cause perfectly; again, otherwise something would now be known of God which would not be seen in the fatherland; again, theology will be a science for no intellect, not for ours, because of faith, not for a blessed intellect, because of the singleness of concept.

Theology is knowledge of God (of the things that are present in him, known naturally to the divine intellect alone), therefore it is knowledge of the things that are in this science ‘as it is this’ (of which sort are the properties of the persons and the notional acts, the attributes), under the ideas by which they are these. If however a distinction of reason is held to or of formal objects and, third, some aptitudinal respects to creatures (such as the creative, the resuscitative, the remissive of sins, the retributive), - first against [the last]: nothing is in that case present ‘per se’, as it seems, because it is then common to all three [persons]; second against [the second]: how does the metaphysician know them [sc. if the ideas of formal objects are not there from the nature of the thing]? - third against [the first]: ‘respects of reason’ are in potency. Against the first proof for all of them [sc. the preceding paragraph]: an angel naturally knows it [sc. the divine essence] as ‘this’, although it does not see this ‘as this’, - therefore it could have theology; again, any concept about it [sc. the divine essence] is proper to it, because not common, - wherefore it is about it ‘as it is this’.”

⁸⁶Note by Scotus: “[Henry] of Harkeley proceeds in his discussion this way: the intellect according to its own proper and formal reason, namely according to its distinction from the will, is a perfection simply, - and the same about any attribute; the second proposition, the intellect according to its proper formal reason is in God from the nature of the thing as it is existent; third proposition, the intellect does not include per se any relation.

The proof of the first proposition, as the minor, is the following: first, because according to Anselm ‘anything that is better it than not it’ is to posited there (and he and the doctors treat of many cases [nn.195-197]). There would be only one single perfection simply (namely deity) unless the intellect were formally such, because if it were such only materially - insofar as it includes deity - it is a single perfection understood simply or compared in many ways. - The second proof (and it is a confirmation of the first proof) is that the idea gives the understanding of the perfection which is the essence, although the formal reason of it is not simply perfection - so neither the formal reason of an attribute, according to you; nor is it valid about this and the other genus of cause, because the idea in a foundation which is perfection simply indicates eminence with respect to the thing patterned after the idea. - Third, because otherwise no perfection simply would be possible for an attribute; because it would not be second perfection (perfection in well being [n.167]); because nothing is a perfection simply save the first perfection in God. - Fourth, by that which is said here [n.185, end]; and prove it by the two reasons that are made for this purpose in distinction 13, against the seventh opinion in the second response [I d.13 q. un n.15]. - Fifth, because a perfection simply is in accord with a reason common to God and creatures; it is contained here, at the beginning of the solution [nn.192-193].

The proof of the second proposition: in three ways, as the major here is proved [n.185]. -Again, fourth: as here [Scotus marks here the reference back to the passage in the previous footnote, see*], by intuitive cognition of anything as intuited object in the first object. - Again, fifth: ‘he is blessed by nature’, as in distinction 13 [ibid.]. - Again, sixth, because it is the principle of a real production; and it requires the rejection of the seventh and sixth opinion in distinction 13 [ibid. nn.11, 7], hence let it be supposed for the present, unless it was proved in distinction 2 in the question ‘about the number of the intrinsic productions’ [not found in d.2 now, but presumably something Scotus intended to add]. - Again, seventh, that if the intellect is not there from the nature of the thing, it will never be there by an act of the uncreated intellect without a process to infinity; this reason is touched on here [n.189, at sign Z], and in distinction 13 [ibid. n.13]. - Again, eighth: science of these things would not be real, because the relation of some other reason to God (or conversely) would not be known of him, otherwise these things would not denominate; a confirmation: if they denominate through eminence, then God is in this way a stone. - Ninth Augustine On the Trinity XV as in distinction 13 [ibid. n.14].

Proof of the third proposition: from the first proposition, because no relation is a perfection simply (it is plain about divine relation), therefore it is not included in perfection simply. The proof of this consequence is, first, because perfection simply includes nothing to which the reason of perfection simply is repugnant (because then ‘it’ would in anything be better, and something ‘included in it’ would not in anything be better), and second because perfection simply is per se one, but relation does not make a per se one with the absolute [n.186]. - Again it is proved, third, from the second proposition, for from the second it follows that no relation of reason can be included in perfection simply, because then it would not be in the thing ‘from the nature of the thing’; but no real relation is posited as common to the three persons.

From these propositions it follows that an attribute, as it is distinct from another attribute, is in God as he is existent and for himself; and for this inferred conclusion some reasons are added to the three others that are made plain here [nn.177-178, 182, 183].”

⁸⁷The passage ‘From this I argue...' to the end of the paragraph is marked as Z by Scotus. See the third paragraph of the long note to n.185 above.

⁸⁸Note by Scotus: “Every other opinion on this question, besides the one here, seems to evacuate as it were all the difficulties of the first book about the productions and the persons, as is touched on in distinction 13 [I d.13 q. un n.8].”

⁸⁹The Vatican editors note : “It was by opposition to ‘body’ and ‘rational’ (because they are not in man in one way or one consideration) that Anselm said on God’s behalf ‘in one way and one consideration’, and not that it really is so.”

⁹⁰Note by Scotus: “On the contrary: entity is unity or truth; if they are properties of being, they are also the same as themselves.”

⁹¹Note by Scotus: “Here Henry’s opinion, Quodlibet VIII question 9, is badly held.” The Vatican editors are puzzled as to what Scotus means here, since Henry’s opinion, they say, does not seem to be in any way a distortion.

⁹²That is, Aristotle does not merely, on probable grounds, assert a first thing from which a contradiction then follows [n.233], but directly contradicts that first thing, by later, on true grounds [n.244], asserting the opposite of it.

⁹³Text cancelled by Scotus: “That it is also imputed to Aristotle that no substance is from another seems manifestly false in the case of generable things. For generation is into substance; therefore by very generation a thing which before was not receives being, and generation is the efficient cause of what is produced; but nothing produces itself into existence.”

⁹⁴Note cancelled by Scotus: “Again, there is the following argument: he [Aristotle] set down the first mover to be of infinite power; infinite power cannot immediately move the globe, because it moves neither in time nor in the ‘now’; therefore he posited that it precisely moves mediately. But this can be understood in three ways, but none of these three ways [see footnote to n.290] is possible unless it produces into being the proximate mover, because the other two modes are there [ibid.] rejected; therefore he intends to posit such a production.”

Another note cancelled by Scotus: “This also proves [sc. the previous paragraph in this footnote] that Aristotle posited that all the intelligences are immediately produced by the first intelligence (against Avicenna Metaphysics IX ch.4 (104vb-105ra)), because a cause of infinite power causes every infinite motion, and this mediately (but no other cause besides the first is of infinite power, because any cause is conjoined to some sphere; therefore it is finite); therefore any motion whatever is from the first cause by an intermediate mover and from its proper mover immediately moving it; therefore the first cause produced that proximate mover. Thus too the intellect is produced from outside (On the Generation of Animals 2.3.736b27-29), because, although he did not posit that the first thing acted without second causes, together with a matter disposed to the effect of the first thing, the first thing, according to him, necessarily informs the matter, so that this informing is the only change (not two changes, as in positing creation and informing). Thus too in On Good Fortune [Eudemian Ethics 7.15.1248a22-b7] he says that a separate cause moves immediately a man so disposed to what is of advantage to him, etc.”

⁹⁵Note by Scotus: “And do they both say the first way [sc. immediately]? - Avicenna in Metaphysics [footnote to n.252]. But whether Aristotle thought so about one produced intelligence only [sc. whether Aristotle like Avicenna thought God was compared immediately to one intelligence only or to all] is doubtful; however he posited nothing else immediately from the first thing save intelligence, which, if it did not produce it, would altogether not move it, because not according to any of the three ways contained here [footnote to n.290].”

⁹⁶Note by Scotus: “ Henry Quodlibet V question 4 makes two arguments, which are here:...”

⁹⁷Note by Scotus: “Anything else other than God has an essential order to him (although not conversely), hence it seems that the major should be taken in this way: ‘a power that necessarily has a respect to some first object is related necessarily to no other thing unless the object is the idea of necessarily tending to that other thing’; then the minor goes in this way: ‘the divine goodness is not the idea for the will of necessarily tending with efficacious volition to any other object, because neither is anything else necessary for attaining that goodness nor either does it increase it or along with it give more quiet to the will’;     therefore etc     .

But the ‘because’ [the one following the note in the text] is a proof about the volition of being well pleased, as about volition that is efficacious, - the confirmation about the practical syllogism, on which you rely [n.273], proves a similar conclusion; therefore either deny the necessity of each volition of the creature, or seek another special middle term.”

⁹⁸Note by Scotus: “Therefore can [the divine will] be necessarily well pleased in something displayed to it without wanting it to exist, as the intellect necessarily understands it without however understanding it to exist? I concede that it is similar on both sides, - and then when the minor is proved, namely that ‘it is not required for attaining the end nor for increasing it’ [n.269], the conclusion would hold equally against the willing of being well pleased as against efficacious willing; therefore the instance against him [sc. Henry] seems to be good, because it concedes that the divine will necessarily wills a thing in its quidditative being [n.270], since its proof ‘from accidental order’ is equally there [n.269] conclusive.

Let then the reasoning be formed as before [see footnote to n.269], and the minor [ibid.] is proved by the remark about the practical syllogism; which proof is conclusive about efficacious willing (as is plain), but not about the willing of being well pleased; the proof is that it concludes that the will, perfectly loving the first goodness, is well pleased in anything shown to it that participates that goodness, just as in the intellect the first object is the reason for necessarily tending to the second, because it manifests that it is in some way a participation of it.”

⁹⁹The argument as contained in the text does not seem to make sense, or to make a sense opposite to that required (although how the text is to be construed is dubious). The point, however, seems clear: if we posit that the less false is true, we are not thereby compelled to posit that the more false is true (for if the more false has lost the reason for falsity it shares with the less false, it has not lost the reason for falsity it has by itself). So likewise, if we posit the less impossible we are not thereby compelled to posit the more impossible.

¹⁰⁰Note of Scotus: “On the contrary: therefore there is no necessary propositional truth other than the truths of the first principles, which seems discordant; again it is against you, who above adduce, against them on Aristotle’s behalf, the statement that ‘the conclusion has a caused necessary truth’ [nn.239, 252].”

¹⁰¹Note by Scotus: “This reason and the two following [nn.283, 286] are not valid against the philosophers, but they are valid for us later in the matter of ‘future contingents’ [d.39, which however is lacking in the Ordinatio and so the equivalent discussions in the Reportatio and Lectura must be looked at instead]; for if the first cause is omnipotent, then it does not will necessarily any possible; the consequence is proved by these three reasons.”

¹⁰²Note by Scotus: “Response: the antecedent is true precisely of what depends on our will in order to come about; for there is nothing else they can say happens contingently. - About our acts there is the same difficulty for them as for you, namely whether our will moves moved by the First thing -except that you can save contingency in its motion from the First, but they cannot, as is here argued” [nn.285, 287].

¹⁰³Vatican editors: “if evil happens contingently and is blameworthy, it is possible for it not to be done when it is done, because if it is necessary then it will not be blameworthy” [Lectura I d.8 n.258].

¹⁰⁴Note by Scotus: “This reason and the following one ‘about what moves in no time’ [n.290] are solved later [footnote to n.290], where the intention of Aristotle is proved that [God] can only be the proximate cause of intelligence and that he is called the ‘remote’ cause of motion and of other things, insofar as he gives being to the first mover [sc. the first mover after God]; each reason then [nn.286, 290] proceeds badly against the Philosopher, as if God could immediately move anything besides the intelligence, one or all, that he causes” [footnote to n. 255].

¹⁰⁵Note by Scotus: “I concede this, but of the way of eminence. The power of the second cause is also required as proximate, because the first cause itself is of a nature to be, as it were eminently, in a remote cause. - When the statement ‘now there is not required along with the efficient cause, etc.’ [sc. the next statement in the text] is taken, I say that some formal perfection that is more imperfect is required eminently, such that the same perfection when eminently possessed cannot be the proximate idea of producing. Nor yet is the imperfection in the proximate cause per se the idea of acting, but such perfection (which yet is an imperfection) is the idea of thus acting, namely for the proximate thing, - which proximate thing is to act imperfectly; the other perfection, the more eminent one, is the idea of acting remotely, - which is to act more perfectly.”

¹⁰⁶Note by Scotus: “It is not true of ‘to cause immediately’, but this is a mark of some sort of perfection along with imperfection; but to cause first, and as a result mediately, is a mark of perfection.”

¹⁰⁷Note by Scotus: “In a second way: it can be said to the discordance ‘that the First thing will move the heavens in an instant’ that this does not follow, because the body is not susceptive of motion in the ‘now’; therefore no power at all is able to do this. The point is clear precisely about motion in a circle, because, if it go round in a ‘now’, any part of the moved thing is in the same place as it was before, otherwise, if some part do not return wholly to the same place and reach it afterwards - when the circular motion is complete -, then the circular motion was in time. So it follows that, if it go round in the ‘now’, in that ‘now’ any part is in the same place it was before, from which it follows that it is altogether not moved, because it remains altogether in the same ‘where’ and place, both as to the whole and as to the parts. Therefore to go round in a ‘now’ is not to go round, and altogether not to change.

This second reason well proves that, by not positing a conjoined mover, the First thing (even if it has infinite power) cannot move the sphere round in a ‘now’, - but not in time either, because of Aristotle’s proof, that then a finite virtue or power would move it ‘in an equal time’ [Physics 8.10.266a24-b6]; from which points it follows that an infinite power cannot immediately move the sphere round, and yet we see the sphere moving round. So this seems to be Averroes’ necessity [Metaphysics XII com.41] for positing a conjoined mover (that is an immediate and finite mover), without which the First thing would move nothing in spherical motion, for it can only act mediately, on account of its perfection and the effect’s imperfection, between which a mediating proximate cause is required.

Against this. I ask what is it for the First thing to move mediately? Either because it has produced a proximate moving cause, to which it has, by giving being, given a finite moving power, -Or if the second thing exists of itself, the First thing gives it virtue or some influence by which it causes motion, - Or, third, the First and the second thing cause the same effect in a certain order without the second cause receiving anything from the first cause. If the third, it follows that a finite power without another second cause will move in a time equal to the infinite power moving along with a second cause; if the second, it follows that the ‘influx’ is different from the nature of the second cause; therefore if it be denied, against the third answer, that the First thing has motion ‘for proximate effect’, and, against the second, that in no intelligence is the ‘influx’ an accident, the first answer must be said to be of the mind of Aristotle, and is what Avicenna expounds [Metaphysics XI ch.4 (104vb-105ra)] ‘on the order of the intelligences’. [Cf. Lectura I d.8 n.236: “Therefore Avicenna’s exposition of the Philosopher is most beautiful and better than all the rest, as to how many things can be produced without change in the First thing, by positing that only one thing is produced by the First, and so on.”] And then the infinity of the motion is reduced to the First thing, because the infinity of duration of the second cause is from the first cause always moving it, just as the Son is always generated, - but the First is of itself of infinite duration; but the succession is reduced to the finite virtue of the proximate mover, such that for no other reason is the first mover there save for giving being to the mover. Thus are well saved the first efficient and the final end (because the final end is loved by the mover for its own sake), but the first mover is saved only as a remote mover, that is by giving being to the mover.”

¹⁰⁸Note by Scotus: “Again, the second cause does not take away the first’s proper mode of causing. -Response: its proper mode of causing is to cause through the medium of the second cause, and not immediately; again, the primacy of adequacy includes the whole order of the many things to which the cause extends itself (it is here just as you say it is elsewhere [I d.28 q.3 n.11] about the primacy of the three persons to the essence, and about the other immediacy of the first person to the essence), and then the first cause, when it is posited, is in proximate potency to the second, and then it acts as much as it can act.”

¹⁰⁹I.e. in the proposition ‘whatever is principle of being is principle of duration’, which seems to be a particular case of the general proposition ‘whatever is principle of the one is principle of the other’, there is in fact an equivocation in the term ‘principle’ or in the phrase ‘principle of’, so that the particular proposition is not in fact a case of the universal proposition, but is instead a fallacy.

¹¹⁰Note by Scotus: “Every perfect productive principle, when some supposit possesses it perfectly, can be a principle of producing (or thus: for every perfect productive principle some supposit, perfectly possessing it, can produce) a term that is adequate in comparison with the presented object; a perfect will, having a perfect or first object actually presented to it, is a perfect productive principle of as much love as such an object should, by such a will, be loved by;     therefore etc     . But such a will exists in a divine person, therefore some divine person can produce a love adequate to that will. - This is sufficient here; hence here there is nothing about ‘prior’, but in distinction 11 - because ‘the Son inspirits’ - the point about ‘prior’ is required [sc. there is no need to add here ‘prior to the term being produced’, as there is later in I d.11 q.1 n.2]. This minor of the first syllogism does not assert, nor does it deny, anything about a second object [sc. a secondary or finite object], but it asserts what is certain, namely about the first object. Thus are here solved all the doubts [nn.10-12], for from the minor is inferred that an infinite will, having an infinite object present to it, is a productive principle of infinite love, because with that much love should an infinite object be loved (this is certain, whatever may hold of a secondary object, because it loves it with all its effort, if it is a correct will), or in another way, because it can love with that much love, - this is what the minor says; therefore the will loves. This follows from what is maintained later [n.48] ‘about the necessity of the act with respect to the object’, because, in the case of a necessary thing, what can be is. And thus is the first doubt [n.10] solved, about how it is a principle of communicating nature. - The second doubt [n.11] is solved by adding to the minor ‘an infinite perfect will, with respect to a present object that must necessarily be loved by it, is a necessary principle of producing as much love as such an object should by it be loved by’; therefore the will, with respect to a present infinite object is a principle necessarily productive of infinite love. Once it has been proved that that object must necessarily be loved by the will, and with that much love, this one minor proposition contains everything, both ‘necessary’ and ‘infinite’, - both in the ‘communication of nature’ and in the ‘inspiriting of a divine person’.”

¹¹¹See Appendix Point F.

¹¹²Collat.20: “Whether everything intrinsic to God is altogether the same as the divine essence, after all consideration of the intellect has been removed.”

¹¹³Note by Scotus: “On the contrary: love for the creature is infinite in the divine will and yet contingent (and this is contained here immediately after ‘I prove the first     etc .’ [n.41]). Response (as there ‘It does not seem’ [see footnote to n.49] and here [see footnote to n.41]): the love is necessary, but it does not necessarily pass to the secondary object, on which it does not depend, but it does necessarily pass to the first object, on which it quasi-depends; it is also really infinite, from the will and from the first object. - On the contrary: at least as it passes to the second object it is contingent; therefore    it will not in this way be infinite. Response: it is not necessarily of this object, nor is it infinitely of this object, - in the way the mode of the relation is noted on both sides as the mode of the act founding the opposed relation. - On the contrary: ‘as it passes to...it is contingent’ is denied, because contingency is present in the act under no mode or relation, although the relation is contingent. If this is understood in the antecedent, let it be said in the consequent.”

¹¹⁴An extended note is added here by Scotus. See appendix.

¹¹⁵Note by Scotus: “It does not seem that the will’s being right is to be assumed together with its being infinite, as if this other is on an equal footing, because an infinite will is not then a sufficient ‘by which’ for communicating nature - even a will having the object present - but an infinite right will; again, if this rectitude is conformity to right reason, therefore reason is the principle of the production of the Holy Spirit, at any rate as the rule, the way a rule is rule of an act of will. - So in this way: an infinite will (adding altogether nothing about the presence of the object) is necessarily in act of willing, so that to no act of willing is it in potency to contradictories, because then it would be combinable; and it has for adequate object an infinite willable thing; therefore it wills it by a necessary act, - and this holds of further production just as it does of necessary operation. The second proposition [it has for adequate object an infinite willable thing] is proved from the idea of a power that can have an object adequate to its capacity; therefore it has an infinite object, and not as contained under the first object, because then it would depend on something finite in its operating and so would be cheapened. It is proved secondly from the idea of act, because an infinite volition does not depend on a finite volition; therefore a finite thing is not its first object. Any volition that there is possible is infinite, because...” The note is left incomplete.

¹¹⁶Note by Scotus: “The opinion of Godfrey [of Fontaines] (as it is contained here in distinction 13 [I d.13 q. un n.5]) says that [the Holy Spirit is produced] by way of will ‘because he is produced on the supposition of another production’, but he is altogether uniform in reality with the Son, because [Godfrey] posits no distinction between intellect and will save by comparison to what is outward [d.8 nn.163-166], and so what is there in these two ‘words’ that solves [the difficulty] of the first book [sc. how the processions of Son and Holy Spirit differ]? Surely Thomas [Aquinas, Sentences I d.2 q1 a.3], surely Henry [solve the difficulty of] the whole book with a distinction by means of the divine intellect inwardly? What more is needed for productions?”

¹¹⁷See appendix point G.

¹¹⁸Note by Scotus: “‘before in duration’ is plain in the first minor, ‘before in nature’ is doubtful, and it is directed to the intended proposition; ‘before in origin’ causes no difficulty for the intended proposition, because the minor of the third syllogism [see in a later paragraph in the text] is only about ‘before in nature’, as is plain, - but by taking the first minor about prior in origin, there seems to be a begging of the question and the minor is the same as the conclusion. - The remark about ‘before’ is not cogent here [sc. in d.10], as is plain here [footnote to n.9], but it is valid in distinction 11 [I d.11 q.1 n.2] ‘About the Son’.”

¹¹⁹Note by Scotus: “[not] at the same time, therefore the Word does not speak itself, - nor posteriorly, therefore the Holy Spirit does not generate.”

¹²⁰‘Second’ because questions one and two above were really parts of one question, or because this question begins the second part of distinction 3 (see footnote 10, to q.5 n.1 below).

¹²¹Things are said to be ‘diverse’ if they are in another genus but ‘different’ if they are other in the same genus. So white and red are different but white and square are diverse.

¹²²This response to Henry will serve also as a response to the remaining two arguments at the beginning, nn.3, 4 (which are not expressly addressed); for they both turn on the same idea, namely that since God is first therefore he is first known.

¹²³The text prints ‘absente’ but, to make sense, it should be ‘abs ente’.

¹²⁴Note that because Andreas accepts the arguments at the beginning he has no need to give an answer to them; so no section responding to such arguments is found in this question.

¹²⁵The printed text has ‘sincerum’ or ‘sound’ which makes no sense in the context. It may be a misprint for ‘inferius’ or ‘sub pedem’ or the like, which is what is translated here.

¹²⁶‘Third’ because it looks to be the third part of the distinction, although the fifth question overall. The first two or three questions are the first part (about the knowability of God), the fourth question (or the third and fourth question together) is the second part (about creaturely knowledge in general in its dependence on God), the fifth question is the third part (about the trace or footprint of the Trinity - although the printed text calls it the second part), the sixth to ninth questions are the fourth part (about the image of the Trinity - although the printed text calls it the third part).

¹²⁷‘Fourth’ because the fourth part of distinction 3, but the particular question is number 6 overall (see footnote 10 to q.5 n.1 above).

¹²⁸The printed text has no nouns qualified by the adjectives ‘natural’ and ‘simple’, so what look to be the appropriate nouns are added in the translation (rightly or wrongly) from the context.

¹²⁹‘Fifth’ perhaps because, although this question belongs to the general discussion of image (the fourth part of d.3), it here takes a diversion through the details of how the created mind knows, and then the question of image proper is returned to in question nine below.

¹³⁰First act is the existence in the soul of the powers of intellect and will; second act is the exercising of these powers in acts of understanding and willing.

¹³¹The printed text says ‘independence’, but it may be a misprint for ‘dependence’.