II. Scotus’ own Response to the Question

A. The Son is not Generated from the Substance of the Father as from Matter or Quasimatter

93. Therefore by holding with the ancient doctors - because they all from the time of Augustine up to the present did not dare to speak of matter or quasi-matter in divine reality, although all said in agreement with Augustine that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father - I say that the Son is not generated from the substance of the Father as from matter or quasi-matter.

94. And this can be made clear as follows:

Generation in the creature states two things, change and production; the formal ideas of these are different and separable from each other without contradiction.

95. For production is formally of the product itself, and it is accidental to it that it is done with change of some composite part, as is plain in creation [sc. where there is production but not change]; change is formally the act of ‘the changeable’, which passes from privation. But change accompanies production in creatures because of the imperfection of the productive power, which cannot give total being to the term of the production, but something of it that is presupposed is changed to another part of it and thus it produces the composite. Therefore they can without contradiction be separated, and they really are separated in comparison to a perfect productive power.

96. This is also plain in creation, where, because of the perfection of the productive power setting it first in total being, there is truly the idea of production, insofar as through it the produced term receives being, - but there is not there the idea of change, insofar as change states that some substrate ‘is otherwise disposed than it was before’, Physics 6.3-4.234b5-7, 10-13. For in creation there is no substrate.

97. To the proposed case. Since in divine reality nothing of imperfection is to be posited but the whole of perfection, and since change in its idea states imperfection, because it states potentiality, and that in a changeable thing, - and concomitantly too it states imperfection of the active power in the changer, because such a changer necessarily requires a cause causing along with it so that it may produce (but no imperfection happens in divine reality, neither of the sort that is in the passive power nor any imperfection either of the active power, but supreme perfection), - in no way would generation be posited there under the idea of change or of quasi-change, but in divine reality would be posited only generation as it is production, namely insofar as something by it gets being. And therefore generation as it is in divine reality is without matter, - and therefore to generation as it is in divine reality there is not assigned matter or quasimatter, but only the term; and this either total as first term, that is the adequate term -namely which is first produced in being [n.27] - or formal term, according to which the first term formally receives being [n.28].

B. The Son is truly from the Substance of the Father

98. Second I say [n.93] that when all materiality and quasi-materiality have been denied, the Son is yet truly ‘from the substance of the Father’, as the authorities [Augustine, Hilary] adduced in the text [of Lombard] say.

99. Here by the ‘from’ is not indicated only efficient causality or origination [n.54], because if it were efficient causality alone then creatures would be from the substance of God, - nor is indicated by the ‘from’ only consubstantiality, because then the Father would be from the substance of the Son, - but there is indicated origination and consubstantiality at the same time; namely so that in the [ablative] case, governed by the preposition ‘from’, consubstantiality is indicated, so that the Son has the same substance and quasi-form together with the Father, from whom he is by way of origin, -and by what is construed in the genitive case [‘of the Father’] with this prepositional clause the originating principle is indicated; so that the total understanding of this phrase ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ is this: the Son is originated by the Father as consubstantial with him.

100. And in this way the Master [Lombard] expounds the authorities adduced in the text, - not precisely by consubstantiality, nor precisely by origination, but by both, as is generally apparent. “From the substance of the Father, that is, from the Father, who is the same substance [n.54]” - by the first point origination is held to, by the second consubstantiality.

101. And that this is the intention of Augustine in his authorities Against Maximinus [n.53] that are put in the text, is apparent from the point of the authorities, -for in one authority Augustine sets down: “If you do not find another substance, recognize the substance of the Father, and confess the Son is homoousion (Greek: ‘of the same substance’) with the Father;” from this then he understood by ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ that the Son is so from the Father that he is homoousion with the Father. Again, in the other authority he says: “But if he is from the substance of the Father, then there is the same substance of Father and Son.”

102. But to understand this affirmative proposition by which it is said that ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ [n.98], according to the aforesaid understanding [n.101], I say that that understanding truly saves the fact that the Son is not from nothing, - it also truly saves the fact that the Son is ‘from’ in the way required for filiation.

103. I clarify the first point, because a ‘generated creature’ is not from nothing, because something of it pre-existed as matter. Therefore since the form is something of the composite, and something of it more perfect than matter, if the form of something pre-existed and matter came to it de novo and was informed by the already pre-existing form, the product itself would not be from nothing, because something of it would have pre-existed, nay something of it more perfect than the matter which commonly pre-exists. Therefore if the Son would not be said to be from nothing ‘because his essence according to order of origin pre-existed in the Father’, and this too if the essence were the quasimatter of the generation of the Son, much more will the Son not be from nothing if the essence ‘existing in the Father first by origin’ is the quasi-form communicated to the Son.

104. I clarify the second point [n.102] in this way, namely that the ‘from’ suffices for the idea of filiation, because in animate things, where paternity and filiation exist, we may see what the act is by which the generator is said to be formally ‘father’. It is namely the act of depositing semen, and if it were a perfect agent, so that now, when it deposits semen, it could immediately deposit the offspring, it would be truly father and much more perfectly than is now the case when so many intermediate changes are required; but now, in the act of depositing semen, that which was the substance of it, or in some way something of it, is not matter, but is as it were the formal term, communicated or produced through the act, just as the offspring would be if it were immediately deposited by the father; therefore because something of the substance of the generator is the term of its act, by which it is father, this truly saves the fact that a product alike in nature ‘is from the substance of it’, so that the ‘from’ truly suffices for the idea of father and son, - and as to the thing ‘deposited as term’ being the matter of subsequent changes, this happens to the ‘from’ as it belongs to father and son.

105. Therefore the eternal Father, not depositing some part of himself but communicating his whole essence, and this as formal term of the production, most truly produces the Son from himself, in the way in which ‘from’ pertains to father and son; and although the essence be there the ‘from which’ as from quasi-matter, the ‘from’ would not do anything for the idea of father, - just as neither in creatures, if the generator had its semen both for the formal term and for the matter of its action, the father would not be ‘father’ insofar as his semen was the matter subject to his action, but insofar as it was the term of the action, in the way too that, if the created father deposited a son from himself, he would be truly father, because that which would be from him would be the term of the action, but in no way the matter.

C. How Relation and Essence can exist in the Same Person

106. Third principally, to the solution of the difficulty of this question, one must see how relation and essence can exist in the same person without the essence being material with respect to the relation, since no relation is material with respect to it.

107. And there are four difficulties.

[Difficulty 1] - First, in what way the divine person is one without the former [relation] being act and the latter [essence] potency.

108. To this I say as follows:

First, created quiddity is that in which something is a being quidditatively, and this is not a mark of imperfection; for it belongs to quiddity from the idea of quiddity.

109. Created quiddity, however, for example humanity, because it is of imperfect actuality, is therefore divisible by that which contracts it to an individual, namely by the individual property - whatever it be, let it be a - and it receives from a some actuality (whether also unity or also individuality), which it has in the individual and does not have from itself, so that the contracting thing (as a) is in Socrates not only that ‘by which Socrates is formally Socrates’, but is formal in some way with respect to the nature, and the nature is in some way potency with respect to it; hence, secondly, the nature is contracted and determined by that very a.

110. And third; but humanity in Socrates is some act, and precisely by taking humanity and by distinguishing a from it, humanity is a more perfect act than is a itself, although a is a more proper act and in some way the act of nature insofar as it determines nature.

111. When applying these three things [nn.108-110] to divine reality, let that be left behind which belongs to imperfection.

112. As to the first point [n.108]. Deity is of itself that by which God is God, and also that by which the subsistent thing ‘whose property is a’ is formally God, because to be ‘by this’ in this way is not a feature of imperfection in the creature, but belongs to quiddity whence it is quiddity.

113. As to the second point [n.109]. There is a dissimilarity, because deity itself is not determined or contracted by the personal property, nor in any way actuated by it, because this was a feature of imperfection and of potentiality in created nature; likewise, deity is of itself a ‘this’, and thus, just as it has ultimate unity of itself, so it has actuality too. The personal property therefore is the proper act of the person such that it is yet not an act of the divine nature itself in any way perfecting or informing it.

114. As to the third point [n.110]. There is in some way a similarity, because although relation is the proper act of the person, and essence is not the proper act but an act of the person, yet the essence is formally infinite act; but the relation is not of its formal idea infinite act.

115. But how can these two acts come together to constitute one thing, if neither is the act of the other? For one must be in the other, because if not then each is per se subsistent, and thus they will not be in the same per se subsistent thing; likewise, the unity of things distinct in any way at all does not seem, according to Aristotle [Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7-10, 23-25], to exist except by reason of act and potency.

116. I reply. The unity of the composite is necessarily by reason of act and potency, as is assigned by the Philosopher, ibid. and 7.13.1039a4-5. But the person in divine reality is not composite, nor quasi-composite, but simple, - and as truly simple as the essence itself considered in itself, having no composition nor quasi-composition in reality; and yet the formal idea of the divine essence is not the formal idea of relation, nor conversely, as was said above [I d.2 nn.388-395, 403-406].

117. But how it stands that the idea of relation in the thing is not formally the same as the idea of the essence and yet, when they come together in the same thing, they do not constitute a composite, - the reason for this is that the former idea is perfectly the same as the latter; for because of the infinity of the one idea [sc. of the essence, nn.67, 114, 127], whatever can exist along with it is perfectly the same as it. Therefore the perfection of identity excludes all composition and quasi-composition, which identity exists because of the infinity, - and yet infinity does not take away from the formal ideas that the one is not formally the other.

118. So there is no quasi-composite made from them. And therefore nothing from them is as composite of act and potency, but there is from them one most simple thing, because one idea is perfectly - nay most perfectly - the same as the other, and yet is not formally the same; for this does not follow ‘they are perfectly the same even by identity of simplicity, therefore they are formally the same’, as was touched on about identity in the pre-cited question [in n.116], and as will be touched on below in distinction 8 [nn.209, 217]. And the same perfect identity excludes all aggregation, because the same thing is not aggregated with itself.Text 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.” ²³

119. And as to what is added that ‘one must be in the other’ [n.115], I concede that the relation is in the foundation or the root, but this is not as act is in potency but as identically contained in the infinite sea [sc. the divine essence, n.131].

120. In another way [sc. to the issue in n.119] it can be said that all these propositions are true, ‘deity is in the Father, paternity is in the Father’, ‘the Father is in deity or in the divine nature, paternity is in deity’, and yet no ‘in’ there is as act in potency.

121. For the first proposition is true as nature is in the supposit, having quidditative ‘being’ by it (because this belongs to quiddity whence it is quiddity [n.112]), but not for this reason is it a form informing the supposit, even in the case of creatures [nn.132, 138].

122. The second [n.120] is true as the hypostatic form is in the hypostasis, - but it does not inform it; for as well the quiddity as the hypostatic form, even in the case of creatures, although it is the form of the supposit, yet is not an informing form, but is there [in creatures] as a part [sc. as Socrateity-humanity is in Socrates], while here it is as one formal idea concurring with another [sc. as paternity-deity], formally, to the same simple thing that yet has in it several formal ideas.

123. The third [n.120] is true as the supposit in the nature, - plainly not as informing it [n.147].

124. The fourth [n.120] is true in the same way of ‘in’ [sc. the same as in in.123], because in the way a whole is first in something, in the same way the part is per se but not first in the same thing, - it is plain about being in place; therefore if the Father is first in nature, as the supposit of nature, paternity ‘will be per se in the same nature’ in the same way of being ‘in’, although not first.

125. In addition to this, the prior response [n.119] gives the manner of ‘in’ -which is that of relation in the foundation - which is not reduced to the being of form in matter save where the foundation is limited, in that it does not have the relation perfectly identically in itself.

126. [Difficulty 2] - The second difficulty is how relation can distinguish the person and not distinguish the essence without the relation having the idea of act, -because it belongs to act to distinguish, Metaphysics 7.13.1039a7.

127. I reply. I concede that relation is a personal act, not a quidditative act, -because it distinguishes personally and not quidditatively. But the essence is quidditative act and distinguishes quidditatively; but the quidditative act is simply perfect, because infinite, - but the personal act is not thus of itself formally infinite.

128. And if you say that ‘the distinguishing act is an act of what does not distinguish’, it is false, unless what does not distinguish is distinguished by a distinguishing act, as it is in creatures; humanity is distinguished in Socrates and Plato by a and b, and therefore the distinguishing act there - even distinguishing individually - is an act of what does not distinguish, because the distinguishing act distinguishes the nature itself, which does not distinguish. It is not so here [sc. in divine reality], because the personal property does not distinguish the essence, nor does it contract or determine it.

129. [Difficulty 3] - The third difficulty is how a relation can exist without requiring the proper idea of foundation. For the foundation seems to be prior to the relation and is as it were perfectible by it, and not conversely; for a relation does not seem to be perfected by its foundation, because then it would be presupposed to its foundation. Therefore since the essence is the foundation of these relations, it seems to be quasimatter.

130. I reply. In the case of creatures the order of generation and the order of perfection are contraries, as is clear from Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, because “things that are prior in generation are posterior in perfection;” and the reason is that creatures proceed from potency to act, and so from the imperfect to the perfect, - and therefore by way of generation the imperfect is reached before the perfect is. But, when going to what is simply first, it must be the case that the ‘same thing’ is simply first both in origin and in perfection (even according to the Philosopher, ibid.), because the whole order of generation is reduced to some first thing of perfection, as to the first thing of the whole origin. In divine reality, therefore, the order of generation and the order of perfection must be understood together.

131. Just as in creatures, then, if those two orders were always uniformly to come together, we would not seek first for the matter which underlies the form and then, second, for the form, but we would seek first for the form which would be of a nature to give act to the matter, and second we would seek for the matter which would be of a nature to receive being through that form, or the supposit which is of a nature to subsist through that form, - so it is in divine reality. Beginning from the first moment of nature, altogether first arises divine nature as it is being through itself and from itself, which does not belong to any created nature, because no created nature has being naturally before it is in a supposit. But this essence - according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.6 n.11 -is that by which the Father is and that by which the Son is, although it is not that by which the Father is Father and the Son is Son. To this essence, then, considered in the most abstract way, as prior to all the personal features, there belongs being through itself, and in this first moment it arises not as something receptive of some perfection, but as infinite perfection, able indeed in the second moment of nature to be communicated to another; not communicated to matter as an informing form, but to supposit as quiddity, as to what exists formally through it. And thus do the relations - as some say - ‘sprout up’ from it and the persons ‘sprout up’ in it; not as certain quasi-forms, giving being to it, or as certain quasi-supposits, in which it receives the being which simply belongs to it, but as supposits to which it gives ‘being’ as that by which they are formally supposits, and by which they are God; and so the sprouting relation - if it is per se subsistent - sprouts up, not as form of the essence, but as naturally being God by the very deity formally, although not by deity as informing, but as existing the same with it, in the most perfect identity; but, conversely, in no way is the relation of the essence as being that by which essence is formally determined or contracted or in any way actuated by it, because all these thing are repugnant to the infinity of essence as it first occurs under the idea of infinite act.

132. I concede then that essence is the foundation of these relations [n.129], but not a foundation quasi-potential receiving them, but foundation as by way of form, in which those forms are born and are to subsist, - not indeed by informing, as likeness does in whiteness, - but as the subsistent is said to exist in the nature, as Socrates is said to subsist in humanity, because ‘Socrates is a man by humanity’. You will not then have from the idea of foundation the idea of potency or quasi-potentiality in the divine essence, but you will have precisely the idea of form - as that by which the relation founded in it simply is God.

133. An example of this can be taken in the case of creatures by positing there a certain ‘per impossibile’. Increase happens now by the fact that food coming to the body is corrupted, and its matter receives the form of flesh, and is thus informed by the soul. Let it be posited that, while the same matter remains, it is of a nature to receive some part of the form [sc. of flesh] (as is posited in the case of rarefaction); the matter remains one, which was formed before and now is formed with a new form, - it itself however is formally truly changed, because it passes from privation to form. - Let us posit, on the other side, that the same soul would perfect first one part of the body (as the heart), but after another part of the organic body arrives, perfectible by the soul, the soul would perfect the part that de novo arrives, - and the soul itself would yet not be changed, because there would not be in it first privation and later form. For privation is a lack in that which is naturally apt to receive [what is lacked]; but the soul, first non-informing and later informing, is not of a nature to receive anything but to give something.

134. In each of these extremes there is truly production of some product, but in the first there is change and not in the second.

135. The example will seem more apt if we posit that the matter of the animated heart is able to be communicated the same to diverse forms - as of the hand and foot -and this by the active virtue of the animated heart producing those composites from its own communicated matter and from those forms; this would truly be production of all the things having the same matter, and it would go along with change of that matter; but if, on the other side, we posit that the soul - because of its lack of limitation in idea of act and form - can be communicated to many things and, by virtue of the soul in the heart, is communicated to hand and foot, produced by the animated heart, this would truly be production of many things consubstantial in form, without change of that form.

136. In each example [nn.133, 135] let the products be posited to be per se subsistents, not parts of the same thing, because to be a part belongs to imperfection. With this posited, the second mode in each example, which is about the communication of form to the product, perfectly represents production in God, but not the first, which is about the communication of matter, - and this while still adding to the position that the soul in the heart and hand and foot is not the informing form, because being composable involves imperfection, but is the total form by which they are subsistent and are animated; so that deity is not understood to be communicated to quasi-matter; rather, to subsistent relations - if the persons are posited relatively - deity is communicated by way of form, not informing form, but form by which the relation or the subsisting relative is God.

137. And the essence does not therefore inform the relation, nor conversely, but there is perfect identity. - But essence has the mode of form with respect to relation, just like nature with respect to the supposit, insofar as it is that by which the subsisting relation is God. Conversely, however, in no way is the relation an act of the essence, because just as relation (says Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.50) ‘does not determine the nature but the hypostasis’, so it is not an act of nature but of the hypostasis; likewise, when relation informs the foundation, the supposit is said to be related per se in the second mode according to that foundation, just as Socrates is alike in whiteness or by whiteness; but the Father is not Father by deity, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.9, - therefore there is not here such a mode of relation to the foundation as there is in other things, because here the foundation is not actuated through the relation, but the relation is only the act of the supposit or is the supposit.

138. I say briefly that relation and essence are in the person such that neither of them is form informing the other, but they are perfectly the same, although not formally. But as they are not formally the same, the relation in no way perfects the essence, nor is it the formal term received in the essence, but the essence in this way is the form of the relation, because it is that by which the relation is and is likewise God, - and also, the essence is the formal term of generation [n.64], just as in creatures nature is the formal term of generation but not an individual act.

139. [Difficulty 4] - Against this it is objected that ‘the formal term of generation is communicated, therefore it presupposes that to which it is communicated; but the essence does not presuppose relation but conversely, therefore essence is not communicated to relation [from Henry]’, - and it can be the fourth difficulty; because something is communicated there, and it will be the formal term, and it will presuppose that to which it is communicated; but essence cannot presuppose the relation to which it is communicated but conversely, - therefore conversely, - and so relation is communicated to essence, and then relation will be the formal term of production and essence the quasi-matter.

140. I respond. Because production is of some first term - that is of an adequate term - which includes in it something in the idea of formal term of the very production and something in idea of subsistence in such term [nn.27-28, 97], therefore it is a contradiction for these to be separated in respect of production, namely the formal term and the idea of subsistence, namely insofar as they have being by production, although absolutely there would be a priority of one to the other (even to the ‘separated without contradiction’), considering them absolutely, not insofar as they have being through production, - although there would there too be a priority of perfection, because one would be more perfect than the other, - because nature is more perfect by reason of subsistence (even in creatures), and from this it follows that nature is the formal term of production, because no simple entity more perfect than the formal term of production has being through production [n.67].

141. Then to the form of the argument I say that the thing communicated ‘insofar as it is communicated by production’ does not presuppose that to which it is communicated, nor conversely, because the communication is not to something already existing, as it is in the case of alteration, - but it is to something so that it simply exist; therefore neither is nature communicated before the production of the supposit (because then it would be communicated also to something non-produced), nor conversely, although absolutely it is communicated first in the proper idea of supposit - in priority of perfection and in priority of being without each other - in the case of creatures; to the first priority in the case of creatures there corresponds here in God that the essence is formally infinite, the relation however is not.