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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
Eighth Distinction. First Part. On the Simplicity of God
Question Three. Whether along with the Divine Simplicity stands the fact that God, or anything formally said of God, is in a Genus
III. Scotus’ own Opinion
B. Proof of the Second Part of the Opinion
2. By what is Proper to God

2. By what is Proper to God

100. I now show the intended proposition [n.95] by two middle terms (and they are made clear from things proper to God): first from the idea of infinity, - second from the idea of necessary existence.

101. [From the idea of infinity] - From the first I argue in two ways.

First as follows: a concept having an indifference to certain things to which the concept of a genus cannot be indifferent cannot be the concept of a genus; but something commonly said of God and creatures is indifferent to the finite and infinite, speaking of essential features, - or at any rate indifferent to the finite and non-finite, speaking of any feature whatever, because divine relation is not finite; no genus can be indifferent to the finite and infinite,     therefore etc     .61

102. The first part of the minor is plain, because whatever is an essential perfection in God is formally infinite, - in creatures it is finite.

103. I prove the second part of the minor by the fact that a genus is taken from some reality which, in itself, is potential to the reality from which the difference is taken; nothing infinite is potential to anything, as is plain from what was said in the preceding question.62 This proof stands on the composition of species and the potentiality of genus, but both these are removed from God, because of infinity.

104. This assumption [n.103] is plain from the authority of Aristotle Metaphysics 8.3.1043b25-26: “The term” (that is, the definition) “must be an extended proposition,” “because of the fact that it signifies something of something, so that the latter is matter and the former is form.”63

105. The same assumption is also apparent by reason, because if the reality from which the genus is taken were truly the whole quiddity of the thing, the genus alone would completely define it, - also genus and difference would not define it, because the account composed of them would not indicate what is first the same as the thing defined; for each thing is itself once, and therefore an account that would express it twice would not indicate what is first the same as the quiddity of the thing.

106. Treating further in some way of this reasoning [n.105], I understand it thus, that genus and difference are, in the case of some creatures, taken from one and another reality (as, by positing there to be several forms in man, animal is taken from the sensitive form and rational from the intellective form), and then the thing from which the genus is taken is truly potential and perfectible by the thing from which the difference is taken. Sometimes, when there is not there thing and thing (as in the case of accidents), at any rate there is in the one thing some reality from which the genus is taken and another reality from which the difference is taken; let the first be called a and the second b; a is in itself potential to b, so that, by understanding a precisely and b precisely, in the way a is understood in the first instant of nature - the instant in which it is precisely itself - it is perfectible by b (as if it were another thing), but the fact that it is not perfected really by b is because of the identity of a and b with some whole with which they are first really the same, and this whole is indeed what is first produced and in this very whole both those realities are produced; but if either of them were produced without the other, it would be truly potential to it and truly imperfect without it.

107. This composition of realities - of potential and actual - is the least that is sufficient for the idea of genus and difference, and it does not stand along with the fact that some reality is infinite in something; for if the reality were of itself infinite, however much it is precisely taken, it would not be in potency to any reality; therefore since in God any essential reality is formally infinite, there is none from which the idea of genus can formally be taken.

108. [Again from the idea of infinity] - Second, from the same middle [n.100], I argue as follows: the concept of a species is not only the concept of a reality and of a mode intrinsic to the same reality, because then whiteness would be a genus and the degrees of intrinsic whiteness could be the specific differences;64 but those things by which something common is contracted to God and creatures are the finite and infinite, which state intrinsic degrees of it;65 therefore the contracting things cannot be the differences, nor do they constitute with the contracted thing a composite composed in the way the concept of a species should be composed, nay the concept from such a contracted and contracting thing is simpler than the concept of a species could be.66

109. From these middles about infinity, the reasoning of Augustine stated above about ‘standing under the accidents’ [n.97] gets its evidence. Thence too does Avicenna’s reasoning get its evidence, in Metaphysics VIII ‘about the partial nature of genus’ touched on above [n.98], because a genus is never without some partial reality in the species, which reality cannot be in something really simple.

110. [From the idea of necessary existence] - I argue, third, from the second middle, namely from the idea of necessary existence [n.100], - and it is the argument of Avicenna Metaphysics VIII ch.4 (99rb): if necessary existence has a genus, then the intention of the genus will either be from necessary existence or not. If in the first way, “then it will only cease at the difference;” I understand this as follows: the genus will in that case include the difference, because without it the genus is not in ultimate act and ‘necessary existence of itself’ is in ultimate act (but if the genus includes the difference, then it is not the genus). If the second way be granted, then it follows that “necessary existence will be constituted by that which is not necessary existence.”67

111. But this reasoning [n.110] proves that necessary existence has nothing common with anything, because the common intention is ‘non-necessary existence’; hence I respond: the intention as understood includes neither necessity nor possibility, but is indifferent; but as to that in the thing which corresponds to the intention, it is in ‘this thing’ necessary existence, and in ‘that thing’ it is possible existence (this is rejected if to the intention of the genus a proper reality corresponds, and if it does not thus correspond to the common intention, - as is said [later, n.139].

112. [As to ‘whatever is said formally of God’] - As to that which is added in the question ‘about whatever is formally said of God’ [n.39], I say nothing such is in a genus,68 for the same reason [nn.95-111], that nothing which is limited is said formally of God; whatever is of some genus, in whatever way it is of that genus, is necessarily limited.

113. But then there is a doubt, as to what sort the predicates are which are said of God, such as wise, good,     etc .

I reply. Being is divided first into finite and infinite before it is divided into the ten categories, because one of them, namely ‘finite’, is common to these ten genera; therefore      anything that agrees with being as indifferent to the finite and infinite, or as proper to infinite being, agrees with being, not as it is determined to a genus, but as prior, and consequently as it is transcendent and outside every genus. Anything that is common to God and creatures is such as to agree with being as indifferent to the finite and infinite; for as it agrees with God it is infinite, - as it agrees with creatures, it is finite; therefore it agrees with being before being is divided into the ten genera, and consequently whatever is such is transcendent.

114. But then there is another doubt, as to how ‘wisdom’ is set down as transcendent although it is not common to all beings.

I reply. Just as the idea of ‘most general’ is not the having of several species under it but the not having any genus above it (just as this category ‘when’ - because it does not have a genus above it - is most general, although it has few or no species), so the transcendent is whatever has no genus under which it is contained. Hence it is of the idea of the transcendent to have no predicate above it save being; but the fact it is common to many inferiors is accidental to it.

115. This is plain from another fact, that being not only has simple properties convertible with it, - as one, true, good - but also it has some properties where there are opposites distinguished against each other, as necessary existence or possible existence, act or potency, and the like. But just as the convertible properties are transcendent, because they follow being insofar as it is not determined to any genus, so the disjunct properties are transcendent, and each member of the disjunct is transcendent because neither determines its determinable to a definite genus; and yet one member of the disjunct is formally specific, agreeing with only one being, - as necessary existence in this division ‘necessary existence or possible existence’, and as infinite in this division ‘finite or infinite’, and so on in other cases. Thus too can wisdom be transcendent, and anything else that is common to God and creatures, although some such be said of God only, and some other such be said of God and a creature. But it is not necessary that a transcendent, as transcendent, be said only of whatever being is convertible with the first transcendent, namely with being.69