Question 2. Whether there can be several Sons in Divine Reality

92. Whether there can be several Sons in divine reality.

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

I. The Opinions of Others

93. It is posited [by Henry of Ghent] that there cannot be, because all the fecundity is used up in one act; therefore there is no fecundity for another one.

On the contrary. To be used up signifies in bodily things that the source does not there remain which was used up; it cannot be thus understood here, but that the source does not remain for another act. Therefore the premise is improper, - and in the way it is true it is the same as the conclusion.

94. Therefore it is said in another way - more properly - that a ‘single generation’ is an act adequate to the generative power and always stays in place, and that the single

Son is a term adequate to the power and is always being produced; therefore there cannot be another one.

95. On the contrary. Is the adequacy understood as intensive or extensive? If in the second way there is a begging of the question. If in the first way, the proposed conclusion does not follow from the adequacy of the act, because fire generating a fire as equally perfect as itself - and so adequate - can still generate another fire elsewhere; therefore the consequent is inferred ‘that the adequate act always stays in place’, and consequently the power is not of itself determined to this act but absolutely it would have power for another act, - just as if the sun were always staying in place and so were with a single adequate illumination to illuminate the medium present to it, it would not have power for another illumination, because that single illumination always stays in place; but from this it follows that of itself it would have power for another - and suppose that the first one does not stay in place, it will proceed to another.

96. Thus therefore the generative power of the Father can absolutely be the principle of another generation; therefore another is absolutely possible, therefore another one actually is - and so the staying in place of this ‘adequate’ act will not here prevent another act from being, because whatever is here possible from the nature of the thing necessarily is; it is not thus in the case of the sun, where the medium is in potency to an illumination other than the adequate one that stays in place, but if that other illumination is possible it does not follow that it is necessary.

97. Again another argument. - ‘A principle produces insofar as it is prior’ [I d.2 n.308-309]; therefore the staying in place of the posited effect takes nothing away from the principle as it is a principle; therefore if, when the effect is not posited or not staying in place, the principle would have power for another, it will also have power for another when the effect is staying in place. - But although the argument [n.95] appears sound, it would conclude against the sun having an adequate illumination.Presumably because, if the sun can have another illumination, the one it has cannot be adequate after all. ³⁸ Hence one should solve the argument by asking whence it is that the actual positing of the adequate effect limits the virtue of the cause to the ‘then’ (although absolutely it extends to other occasions), and to the ‘then’ in the sense of division and to the ‘at another time’ in the sense of composition.

98. I concede, however, that adequacy, whether absolute or with a staying in place, does not sufficiently entail the unity of divine generation, because it does not entail that to be the principle of another generation is repugnant to the generative power absolutely of itself, nor consequently does it entail the absolute impossibility of another generation, - nay it entails the absolute possibility, if this [sc. the adequacy of the one generation] were the precise reason for the impossibility - because where there is an impossibility for this reason, there is there an absolute possibility (the result is plain from induction).

99. One must then look for another reason so as to show that the generative power is determined of itself to this generation, such that if per impossibile it would not proceed to this generation, or if this generation were not adequate or were not always staying in place, it would altogether have power for no other, just as sight cannot hear, - in the way that, if the Father did not here exist in the divine nature, altogether no person could there be what the Father was; because if for this reason precisely there could not be another Father, namely because in the essence - although indifferent to several ungenerated persons - this person would as it were subsist by itself and adequately to the essence, then absolutely there could be another Father, and if there could be there would be.

100. Not only does this argument [n.99] refute the reason ‘about adequacy’ [n.94], but also, if this Father or this generation were not by itself, but the essence were as it were indifferent to several Fathers and the generative power were indifferent to several generations, one would not be able to give more a reason for this generation existing in divine reality than for that one, because that one too would be adequate, and so for the case where this one prevents that one, which is altogether impossible; nay for what reason the one is posited, any at all might be posited, and for what reason the other is not posited, any other might not be posited.

II. To the Question

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