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The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus
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Ordinatio. Book 1. Distinctions 4 to 10.
Book One. Distinctions 4 - 10
Fifth Distinction. First Part. On the Generation of the Divine Essence
Single Question. Whether the divine essence generates is or generated

Single Question. Whether the divine essence generates is or generated

1. About the fifth distinction I ask first whether the divine essence generates or is generated.

That it does:

From Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.2 n.3: “Let us accept that when the Word is spoken of, it is just as if ‘Wisdom born’ were spoken of, so that in one of these, namely ‘born’, both Word and Son are taken, and so that in all these words there is not shown the divine essence, which is said in reference to itself, - but so that in the other term, namely ‘Wisdom’, the essence is shown, and in this respect it is said in reference to itself.” Therefore he expressly intends that Wisdom, as it is Wisdom and said in reference to itself, is called born as ‘born’ is proper to the Son.

2. Again, Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity VI ch.22 seems expressly to speak against the Master of the Sentences [I d.5 ch.1]. “Many,” he says, “have arisen in our times who do not dare to speak of generated substance, but always rather (which is more dangerous and against the authorities of the saints) dare to deny and in every way to disprove that substance generates substance. They stubbornly deny what all the saints affirm. For that which they themselves affirm they can find no authority, - for that which we say, even they themselves adduce many authorities, in the manner of Goliath [1 Kings [Samuel] 17.45-51]” etc. And because the Master expounds the authorities which he adduces against himself [those of Augustine and Hilary, I d.5 ch.1 nn.57-64], Richard subjoins about him: “They say [sc. the Master and his followers], ‘The Fathers do well say that substance generates substance; our exposition contends that we believe substance does not generate substance’: - a faithful ‘exposition’, and worthy of all praise, because that which the Fathers proclaim they contend to be false, and what none of the saints asserts they contend to be true.” Thus Richard. - He seems to mock the Master in expounding as it were against the intention of the Fathers the authorities which he adduces against himself, and asserts - as it seems - the opposite of what the Master holds to be true and to be of the intention of the Fathers.

3. Again, by reason: essence is communicated, therefore it is produced. The antecedent is plain from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.26 n.47: “generation without beginning bestows essence on the Son.” The proof of the consequence is both that to communicate and to be communicated are relational opposites, and only state a relation of origin (for they do not assert common relations, as is plain; therefore they assert opposite relations of origin; therefore they are the same as to produce and to be produced), and also that if there are two correlations, and if one extreme of one of them is the same as one extreme of the other, then the remaining extreme is the same as the remaining extreme. Example: if a and b were correlative and c and d correlative, then if a and c are the same, then b and d are the same, - the proof is that otherwise the same thing would be said with reference to several correlatives, as a, which is the same as c, would be said correlatively to b and d, which for you are diverse; and here is one combination of relatives of this sort, ‘producing’ and ‘produced’, and another ‘communicating’ and ‘communicated’; but ‘producing’ and ‘communicating’ are the same,     therefore the extremes corresponding to them are also the same.

4. Again, by logical arguments:

When a predicate is predicated per se of a subject, it can supposit for it, - the thing is plain in superiors and inferiors; essence is predicated per se of the Father, ‘the Father is essence’; therefore etc     . - Proof of the minor, because it is not per accidens, because one is not an accident of the other, nor both of a third; and these are the two modes of unity per accidens that are posited in Metaphysics 5.6.1015b16-36, the chapter on ‘one’.

5. Again, essence is father of the Son, therefore the essence generates. Proof of the antecedent, by conversion: father of the Son is essence; therefore essence is father of the Son. Proof of the consequence: essence is father of the Son, therefore the Son is son of essence; proof of this consequence, because in relatives the consequence is mutual: a is father of b, therefore b is son of a; therefore if essence is father of someone, this someone is son of essence.

6. Again, the generated insofar as it is generated is something, because it is not nothing, and between nothing and something there is no middle; but nothing in divine reality is something unless it is essence,     therefore the Son insofar as he is generated is essence; therefore essence is generated.

7. To the contrary is the Master in the text.

I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Abbot Joachim against Peter Lombard

8. On this question Abbott Joachim was in error, whose argument is reported in the Decretals of Gregory IX bk.1 tit.1 ch.2, ‘On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’, “We condemn” etc     . For he said that Master Peter [Lombard] was a heretic, because he said there was a thing in divine reality that neither produces nor is produced [I d.5 ch.1 n.54]. For Joachim made his inference from this, insinuating that Peter posited a quaternity in divine reality; for he posited three things in divine reality, a generating thing and a thing generated and a thing inspirited, - and he posited a thing neither generating nor generated nor inspirited [ibid. n.58]; therefore he posited four things.

9. Joachim, avoiding this discordant result that seemed to follow, posited that no one thing is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but he only said that the persons were one thing in the way that many faithful are said to be ‘one Church’, because of one faith and one charity; and this he proved by the saying of the Savior (John 10.30) when praying for his faithful: “that they might be one,” he says, “as we are one.” Joachim therefore inferred: since the faithful are not one by unity of nature, therefore neither is the Son one thing with the Father.

B. Against the Opinion of Abbott Joachim

10. This second thing in the opinion of Joachim is heretical, namely that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are not some one thing, because as is argued in the afore cited chapter [of the Decretals, n.8], ‘The Father by generating gave his essence to the Son’ (for he could give nothing else by which the Son would be God), and for a like reason both gave their essence to the Holy Spirit; ‘for the communication was not of part of the essence, because the essence is simple and indivisible, - therefore of the whole essence; therefore the whole same essence, which is in the Father, is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and, because of the divine simplicity, each person is that thing, and all three persons are that thing’.

11. Now as to what Joachim argued from the Gospel [n.9], it is there solved, for ‘the Savior understands in his prayer that his faithful are one in a unity proportional to themselves, just as the Father and Son are one in a unity proportional to themselves, -that is, just as the Father and Son are one in the unity of charity which is their nature, so the faithful are one in participated charity’. And this exposition is there proved by the like saying of the Savior (Matthew 5.48) saying to his disciples: “Be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” namely with essential goodness; where he did not admonish that we be perfect of ourselves naturally, as the heavenly Father is perfect of himself naturally, with a perfection essentially belonging to himself, but that we be perfect with the perfection belonging to us, namely of grace and the virtues.

C. For the Opinion of Peter Lombard

12. [As to the reality of the question] - However as to the first article [n.9], in which Joachim said that Master Peter was heretical, the Pope contradicts him [Innocent III, 4th Lateran Council, 1215AD]: “But we, with the approval of the sacred Council, believe and confess with Peter [Lombard], namely that one supreme thing is essence or divine nature, which neither generates nor is generated; yet it does not follow that there is a quaternity, because those three things - Father and Son and Holy Spirit - are that one thing.” But there cannot be a quaternity unless there is a fourth, really distinct from the first three.

13. For this opinion, then, thus solemnly approved, there is adduced this sort of reason: a generating thing generates something, and generates a really distinct thing, because “nothing generates itself so as to exist,” On the Trinity I ch.1 n.1; but essence in divine reality is altogether indistinct; therefore it is neither generating nor generated, because there is a generating by the same reason that there is a generated.

14. To this are reduced the reasons of the Master in the text, that essence ‘would be referred to itself’ and ‘would be distinguished from itself’ [I d.5 ch.1 n.55]; but a third reason is that the Father would exist formally by that by which he generates, because he is formally the very essence that is in the Son, because of the lack of distinction of the essence, - and if he were to generate it, he would not formally be it, because it would be distinct from him and posterior in origin.

15. There is added too another reason, that in creatures form does not generate nor is generated, but the composite is; now deity is disposed as form in a person; therefore it neither generates nor is generated.

This reason has less evidence here than in creatures, because in creatures form is not something per se existing so that it could be operator; but here deity, without counderstanding the personal properties, is of itself a being in act [d.4 n.11].

16. The reason is however confirmed, because operation, which belongs necessarily to a distinct operator, cannot belong to that which here exists as form, because form is per se indistinct in the three; but such operation is personal, as to generate is.

Let this be said as to the reality of this question.

17. [As to the logic of the question] - But speaking of the logic, why cannot this proposition ‘essence generates’ be true as essence supposits there for a person, just as this proposition is true ‘God generates’ because God supposits for the Father, - and yet God is not distinguished from himself, nor is God formally he who is generated although God does generate God?

18. I reply and give the following reason for the intended proposition: whenever a subject is abstracted with ultimate abstraction7 and the predicate of its idea cannot be predicated save formally, the proposition cannot be true of such terms save per se in the first mode; the subject here, namely deity or the divine essence, is abstracted with ultimate abstraction, and the predicate of its idea, namely generating, cannot be predicated save formally; therefore the proposition could not be true save per se in the first mode; but in this way it is not true, because the predicate is not per se in the understanding of the subject - “for everything that is said in relation to something is something beside the relation” (On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2), such that the relation is not within the concept of the absolute thing.

19. The major of this syllogism I declare in this way:

In the case of substances, although there can be in the same one really - even if it is simple - many substantial perfections formally distinct, and although there one formal idea could be abstracted from another, while the concretion of each formality with their own proper supposits still remains (for example, although this proposition is true ‘the intellective substance is volitional’ - where there is a concretive predication of the perfection of one substantial feature about another - yet this proposition is denied ‘the intellect is will’, because these terms signify the perfections as abstract from each other, and that according to their proper formalities; however these thus abstract terms still concern the proper supposits, because here ‘intellect’ is an intellect), yet, by taking the substance, whether simple or composite, precisely according to one formal quidditative idea, there is only abstraction from the supposit of the proper nature in common, because the substances do not naturally concern anything of another nature; therefore this first abstraction [n.20 for the second abstraction] is the greatest. For by abstracting human nature from the supposits that truly are of that nature - as humanity is abstracted when it is conceived - there does not remain any further abstraction; and this thing as thus conceived is precisely its very self, because extraneous to anything else, - as Avicenna says Metaphysics 5 ch.1 that ‘equinity is only equinity’ and nothing else.

20. But in the case of accidents, as many abstractions can be made as there can be many things they concern. Accidents indeed concern supposits of another nature, and although they are abstracted from them, yet they concern individuals of the proper nature, - just as white concerns wood, and although whiteness is abstracted from this, yet it still concerns this whiteness and that, which are its individuals. - But further, there is abstraction of quiddity from the supposit, which is the sort of abstraction said to happen in the case of substances [n.19], and we have a circumlocution for this by the fact we speak of the quiddity of whiteness8 - and this does not concern any subject whether of the same or different nature.

21. In relations too, that concern many things, there can still be many abstractions; for a relation concerns its proper individual, both foundation and subject, - and although it is abstracted from the latter yet it is not abstracted from the former.

An example. This concrete term which is ‘cause’ is said of fire, which generates heat in wood. - But, abstracting from the subject, there still remains concretion with a foundation, to wit if one say ‘the power of causing’; for heat is a power of causing heat, yet fire is not a power of causing it. - There can be still a further abstraction to the proper genus, to wit if one say ‘causality’, and then neither fire nor heat receives the predication of it; yet this causality is ‘causality which is the ultimate abstraction of the sort that is in substances’ [n.19] through the fact that we speak of ‘quiddity of causality’, and this is predicated of nothing else.

22. And, from the things thus shown or narrated, it is apparent what ultimate abstraction is, that it is ‘of the most absolute quiddity, taken from everything that is in any way outside the idea of the quiddity’,9 - and from this is apparent the first term of the major.

23. About the other term of the major, namely that the predicate ‘is of necessity formally predicated about whatever it is predicated,’ [n.18], one must note that substantives can be doubly predicated in divine reality, sometimes formally and sometimes by identity; but adjectives, if they are predicated, are of necessity formally predicated, and this because they are adjectives, - for, from the fact they are adjectives, they signify form by way of what informs; and so they are said denominatively of the subject, and consequently by way of what informs the subject, and thus they are said formally of it; of such sort are not only adjectival nouns but all participles and verbs.

24. With these things understood, the assumed major is plain, that ‘when something is abstracted with ultimate abstraction - such that it is abstracted from everything which is outside its idea - and the predicate is not predicated of it save formally, there is no true union of such extremes unless it be formal and per se in the first mode’. Because this predicate is precisely of a nature to be predicated formally, therefore truth cannot be saved by identity alone, - and because the subject is abstracted with the highest abstraction, it cannot stand for anything in any way that is other than itself but precisely for itself formally, and so it would be necessary [for truth to be saved] that its idea were precisely formally the same as the predicate, which could not be unless the idea precisely included the predicate. - The minor too [n.18] is plain, because the extreme terms ‘essence generates’ or ‘deity generates’ [n.17] are not of such a sort, because

[n.19]; nor is it thus posited that in some abstraction ‘the abstracted thing’ is not predicated of something nor something of it, because this is impossible [as stated in the previous paragraph of this note], but it is enough for the intended proposition here [n.18] that the ultimately abstracted thing -that is abstracted from everything of a different nature and from the proper supposit, but not from the singular [n.22] - that about it nothing is formally predicated unless it is predicated ‘per se in the first mode’.

So is it the case then that ‘humanity’ is animality? - No. Humanity is not the singular of animality but this animality is; but man is as it were the supposit of animal.”

‘deity’ is something abstracted with highest abstraction; but ‘generates’ is a verb, therefore it cannot be predicated save formally.10

II. To the Principal Arguments

25. To the arguments for the opposite. - To the first authority of Augustine [n.1] -Sentences I d.21 ch.2 ‘the words of the authority occur...’ - the Master [Peter Lombard] responds in d.28 ch.6, that Wisdom stands for the hypostasis; “‘the essence is shown’ [n.1], namely it is shown that the Son is essence,” because the essential name stands for the person. The reason for this is stated: although wisdom is abstracted from the wise man, because he is the one operating, yet it still signifies the operative power or the operative principle, and therefore it is not abstracted with highest abstraction, because the operative power in some way concerns something; and, because of such sort of concretion, it is some way conceded that Wisdom is born, but not in any way that the essence is born. But as to Augustine sometimes saying that the Son is essence of essence, this is expounded in the following question ‘because this does not prove that the essence is generated or generating, but that it is something from which the Son is generated’ [nn.98, 101].

26. To the statement of Richard [n.2]. If he intends to blame the Master there, as appears from his words, - since the doctrine of the Master, and this one especially, is confirmed by a General Council in the chapter cited above [n.12], I deny Richard11 by holding to the Master. And as to his saying that the Master adduces many authorities against himself, the Master well expounds them, as will be plain in the following question [n.100]; not, however, that he has no authority for himself, but he does have the authority of the Universal Church, which is the greatest, because Augustine says Letter against Fundamentus ch.5 n.6: “I would not believe the Gospel if I did not believe the Church,” -which Church, just as it has decreed which books are to be held as authentic in the canon of the Bible, so too it has decreed which books are to be held as authentic in the books of the doctors, as is plain in the canon, and after the authority of the canon there is not found in the Corpus Iuris any writing as authentic as that of Master Peter in the chapter cited before.

27. To the reason about ‘communicating’ [n.3] I say that production has the thing produced for its first term, and I say that this ‘first term’ is the adequate term; and in this way the Philosopher says Metaphysics 7.8.1033b16-18 that the composite is first generated, because it is what first has being through production, that is, adequate being.

28. However, in the composite the form is the formal term of generation, but it is not the term per accidens, - as is plain from the Philosopher Physics 2.1.193b12-18, where he proves that form is nature by the fact that ‘generation is natural because it is the way to nature, but it is the way to form,     therefore etc     .’, - which reason would be nothing if form were only the term per accidens of generation. And in the same way he intends that form and end coincide in the same thing, which is not true of the end of the thing generated, but is true of the end of generation. Therefore form is truly the end of generation.

29. The thing, then, that generates has one relation to the first term - which term is called the thing produced or generated - and it has another relation to the formal term. And in creatures each relation is real, because each relation has terms really distinct, and there is a real dependence of each produced thing on what produces it. But in the proposed case [sc. of God] the producer has to the thing first produced a real relation, because it has a real distinction and a real origin, but to the formal term in the thing produced it does not have a real relation, because it does not have a real distinction, without which distinction there is no real relation. ‘To produce’ then in divine reality states a real relation, but ‘to communicate’ states a relation of origin, and as it were of idea, concomitant with that real relation; there is an example of this about the principle ‘in which’; in creatures this principle is really referred to the product, just as the ‘what’ principle is (for the art and the builder are referred to the same genus of cause, Metaphysics 5.2.1013b30-33), but here [sc. the case of God] the ‘in which’, because it is not distinct, does not have a real relation to the thing produced (I d.7 n.13), - so not conversely either, the formal term not having a real relation to the producer.

30. When it is said, therefore, that these relations are opposite, namely to communicate and to be communicated [n.3], - I say that they are relations of reason, opposite according to their proper ideas, although they are necessarily concomitant with some real opposed relations, namely to produce and to be produced; but yet the latter and the former relations are not formally of the same relative things.

31. By this same fact is given an answer to the second [n.3], that no extreme of one correlation is formally the same as some extreme of another. For the communicator and the producer, although they come together in the same supposit (because the nature is said properly to be communicating itself just as it is said to be properly communicated12), yet the communicating does not state formally the same relation as producing qua producing does, - for to be communicated and to be produced do not state the same either, nor do they first denominate the same.

32. To the logical arguments [nn.4-6].

When it is first argued about predication ‘per se’ [n.4], I say that essence is not predicated ‘in the first mode per se’ of the Father, nor is it predicated formally. - When you prove it ‘because not per accidens’ [n.4], I say that, as in creatures, not every predication is either ‘per se’ or ‘per accidens’, taking accident properly, as when an accident is predicated of a subject; for the genus is not predicated per se of the difference, nor is it predicated per accidens, - because neither of them is accident of the other of them, but the difference is there a middle that is extraneous or inferior to the genus, and contracts it, which inferior can be called ‘accidental’ to the superior, that is, extraneous, but it is not properly an ‘accident’; but in divine reality not everything is ‘per se’ the same, that is, formally,13 nor yet is anything of another ‘per accidens’ properly,14 but something is the same as something by absolute identity, without formal identity, - and thus it is in the intended proposition.

33. To the other I say that this proposition ‘father is essence’15 can be distinguished, because ‘father’ can be taken adjectivally or substantively. In the second way it signifies the person to whom belongs paternity, and I concede that the proposition is true by identity, because a substantive can be predicated of anything by identity. In the first way it signifies the very property denominatively, and in this way the Master expounds [I d.27 ch.1 n.237] that to be father is the same as to have generated;16 in this way this proposition ‘essence is father’ is false, because it signifies that father is formally predicated of the subject.

34. When therefore you argue about subject and property, I say that when the property can be predicated by a predication of the same idea as that by which the subject is predicated, the property can be inferred from the subject when it has the same mode of predicating [n.24], - but when not, not. Here the subject - if it is subject - can be predicated by identity, the property - if it is property - cannot be, but only formally, because it is an adjective [n.23].

35. To the other, ‘essence is father of the Son’ [n.5]:

A certain doctor [Henry of Ghent] repeats the opinions of others, the first of Master Alexander [of Hales, ST Ia d.20 ad 5], who distinguished this proposition ‘essence is father of the Son’ in the way the preceding one, namely ‘essence is father’, was already distinguished [n.33], - because ‘father’ can be taken adjectivally and substantively, and in the first way he says it is false and the consequence [‘therefore father of the Son is essence’] not valid, - in the second way he says it is true. Another opinion he repeats from Master Praepositinus, who says that it is simply true, for which Praepositinus has two reasons, - one by conversion (because if the converting proposition is true, the converted proposition will be simply true): “this proposition is true ‘father of the Son is essence’, therefore essence is father of the Son;” the other reason is that “this proposition is simply true ‘essence is father’: either then it is father of someone or of no one; if of no one, then there is altogether no father, - if of someone, and if of none but the Son, then essence is father of the Son.”

36. Against Master Alexander - nay against both masters - he argues thus and proves “the term ‘father’ is only held adjectivally, since names that are imposed from an active and passive power (as are master and disciple, father and son, builder, etc.) are only significative adjectivally, and this from the respect that they have to something else, which is what the power from which they are imposed has regard to. But whenever something has the idea of adjective, or of adjacent, from a respect to something else, the more determinate its respect the more it has the idea of adjacent or of adjective, and the less it has this idea the more indeterminate it is, - as is plain about the respect of the infinitive mode, which grammarians say has or says an infinite inclination to the supposit and can supposit more than other modes can [Priscian, Institutiones Grammaticae VIII ch.12 n.63, ch.13 n.69], because the others also have a finite inclination to the supposit, but the former has an infinite one; but an infinitive and an adjective in the neuter gender are more substantive than in the masculine or feminine. Therefore since ‘father of the Son’ has a finite and express relation - but it is not so when the term ‘father’ is posited per se - therefore, although it could be held substantively when saying ‘essence is father’, yet it is only held adjectively when saying ‘essence is father of the Son’, and thus this proposition ‘essence is father of the Son’ is simply false.”17

37. “It is also plain that the first argument of Praepositinus is not valid, ‘father of the Son is essence, therefore essence is father of the Son’, by conversion [n.35], because it should be converted in this way: ‘therefore something that is essence is father of the Son’; just as this proposition ‘an individual is man’ is not converted in this way ‘therefore man is an individual’, but it in this other way ‘therefore something that is a man is an individual’. - Likewise the second reason [n.35] is not valid. When it is argued ‘essence is father, therefore father either of someone or no one’, - one must say that it does not follow, because of the fallacy of figure of speech (because as soon as ‘of someone or of no one’ is added the combination is otherwise than was first being supposed), and one must say that it is father of no one, that is, it is not father of anyone; and it does not follow from this that it is not father, because of the fallacy of figure of speech, but there only follows ‘therefore the property of paternity does not belong to it’.”

38. So he responds in a third way, that this proposition ‘essence is father of the Son’ is simply false, because of the aforesaid reason [n.36], because the term ‘father’ here is only held adjectivally.18

39. Against his way of speaking [n.38] I argue thus:

What is included essentially in the concept of something as a part of the concept cannot be excluded from it under whatever mode it is conceived, because if it is conceived under some mode and that part is not included, then the mode is repugnant to the idea of the concept which is conceived. When, therefore, in the concept of a relative [sc. father], from the fact that the concept is relative - not as conceived relatively - its correlative is necessarily included as its term (because it can neither be nor be understood without it, just as not without the term either), then in whatever way it is conceived, whether adjectivally or substantively, the correlative is always included as term, and so in no way can it be understood as absolute; the point is confirmed about filiation [sc. filiation is correlative in the same way].

40. Again, then [sc. if Henry’s position is correct] this proposition ‘father of the Son is essence’ would be incongruous, and a non-substantive adjective does not supposit incongruously. Indeed in this case in the subject [‘father of the Son’] father is determined by the Son, to whom it has a determinate respect [n.36].

41. Therefore I hold the opinion of Alexander, distinguishing as he does, that the substantive is true and the adjectival is false.

42. To the reasons of Praepositinus: I say that the converse [‘essence is father of the Son’; n35] is true substantively, - adjectivally it is incongruous, because the masculine [sc. ‘father’ in the converting proposition] cannot be made substantive; to his second reason [n.35] I say that essence is father, and of someone, - and I concede too that it is father of the Son.

43. But when it is argued in the principal reason ‘if essence is father of the Son, therefore the Son is son of essence’ [n.5], I deny the consequence.

When it is proved through that ‘mutual consequence’ in relatives, I say that the mutual consequence holds in those relatives that are first relatives [father-son]; it holds also of those that are referred through relations [paternity-filiation] - if they are said formally as relations of them, - just as if formally Socrates is father of Plato, then conversely, formally Plato is son of Socrates. But in those relatives that are not referred first nor are denominated formally from those relations, but the relation is predicated of one of them by identity, that [mutual] consequence is not valid, because in that case more is indicated in the consequent than in the antecedent; for in the antecedent is noted the identity of the relation with that of which it is said, but in the consequent is indicated that the other thing is formally referred to it: for since it is said ‘the Son is son of essence’, from the force of the construction there is indicated that the essence is the proper correlative of that which is the Son, and so the Son is formally son of essence; but the antecedent does not indicate that the relation of paternity agrees with the essence formally, but only by identity.

44. To the final one [n.6] I say: when you take ‘the generated insofar as it is generated is something’, I deny it. And when you say ‘it is not nothing’, I say (as has often been said before, I d.1 n.58, d.2 nn.422-423, 431, d.3 n.326), that between contradictories there is a middle with ‘insofar as’, such that neither is present with ‘insofar as’, just as man ‘insofar as he is man’ is neither white nor ‘insofar as he is man’ is he non-white; but these two contradictory propositions are false together; for the true contradictory is ‘man not insofar as he is man is white’; so here ‘the generated not insofar as it is generated is something’, because the idea of being generated is not the formal idea of the inherence of the predicate, although the generated - taken formally in itself - is essence by identity.

45. What then should be said of ‘generated insofar as generated’? - One can concede that ‘generated insofar as generated’ is the person, or subsisting, but it does not further follow ‘    therefore insofar as generated it is something’, taking something for essence, - because of the formal non-identity of the idea of person with essence, etc     . [I d.2 nn.388-410].