B. Second Opinion

174. [Exposition of the opinion] - There is another position [Henry of Ghent’s],Scotus again quotes, somewhat freely, from Henry. ⁸³ which says that “the divine essence absolutely considered, insofar as it is a nature or essence, has no distinction of reasons save as it were in potency, - for the Commentator says Metaphysics XII com.39 that ‘the multiplicity of reasons in God is only in the intellect alone, not in reality’; but the divine essence considered, not in itself, but insofar as it is truth - insofar namely as it has existence in the intellect - can be taken in two ways, either insofar as it moves the intellect as by simple intelligence, and thus it is still conceived by reason of its simplicity and does not have any plurality save as it were in potency, - or insofar as the intelligence, after this apprehension, busies itself about the very plurality of the attributes, as if reducing them from potency to act. In the first way [sc. the divine essence absolutely considered] the natural intellect does not attain it but then only perceives it from attributes conceived from creatures,” according to this opinion; “in the second way [sc. the first way of taking the divine essence considered as it is truth] the blessed intellect grasps it as if in the first action of understanding; in the third way [sc. the second way of taking the divine essence considered as it is truth] the same intellect [sc. the blessed intellect] combining as it were and dividing, and the divine intellect in a single, simple intuition, distinguish the reasons contained in the essence, which essence contains, of its supreme perfection, all the perfections simply that are, by the sole operation of the intellect, to be distinguished.”

175. “These reasons of the attributes, which the intellect forms from the simple essence through diverse conceptions, are only respects founded in the essence (because simplicity prevents the concept of several attributes within it), and they are several concepts, lest the concepts be synonymous, and lest they be empty in the essence, but they are not outward respects” (as was proved [nn.167-171]), “but inward ones. Thus all the divine attributes pertain to the intellect or will, and they mutually regard each other inwardly insofar as they all - these and those - fall, by congruence, under the apprehension of the intellect; this intellect firstly conceives, in a simple intelligence, the essence as it is essence, and then, busying itself about it, conceives it as understood and as understanding and as the reason of understanding, - such that the essence, insofar as it is essence, has a respect to the other things as they are founded in it; but the essence as conceived, and as moving the intellect to understand, is called truth, whose proper reason is that it have a respect to the essence, insofar as it is essence, as being that of which it is clarificatory, and to the intellect as that to which it has to clarify it, and to the act of understanding as that by which it has to clarify it, and to wisdom as the habit in which the intellect is fit to have a clarification made to it. But the essence itself, as it is conceptive of itself by an act of understanding, is the intellect, and it has a respect to truth as that through which the essence which is conceived is made manifest,” - and likewise of the act, etc. - Thus too about the attributes pertaining to the will.

176. “From the supreme unity of the essence, in ordered manner, according to the mode of conceiving, the diverse reasons of the attributes are first conceived (and among these attributes there is still order, according as they are more immediately or more mediately ordered to the emanations), next the emanations are conceived, and there an inward stand is made, and finally there follow all the outward respects, which are per accidens; but just as the distinction of real relations is to what corresponds to them, so too is the distinction of relations of reason to what corresponds to them, and wholly inwardly, according to the argument that was made for this part [sc. that the relations of reason are inward only].”

177. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this opinion there is argument through the reasons I adduced against the first opinion [nn.167-176], - first, by the third reason, because it is against them [sc. the followers of Henry, n.169]: the distinction of the attributal perfections is the foundation with respect to the distinction of the emanations, -but the distinction of the emanations is real, as is clear; but no real distinction necessarily pre-requires a distinction which is only one of reason, just as neither does anything that is truly real pre-require something else that is merely a being of reason; therefore the distinction of attributes is not one of reason only but is in some way from the nature of the thing. - The assumption is plain, because a real being, which is distinguished against a being of reason, is that which has existence of itself, setting aside all work of the intellect as it is intellect; but whatever depends on a being of reason, or pre-requires it, cannot have existence when all work of the intellect has been set aside; therefore nothing that pre-requires a being of reason is a truly real being.

178. A confirmation of this reason is that what is naturally posterior cannot be more perfect than a being that is naturally prior; but real being is more perfect than a being which is a being of reason only [sc. therefore a real being cannot be posterior to a being of reason].

Although this reason is sufficient against one who holds the opinion, yet it is necessary to confirm it for the conclusion in itself [nn.180-181; the conclusion is that attributes are distinguished in the nature of the thing,].

179. Let it be said to it that the attributes are not the foundations of the distinct emanations,Note by Scotus: “This response is rejected in distinction 13, by argument against the third opinion [I d.13 q. un n.5].” ⁸⁴ nay the essence alone along with the relations is the principle of the diverse emanations; yet the intellect can afterwards consider the essence itself as it is, along with the relations, principle of this and that emanation, and then can consider the idea of nature and of will, and yet these will not there be prior from the nature of the thing.

180. On the contrary: in the instant of origin in which the Son is generated, I ask whether his productive principle is related to him in a way other than the productive principle of the Holy Spirit is related to him, or not in another way. If not in another way, then the Son is not more son or image of the Father by force of his production than the Holy Spirit is, - if in another way, then in those moments of origin, before all act of the intellect, some distinction and formal non-identity is obtained.

181. Nor is it valid to attribute this distinction to the relations, because every relation has a respect naturally to its correlatives; therefore the essence, as it is under the idea of inspiriting, equally has a respect to the inspirited, just as under the idea of generative it has a respect to the generated or the begotten. The different modes, then, of producing - naturally and freely - cannot there be saved by the relations, but only if the absolute, by which the producer produces, is of a different idea.

182. This point [that the attributes are distinguished in the nature of the thing] is also argued against this position by yet another of their reasons, about the objects of true and good [n.170] - because if ‘from eternity God, of his immateriality, understands himself and wills himself’, and this under the idea of true and good, then there is there a distinction of true and good by reason of formalities in the objects, before every act about such objects.

183. This is also confirmed by their argument about beatitude [nn.174-176], which belongs to God from the nature of the thing before every act of busying intellect, because the act of being busy about something is not formally beatific; but that beatitude (as is said) requires the proper idea of object and of power and of the one operating;     therefore etc     .

184. However the position [of Henry’s] is expounded in this way, that we can speak about the relation that the object makes in the intellect of itself, or about that which the intellect can make by busying itself about the object;Note 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’.” ⁸⁵ if we speak of the first, it is single, as it is also single in reality, - and this the opinion in itself said, that it has, as it is in the intelligence by an act of simple knowledge, the idea altogether of something indistinct [n.174]; if in the second way, thus the intellect can form about that one idea of the object many distinct ideas, comparing this to that, - and this likewise the opinion said, that the object, as it is in the intellect busying itself, has distinct ideas, quasi-formed about it [nn.174-175]. Yet this exposition adds - which the opinion in itself does not seem to say - that the one idea in itself is formally truth and goodness, and any perfection simply, and that the one idea, which is made in the intellect by virtue of the object, is also the idea of goodness formally and of truth,     etc . The opinion in itself, however, seems to say that they state diverse respects founded in the essence.

185. Because, therefore     , the said opinion [nn.174-176] can be understood in diverse ways, besides the arguments already made, I append other reasons, - and first I show that truth and goodness are formally in the thing, as well as any perfection simply, before all work of the intellect; because any perfection simply is formally in a simply perfect being from the nature of the thing; truth is formally a perfection simply, and goodness likewise;     therefore etc     .

The major is plain, first because otherwise there would not be a simply perfect thing, because there would not be ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [I d.2 n.137] (for a greater than it would be thought if it were perfect thus and so), second because otherwise perfection simply would exist perfectly in nothing (for there is no perfection perfectly in a creature, because it exists there finitely, nor is there any perfection perfectly in God if it is not in him as existing but only as known, because ‘to be known’ is to exist in diminished fashion in contradistinction to something existent), then third because perfection simply in something would exist formally by participation and would not exist formally in that from which it would be participated (nay, such perfection in the participant would not be by participation of the perfection in its cause, because there is nothing on which participation in something existent depends save something existent), all which - namely all these inferred results - seem absurd. - The minor is plain, because otherwise Anselm would not posit such things in God, because according to him, Monologion ch. 15, nothing such should be posited in God which is not ‘better existing than not existing’, and hence a perfection simply. The same minor is also plain because anything such can be formally infinite; infinity is repugnant to anything that is not a perfection simply;     therefore etc     .Note 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].” ⁸⁶

186. Further, I prove that such perfections in the nature of the thing do not, before the work of the intellect, have formal identity; because the intellect can by its own act only cause a relation of reason, from the fact, namely, that it is a collative virtue, able to confer this thing as known to that. I ask then whether truth states precisely the perfection which is in the thing formally, or precisely the relation made by the intellect, or both? If precisely the relation of reason, then truth is not a perfection simply, because no relation of reason can be infinite; for if a real relation - as paternity - is not formally infinite, how much less so the relation of reason. If both, since they are not one save per accidens - because a relation of reason never makes with a real being something one per se (as is plain, because it makes one thing much less with a real being than a property does with the subject; for a property follows the subject from the idea of the subject, but no being of reason follows a real being from the idea of it) - then separate those two things apart that come together in this being per accidens, and it then follows that truth always states precisely that perfection in the thing, and goodness likewise; and then further, since there is no distinction in the thing, whether according to the opinion or according to the exposition of the opinion [nn.174-176, 184], it follows that goodness and truth are formally synonymous (which they themselves deny [n.175]), because they would state the same perfection as it is a perfection in the thing, as was proved [just above at “then separate...”], and without any distinction of thing or of reason.

187. Further, the intuitive intellect has no distinction in the object save according to what is existent, because just as it does not know any object save as existent, so it does not know any things formally distinct in the object save as it is existent. Since, therefore, the divine intellect does not know its own essence save by intuitive intellection, whatever distinction is posited there in the object - whether of distinct formal objects or as of reasons caused by an act of intellect [sc. the two ways of taking Henry’s opinion, his and the expositor’s] - it follows that this distinction will be in the object as it is actually existent; and so, if this distinction is of distinct formal objects in the object, those distinct objects will be formally distinct (and then the intended proposition follows, that such distinction of formal objects precedes the act of the intellect), but if it is of reasons caused by an act of understanding, then the divine intellect will cause some intellection in the essence ‘as a relation of reason’, as it is existent, which seems absurd.

188. Again, there is an argument against the exposition [n.184], - that if only one real concept is of a nature to be had about any object, nothing causes a real concept of the object unless it causes that one concept; but about the divine essence, according to them, only one real concept is of a nature to be had, because the divine essence is only of a nature to make one real concept (but it is of a nature to make any real concept that can be had of it, otherwise it would be a more imperfect intelligible than is any created intelligible, which created intelligible indeed is causative of every real concept that can be had of it); therefore nothing will cause in the intellect any concept of God unless it make that single concept, and so since the creature cannot cause that concept in the intellect - because the concept is of the divine essence as the essence is a ‘this’, in itself, under its proper idea - it follows that by no action of a creature can any natural concept be had of God in this life [n.55].

189. Further, against the opinion in itself, because if these things [the attributes] are distinguished in some way or other by reason, they are not distinguished by the nature of the thing, but by an act of intellect or will. From this I argue: a distinction preceding the idea of the first distinguishing thing is not made by such a distinguishing thing; but a distinction between nature and intellection, or between will and intellection, precedes intellection, which is the distinguishing principle of things which are distinguished by reason; therefore the distinction between nature and intellection, or between intellection and will, will not be made by intellection.The 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. ⁸⁷ - The assumption is plain. For if no distinction of them were to precede, these [attributes] would not be distinguished more by intellection than by nature or will; but whatever is distinguished by intellection, as it is altogether indistinct from nature, is also distinguished by nature; for whatever belongs to a as it is in every way indistinct from b, belongs to b itself, - the opposite seems to involve a contradiction.

190. And if it be said, as if despising this argument [189] (perhaps by precaution, because of the defect of the reply), that if there were, per impossibile, intellection alone, by itself, it would do the distinguishing, not nature or will, - this response is not sufficient, because however much certain things are per impossibile separated, if, when they are separated, something belongs to one and not to another, this cannot be except because of some formal distinction of the reason of this one from the reason of that one. Therefore if, per impossibile, with these things separated, a distinction would belong to intellection and not to nature, there is some distinction ‘between this reason and that’ even when they are not separated; for, after white and white are per impossibile separated, you will not be able to have it that white is the cause of something without white being the cause of the same thing, because there is no distinction between white and white; hence, there would never be a fallacy of accident here, ‘these attributes are distinguished by intellection, intellection is nature, therefore they are distinguished by nature’, unless the idea of intellection were extraneous to the idea of nature, insofar as they are compared to a third thing; therefore that extraneity precedes ‘any distinction’ of this idea from that, insofar as they are compared to a third, and it [sc. the idea of intellection or of nature] precedes the distinction of the ideas between themselves.