Single Question. Whether this Proposition is true, ‘Only the Father is God’

1. That it is true:

Only God who is Father is God, therefore only the Father is God. - The antecedent is plain because only God who is Father is the Trinity. The inference is proved by taking a like case, because this follows: ‘only the animal that is man runs, therefore only man runs’.

2. Again, only God is the Father, therefore only the Father is God. The antecedent is plain from the expositors. The inference is proved by conversion of an exclusive proposition [sc. ‘only...’].Tr. If only a is b, then necessarily only b is a. ⁵⁷

3. Again, only God is God, therefore only the Father is God. - The proof of the inference is both that ‘God’ in the antecedent stands for a person (because it is indefinite), and that the antecedent implies each exponent of the consequent.Tr., from Vatican editors’ note to n.27 below: If the term ‘God’ in the first proposition, the antecedent, stands indefinitely for a person, then it is equivalent to ‘only some person who is God is God’, which is equivalent to ‘only the Father or only the Son or only the Holy Spirit who are God is God’, and so entails each exponent of the consequent, namely ‘only the Father is God’ and ‘only the Son is God’ and ‘only the Holy Spirit is God’. ⁵⁸

4. But the proof that an affirmative exponent is implied is that this inference follows, ‘only God is God, therefore every God is God’, and accordingly the Father is God; therefore a consequent that is an affirmative exponent follows.

5. This inference too holds, ‘only God is God, therefore no one other than God is God’, and the further inference, ‘therefore no one other than the Father is God’. - Proof of the inference: to argue ‘other than God, therefore other than the Father’ seems to be a fallacy; so if one argues in the same pattern negatively [sc. ‘other than God, therefore not other than the Father’] the argument will be good. Proof of the assumption, because if ‘other than God’ entailed ‘other than the Father’ this would be because the term of the relation of diversity [sc. ‘God’] was distributed [sc. taken wholly];Tr. Only if ‘God’ in ‘other than God’ is distributed or taken wholly, that is, as equivalent to ‘other than God altogether’, would the conclusion ‘other than the Father’ follow. For the Father is other than God in some sense, because he is other than God the Son, but the Father is not other than the Father. ⁵⁹ but it is not distributed, - the proof being that then every proposition would be false when the relative term in the diversity was predicated of something, to wit, any such proposition as ‘man is diverse or other’; for what is given here to be understood is the first of the correlatives of this relation [sc. ‘man’ as the first correlative of the relation ‘other’], and consequently the signification is that man is ‘other than something else’, and if the term of the relation [sc. ‘something else’] is distributed, the result is that man is ‘other than anything else whatever’ and so that he is ‘other than himself’.a

a [Note by Duns Scotus] Again, a negative that excepts something and an affirmative taken in exclusion of the excepted part are convertible; Matthew 11.27: “No one knows the Father but the Son,” [sc. which as converted to an affirmative will read ‘only the Son knows the Father’] -therefore only the Son knows, therefore only he is God. Again, On the Trinity VI ch.7: “The Father is as great as are the Father and the Son together;” therefore only the Father is so great, therefore only the Father is God. - To the first: ‘No one’ - no man; God is called ‘man’ (“he gave a marriage feast for his Son”, Matthew 22.2). Therefore let ‘common to God’ be taken, let ‘no God’ or ‘no intellectual being’ be taken so as to be a substantive, let ‘[no one] but the Father knows’ be conceded, - and thus no intellectual being other than the Father [knows], because ‘other’ indicates an otherness in the thing signified by its substantive [sc. here ‘the Father’]; thus universally, wherever there is a substantive common to the three persons, the proposition is true with ‘only’ and with ‘no one’.Tr. That is, the proposition ‘no one knows... but...’ can be repeated as to all three persons of the Trinity: no one knows the Son but the Father, no one knows the Holy Spirit but the Son, no one knows the Father but the Holy Spirit, etc. ⁶⁰,Tr. That is, the term ‘only’ is taken like a quantifier, such as ‘all’ or ‘no’, not like a term. So it is not taken as excluding the Son and Holy Spirit but as making ‘Father’ precise. ⁶¹ The response to the second is plain through the second: ‘only’ is

61 taken in a syncategorematic sense.

6. The opposite is plain from Augustine On the Trinity VI ch.9 n.10

I. To the Question

7. As to the question,a a distinction can be made (the way it is commonly, and well, made), that ‘only’ can be taken as categorematic and as syncategorematic.Tr. ‘Only’ as categorematic qualifies the noun, so that ‘only the Father.’ is equivalent to ‘the Father on his own’. ‘Only’ as syncategorematic qualifies the proposition, so that ‘only the Father.’ is equivalent to ‘the Father with exclusion of everything other than the Father.’ ⁶² For ‘only’ signifies the same as ‘not along with another’, as is plain from the Philosopher

Sophistical Refutations 2.22.178a39-b1. But this negation of association can be understood either to determine something in itself or in its nature, or to determine something as it is an extreme in composition relative to the other extreme, namely by denying that what is other than it is associated with it in receiving the predication of the relevant predicate. In the first way the word ‘only’ is not admitted in divine reality, because nothing is solitary there. In the second way the word is conceded whenever someone, of whom the same predicate is said, is not associated with the subject; so it is not conceded when the essential is predicated of the personal, because the essential belongs to the other excluded by the first extreme - and therefore such a proposition [sc. ‘only the Father is God’] is denied.Tr. The proposition ‘only the Father is God’ is false because it excludes the Son and the Holy Spirit from being God. But ‘God’, being an essential and not a personal name, belongs to all three persons. ⁶³

a [Note by Duns Scotus]The Vatican editors, in the Preface to this volume, point out that this note assumes that passages from the Reportatio are to be added. The note makes frequent reference to these passages and has to be understood in relation to them. ⁶⁴ There are three opinions as to this question:

     First opinion: the correlative is not excluded because it belongs to the understanding of what is included (response: not what this is, but to what or of what this is);Tr. That is, in ‘only the Father is God’ the correlative, or the Son, is not what the Father (the included) is, but to what or of what the Father is, as that the Son is not what the Father is but to what or of what the Father is the Father. ⁶⁵ again, this consequence holds: ‘only the Father is, therefore the Father is’, and further ‘therefore the Son is’ -therefore ‘the Son is’ is included, and consequently that he is God is included (deny the consequence, because they are opposites in the subject term.Tr. ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are opposed relatives in the subject term ‘God’. ⁶⁶ On the contrary: a syncategorematic term [sc. ‘only’] makes a disposition about the categorematic concept [sc. ‘the Father’];Tr. ‘Only’ determines the concept ‘Father’, but the concept ‘Father’ includes the concept ‘Son’ (for they are relatives), so ‘only’ does not exclude ‘Son’ from the subject term. ⁶⁷ again, it would rule out, in respect of any predicate, ‘only the Father is Father’.Tr. If one denies the consequence ‘only the Father is, therefore the Father is, therefore the Son is, therefore the Son is God (or wise or omnipotent etc.)’ on the grounds that ‘Father’ excludes ‘Son’, then one should, by parity of reasoning, rule out saying ‘only the Father is Father’ because this too, by rejecting the same sequence of inferences, will exclude ‘Son’ and so will exclude the Son’s being or being God or being wise or omnipotent etc. But it is absurd to rule out saying ‘only the Father is Father’. ⁶⁸ Therefore in another way: the correlative is formally excluded; thanks to the matter the predicate does not follow about the excluded correlative, because correlatives go together, and therefore opposites go together in the antecedentTr. ‘Only the Father is God’ is excluded, not because ‘Father’ does not include ‘Son’ (on the contrary it does), but because ‘only’ as applied to ‘Father’ excludes, not ‘Son’ from ‘Father’, but the application to ‘Son’ of the predicate ‘God’. ⁶⁹); again, when the accident is included the subject is not excluded (response: true about a concrete, because it is predicated of a subject; false about an abstract - hence

     ‘only... whiteness’ is contradictory).Tr. A suggestion about this puzzling remark: The claim being made is that to speak of an accident or property (e.g. wisdom) is to include and not exclude the subject whose property it is (e.g. a wise man). Thus to say ‘only the Father is God’ is to include ‘Son’ because ‘Son’ is also subject of ‘God’. Scotus’ response is that the subject is included when a property in the concrete is in question (as ‘wise’), but not when a property in the abstract is (as ‘wisdom’). Hence it is contradictory to say ‘whiteness’ includes a subject, because, as abstract, it is taken precisely as excluding a subject. In relation to ‘only the Father is God’, then, the point perhaps is that ‘God’ taken concretely or along with a subject always means one or other of the persons. But when it means the essence without reference to the personal subjects it is not taken concretely but, as it were, abstractly (as ‘God-ness’). So if ‘God’ is taken concretely in ‘only the Father is God’ then it includes the subject, that is, the person in question, and is equivalent to ‘only the Father is God the Father’, which is true and uncontroversial. But if ‘God’ is taken abstractly then ‘only the Father is God’ is equivalent to ‘only the Father is God-ness’, which is false if not indeed contradictory. ⁷⁰ - To the contrary, in three ways: Physics 1, “only the principle is” [n.13 below];Aristotle is arguing at this point in the Physics against Parmenides and Melissus, that if they say that only the principle is, then they are saying that what is from the principle is not. So the Philosopher thinks that to assert ‘only’ of one of a correlative pair (here the pair of ‘principle’ and ‘from a principle’) is to exclude, and not implicitly to include, the other correlative. ⁷¹ again, opposites are such that it is impossible for this one to be that one (any ‘not-this’ is excluded);Tr. ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are opposite relatives, and opposites exclude one opposite from being the other, so to say ‘only the Father...’ cannot be to include the Son implicitly. ⁷² again, the whole concept does not allow of being expressed, because nothing can be attributed precisely to a relation, not even a proper difference; still a relation can be understood.Tr. Relational terms, as ‘father-son’, do not have a strict conceptual definition, because neither relative can be defined in isolation from the other (as that one cannot define ‘father’ without mentioning the son relative to whom a father is father). But one can nevertheless understand relations and relatives. Hence it is not to the point to say that ‘only the Father.’, with ‘Father’ taken in its whole conceptual idea, implicitly includes the Son, because there is no whole conceptual idea of ‘Father’ in the first place and the ‘only’ attached to it has to be interpreted according to this feature of relative terms, that is, as excluding from the predicate the opposing relative (‘Son’) which its understanding nevertheless implicitly includes. ⁷³

     In another way: [the substantive is] one thing, [the adjective attaching to it] is another. -To the contrary: the adjective conforms to the substantive in its mode of signifying, therefore so does anything included in the adjective, and the same of the converse ‘no non-Father^ ’; the substantive states a whom, not a what.Tr. The other way of saving ‘only the Father is God’ is to say that ‘only’, taken as an adjective (as categorematic), signifies the Father as to deity, while the substantive ‘Father’ signifies the Father as to person. Hence ‘only the Father is God’ means something like ‘the Father only as to deity is God’, which does not exclude the Son from also being God. Scotus’ response is that if the substantive is taken personally, as signifying a ‘whom’ and not a ‘what’, the adjective attaching to it must be taken personally too. Hence ‘only the Father is God’ means ‘the person alone who is Father is God’, which does exclude the Son from being God. The response is confirmed by appealing to the converse of ‘only the Father’, namely ‘no non-Father’, because to say ‘no non-Father is God’ also clearly excludes the Son from being God. ⁷⁴

     In another way third: composition and division. - To the contrary, as argued above.A reference to Reportatio IA d.21 nn.27-30. And see n.14 below. Perhaps the point about composition and division is that if ‘only’ is taken as dividing Father from Son, the proposition is false; if it is taken as combining them (because they are said relatively to each other), it is true. Scotus’ response is doubtless that ‘only’ as used here excludes taking the proposition in a combined sense. ⁷⁵ Solution: ‘only’ - not along with another (Sophistical Refutations [n.7 above]). When ‘only’ is taken categorematically, ‘solitary’ is what is per se predicated. When taken syncategorematically it makes a disposition as to an extreme term in the intellect combining the terms, and it states the mode under which the extreme is taken in the combined proposition - but this in two ways: either to the extent that (as reduplicative) it states a disposition in relation to the predicate, because it states the per se reason for the inherence of the predicate, - or it states the formal reason according to which the subject is taken in itself, not that it is the formal reason for the inherence of the predicate. Thus the subject can be taken in itself precisely, and something can be said about the subject so taken, - in another way the subject can be taken precisely in its order to the predicate as the predicate is asserted of it; in the first way ‘only’ indicates that the subject is in itself precise, whatever may agree with it in respect of the predicate, - in the other way it indicates the subject precisely, whether the subject is precise in itself or not: taken in the first way is Augustine’s “so great is the Father only”, that is the Father precisely taken truly has the predicate “so great [is he]” (we speak like this in other cases: “You only will count for 10,000” is true; even if there are many other lords who would count for so many servants, yet ‘You’ precisely taken will so count, and yet not as solitary or on its own but as existing among others; hence ‘only’ here is not a categorical, because neither is it a predicable but a co-predicableTr. ‘Only’ in this case means ‘you by yourself count as so many, even if others also by themselves count as so many’; it does not mean ‘you alone and no one else count as so many’. ⁷⁶); taken in the second way Augustine’s proposition is false, as is proved above and by its consequences.Tr. In the second way ‘so great is the Father only’ means ‘only the Father is so great and not also the Son and Holy Spirit’, which is false. ⁷⁷

     But an instance is made in objection to the remark from On Interpretation [see n.11 below] by taking what is distinct ‘in the respect in which it is dependent’: this sequence is true, ‘only man or non-man is non-man, therefore nothing non-identical with man or non-man is nonman,’ - the inferences ‘therefore no non-man is non-identical with man or non-man, therefore no entity [sc. no man or non-man] is not identical [sc. with non-man], therefore every entity is identical [sc. with man]’, and ‘nothing non-identical with man or non-man is a non-man, therefore nothing non-identical with man or non-man is not a man’, these inferences do not hold, because then every such thing [sc. everything identical with man or non-man] is a man. - I concede the point; the inference from the negative to the affirmative in the case of a subject that includes contradictories is not valid; the term ‘non-identical with man or non-man’ is such a subject. This as to consistency in the subject term, namely that what is taken here on the part of the subject should be capable of being a subject, that is, should not include contradictories, because contradictories make no single term, Metaphysics 5 “what is in itself false is false of everything,” and so too every predicate is false of it, because it is repugnant to itself and to each of its parts. -To the contrary: to which affirmative is this negative reduced from such an antecedent (reduced to it enthymematically)? Response: to affirmatives about its parts.Tr. The negative statement ‘nothing non-identical with man or non-man is non-man’ should, like any negative, be reducible or convertible to an equivalent affirmative (according to the rules for obversion, as that ‘no a is b’ is equivalent to ‘all a is non-b’). Scotus’ answer is that it is reducible to two affirmatives, according to its two-fold and contradictory subject: ‘everything non-identical with man is non-man’ and ‘everything non-identical with non-man is man’. ⁷⁸

8. A clarification of these points - namely how a syncategorematic term disposes the extreme in the intellect as the intellect combines and divides it in respect of the other extreme, and how a syncategorematic term differs from a term of second intention [sc. a logical term], and how diverse syncategorematic determinations differ among themselves - would require a long treatise but, because of more useful and more necessary things, we should not delay over it.

9. The falsity of the proposed proposition [sc. ‘only the Father is God’] is also proved through the rule in the ‘Sophisms’, that ‘an exclusive affirmative entails a universal affirmative about the terms when they are transposed’ [Walter Burleigh, Longer Treatise on the Purity of the Art of Logic tr.2 p.3 subpart.1 ch.1]; therefore this proposition ‘only the Father is God’ entails this other ‘every God, or every divine person, is the Father’.

10. The rule is also proved by reason of exclusion, namely the exclusion that indicates precision in what it is added to with respect to the other extreme - or that indicates precise commensuration, namely that one extreme does not exceed the other; and this is what the universal affirmative ‘about the terms when they are transposed’ indicates, and especially in the case of common terms, where either extreme can be taken universally.

11. The rule is also logically proved by a single proposition that expresses the whole understanding of the exclusive term; for this proposition ‘only man is capable of laughter’, although it is commonly posited as having two exponents, is nevertheless sufficiently expounded by this one, ‘no non-man is capable of laughter’; from it there follows (by conversion) ‘nothing capable of laughter is a non-man’, and further that ‘    therefore nothing capable of laughter is not a man’ (through the rule, in On

Interpretation 2.10.95b-20b10,Vatican editors: This rule is not as such found in Aristotle but arises from two of the things he says. For he says first: “On the proposition ‘no man is just’ there follows the proposition ‘every man is nonjust;” he says second, “‘a non-just man is’ whose negation is ‘a non-just man is not’.” From the first of Aristotle’s statements this rule follows: ‘from a negative about a finite predicate there follows an affirmative about an infinite predicate’, and conversely ‘from an affirmative about an infinite predicate there follows a negative about a finite predicate’, from which finally there follows ‘man is non-just, therefore man is not just’. But according to the second of Aristotle’s statements, by adding ‘not’ to his first example, this sequence follows: ‘no man is non-just, therefore every man is not nonjust’; there also follows ‘therefore every man is just’ and ‘no man is not just’, because this sequence holds ‘man is non-just, therefore man is not just’, as has been said. ⁷⁹ ‘from a negative about an infinite predicate there follows an affirmative about a finite predicate and a negative about a denied predicate’, -which is proved by the first principle ‘an affirmation about anything whatever etc     .’ [Ord. prol n.89], and this in the case of simple predicates, because, when the consequence is denied, both opposites are denied of the same thing), and further ‘    therefore everything capable of laughter [sc. is a man]’ by equivalence - therefore from the first etc     .Vatican editors: “that is: therefore by running through from the first (‘only man is capable of laughter’) to the last (‘therefore everything capable of laughter is a man’), the rule [n.9] follows.” ⁸⁰

12. Here some people object that when one relative is included the other is not excluded, because the one is included in the understanding of the other [see note n.7], because ‘things posited are posited (and things taken away are taken away [Peter of Spain, Logical Summaries tr.3 n.21])’ and also relatives are ‘by nature together’ [Categories 7.7b15].

13. But this is contrary to the Philosopher’s intention in Physics 1.2.185a3-5 when he argues there: “If only the principle is, then what is from the principle is not.” Therefore a correlative is not included in the understanding of its relative as something belonging to it (to wit as an essential or integral part), but as something to which the understanding of it is determined - and such is diverse enough from what is included in the relative that it has as much diversity as is required for being excluded from it.

II. To the Principal Arguments

14. To the first argument [n.1]. The antecedent [sc. ‘Only God who is Father is God’] is distinguished into a composite and a divided sense, as with ‘every man who is white runs’.Tr. The composite sense of ‘every man who is white runs’ is ‘every white man runs’; the divided sense is ‘every man runs - and it just so happens, as an independent fact, that every man is white’. ⁸¹ The composite sense is false, because in that case ‘God’ is made to stand for the Father, through the implied ‘who is Father’, just as ‘man’ is made to stand for white man in the composite sense in ‘man who is white’ - and then the inference [sc. ‘only God who is Father is God, therefore only the Father is God’] holds. The divided sense is true because then two predicates are asserted of the same subject, of which subject both predicates are true, namely of God that ‘he is Father’ and that ‘he is God’ (as if the two predications were made in two categorical propositions joined to each other by ‘and’, neither of which propositions would specify the other), and then an inference from the inferior term to the higher [sc. from ‘Father’ to ‘God’], along with exclusivity [sc. ‘only the Father is God’],Tr. ‘Only God is Father’ (where the addition to ‘only God’ of ‘who is Father’ is divided off) is true, but it does not entail ‘only the Father is God’. The divided sense does not allow an inference from person to nature (from ‘Father’ to ‘God’), which would exclude the other persons, the Son and Holy Spirit, from also being God. ⁸² is false.a

a [Note by Duns Scotus] The inference can be allowed to be absolutely true in both senses, because the term ‘God’ is not contracted [sc. as a universal to a singular]; it is a ‘this’ [‘this God’ or ‘this deity’, see n.31 below].Tr. The inference ‘therefore only the Father is God’ can be allowed to be true whether the antecedent ‘only God who is Father is God’ is taken in a composite or divided sense. For ‘only the Father is God’ does not mean ‘only the Father, and not the Son or Holy Spirit, is God’ as if ‘God’ were a universal term under which only the singular instance ‘Father’ was contained. Rather it means ‘only the Father is this God’, where ‘this God’ means the Trinitarian God. Hence whether ‘only God who is the Father’ is taken in the composite or the divided sense the inference that he is this God, namely the Trinitarian God, remains true. ⁸³

15. And if you object that a like inferenceVatican editors: e.g. ‘only the animal that is man is rational, therefore only man is rational’. ⁸⁴ holds of creatures in the divided sense, I reply:

If the same common thing - a numbered thing - may belong to several particulars under it, that inference does not hold in the divided sense; for it holds precisely because the animal that is rational, taken in the divided sense, is not other than the animal that is rational taken in the composite sense; but in the issue at hand the reasoning does not hold, because the same God who is Father in the composite sense is the Son who is distinct from the Father, and so the God who is Father in the divided sense can be asserted truly of anything of which he is not asserted in the composite sense; but it is not so with the animal that is man, because this is truly predicated in the divided sense of nothing of which the same is not truly predicated in the composite sense (but not conversely), and so the predication is made indifferently in this case - not so in the case of God.

16. However, just as the antecedent is distinguished into a composite and divided sense, so some also distinguish the principal proposition in like manner, as if this proposition ‘only the Father is God’ could have a false composite sense and a true divided sense - adducing the remark of Priscian Constructions 2 (or Grammatical Instruction 18) ch.1 nn.6-7, that ‘_who is’ falls in the middle between a qualified and a qualifying term.Vatican editors: “Some say [such as Richard of Middleton] that, according to Priscian, in every conclusion where there is a noun and a qualifying adjective a ‘who is’ is always understood as the copula by which the construction is expressed, as in ‘a white man runs’, that is, ‘a man who is white runs’. So in the proposition here [‘only the Father is God’], if it is divided thus, ‘only the Father, who is God, is God’, it is true, but in the composite sense [sc. ‘only the Father-God is God’] it is false.” Priscian ch.1 nn.6-7: “But there are occasions when, by an ellipsis of a verb or participial substantive, a construction of the following sort is wont to be made in these sorts of grammatical cases (that is, the nominative case along with the oblique cases): ‘Achilles the son of Peleus killed many Trojans in battle’; for the participle of a verb for the substantive is implicitly understood, namely ‘being’ [sc. ‘Achilles being the son of Peleus’], but we do not now use it, and in its place we can say or understand ‘[Achilles] who is’ or ‘who was’ the son of Peleus. Likewise with other cases following a nominative, the aforesaid participle, or things taken for it, must be understood with the nominative: ‘an agreeable friend is going with me’, that is, ‘a friend who is agreeable to me’.” Also ch.2 n.27: “And in all these cases, even oblique ones, a ‘who is’ is understood: as ‘of a horse white in color’ (that is ‘of the horse which is of white color’), ‘for a horse white in color’ ‘toward a horse white in color’.” ⁸⁵

17. But this is neither logically nor grammatically said.

Not logically, because then nothing could be limited or determined by any term of limitation or determination; for however immediately any categorematic or syncategorematic determination is added to something (as ‘a white man runs’ or ‘every white man runs’), there would still be space to distinguish, as here, a composite and a divided sense, and so on ad infinitum - nor could any sense be determinately conceived or expressed.Tr. If any qualification or adjective, categorematic or syncategorematic, added to a noun is an implicit relative clause (as that ‘white man’ is implicitly ‘a man who is white’, or that ‘only men’ is implicitly ‘only those who are men’), so that all qualified nouns admit of a divided and a composite sense, then, however closely one tied the adjective to a noun so as to express the composite sense and exclude the divided sense (as, say, ‘white-man’ or ‘white-man man’), the result would itself admit of a composite and divided sense (as ‘man who is white-man’), and so on ad infinitum. Consequently, one would never be able to disambiguate any statement as composite instead of divided, and so one would never be able to express or conceive anything determinate. ⁸⁶ Nor did the Philosopher [Sophistical Refutations 1.4.162a6-38] teach that there was in such cases a multiplicity according to composition and division, but only in those cases where the same materials create, when composed and divided, a diversity of senses; but these materials ‘every man runs’ create - when composed and divided - no difference of sense, nor can they be divided, because syncategorematic terms [sc. here ‘every’] only have a signification along with the categorematic term [sc. here ‘man’]; but it is otherwise with ‘he sees that I am running now’, as one combines the adverb ‘now’ either with the preceding or the following verb [sc. ‘he now sees that I am running’ or ‘he sees that I am now running’].

Neither even is it grammatically said, because ‘qualified’ and ‘qualifier’ are called construables of the sort that one of them is said by Priscian to govern the other by some force of grammar; but a syncategorematic term is not construable with respect to a categorematic term as if one of them ruled the other by some force of grammar, and therefore although an implied relative falls in the middle in the case of ‘Socrates’ cloak’ (that is, ‘the cloak which is of Socrates’), yet it does not do so in the case of ‘white man’ or ‘every man’.

18. To the second [n.2] I say that neither the conversion [sc. ‘only God is the Father’ to ‘only the Father is God’] nor the inference [sc. ‘only God is the Father, therefore only the Father is God’] holds, but there is a fallacy of the consequent, because - as was proved in the solution to the question [n.9] - an exclusionary proposition [sc. ‘only...’] is convertible with a universal affirmative proposition ‘about the terms when transposed’ [sc. ‘only man runs’ is equivalent to ‘everything that runs is a man’];a therefore to infer an exclusionary proposition from an exclusionary proposition ‘about the terms when transposed’ [sc. to infer ‘only the Father is God’ from ‘only God is the Father’] is equivalent to inferring a universal affirmative from a universal affirmative ‘about the terms when transposed’ [sc. inferring ‘all B is A’ from ‘all A is B’]; but in such an inference of a universal from a universal there is a fallacy of the consequent, as in the case of ‘all men are animals, therefore all animals are men’, by affirming from higher to lower [sc. by affirming the predicate, the higher term, universally of the subject, the lower term]

19. So it is of the issue at hand [sc. ‘only God is the Father, therefore only the Father is God’]. There is a proof too, because the procedure with distribution - by the force of the words - is always from the inferior [sc. the subject] to the superior [sc. the predicate]; for the predicate of a universal affirmative is not marked as being convertible, but stands as it were superior to the subject; therefore from the distribution of the such a universal subject the distribution of the predicate with respect to the same thing does not follow, nor can the distribution of the predicate follow with respect to something if the distribution of the predicate does not follow with respect to what is superior to that something. Arguing then like this, ‘all b is a, therefore all a is b’ is the fallacy of the consequent, because from the distribution of a term that is marked as lower the distribution of the superior term does not follow (the same too in respect of a predicate marked as lower to a superior one), but it is the fallacy of the consequent, as if one were to argue, ‘every man is an animal, therefore every animal is Socrates’.

20. But when proof is given of the inference by the conversion of an exclusionary proposition [n.2, ‘only God is the Father, therefore only the Father is God’], I reply:

Not every inference ‘when the terms are transposed’ is conversion simply, namely a conversion that indicates as great a union of terms when it is converted as could be had by virtue of the first [unconverted] proposition; hence a universal negative is not converted to a particular negative ‘when the terms are transposed’, although it implies it. Tr. The universal negative ‘no A is B’ converts simply to ‘no B is A’, but it implies also the particular form, ‘some B is not A’. ⁸⁷

21. As to the issue at hand I say that that proposition ‘when the terms are transposed’, which receives only as much of the understanding of the exclusionary affirmative as any proposition can receive ‘when the terms are transposed’, is the universal affirmative, as was proved in the second reason for the principal solution [n.9];

therefore such an exclusionary affirmative is converted to a universal affirmative, and contrariwise, by parity of reasoning, a universal affirmative is converted to an exclusionary affirmative.Tr. That is, ‘only man runs’ (an exclusionary affirmative) converts to ‘all that runs is a man’ (a universal affirmative with transposed terms), and contrariwise, ‘every man runs’ converts to ‘only what runs is a man’. ⁸⁸

22. And if you object ‘therefore Aristotle was mistaken and incomplete in his teaching about the conversions [of propositions], by not teaching that the universal affirmative is to be converted to an exclusionary affirmative’,Vatican editors: Aristotle only taught that the universal affirmative, ‘all A is B’, was to be converted to the particular affirmative, ‘some B is A’, Prior Analytics 1.2.25a28-29. ⁸⁹ I reply that he taught the conversions with a view to making perfect the imperfection of the imperfect syllogisms;Tr. Imperfect syllogisms are those in the second figure (A is B, C is B, therefore A is C) and third figure (B is A, B is C, therefore A is C). They are made perfect by being reduced, through conversion of propositions, to forms of the first figure (A is B, B is C, therefore A is C). ⁹⁰ but an exclusionary proposition would, in completing an imperfect syllogism, occupy no other place than some non-exclusionary indefinite proposition would occupy, because it entails no conclusion other than what was already entailed in the imperfect syllogism; and so Aristotle was, in teaching about conversions, correct and complete as far as was necessary for his intention there.Tr. Converting a universal affirmative, all A is B, to its exclusionary affirmative, only B is A, is to do the same as converting it to a particular affirmative, some B is A, so it does no more to reduce imperfect syllogisms to perfect ones than that particular affirmative is already doing. Therefore Aristotle had no need to introduce it in this context. ⁹¹

23. To the third [n.3, ‘only God is God, therefore only the Father is God’] I say that from a negative proposition expounding the antecedent [sc. ‘none other than God is God’] a negative expounding the consequent [sc. ‘none other than the Father is God’] does not follow.

24. When it is proved on the ground that ‘the inference “other than God, therefore other than the Father” does not follow’, I deny it, because that inference is good.

25. And when proof is further given that [n.5] ‘the term of this relation of diversity is not distributed because then there would be an incompossibility in asserting such a relative term of anything’, I reply that in all relatives involving equivalence the common genus, when taken by itself - as it is common -, is not in relation to anything, because, from the fact that it is common, it abstracts from all related terms or terms of relations, and there is no real relation save of a distinct thing to a distinct thing; but if the common genus were in relation as such to something, then one would have to give for it some ‘thus related’ distinct term, and so it would not be related to anything of the same idea as the particular related thing, but it would be related to something of a different idea. Such a relative then is only related to a particular contained under it, just as the like is not as ‘like in general’ related to the like but as some particular under the like in general, which something can be distinguished from the like that it is related to; the same is true of the different; for the different is not related to a different thing in general as to its first correlative (as if there were two first extremes in the relation and each extreme was the most common genus for any particular different), but the different is different from this different.

26. And if you object that a relative gives to understand first its own common correlative, I reply:

The correlative is not its correlative ‘as something common’ unless it is taken for some particular under the common, as which particular it can be distinguished from the related term. There exists an example of this fact in real things, because if the whole nature of fire existed in one individual, that individual could not generate fire (because if it could, then it would generate another fire in which the whole nature of fire would exist, and there would as it were be two species of fire, which is impossible), and yet, as it is now, the nature in one individual fire is the principle of generating fire, because it has enough unity for being an active principle and enough distinctness [sc. enough distinctness as this individual fire to be capable of generating another distinct individual fire]. So it is here in the present case: likeness is indeed a principle in something for forming a relation, or being the term of a relation, but it neither forms nor is a term unless it is taken for a distinct thing in which it may exist, such that neither unity nor distinctness is accidental but both are essential in respect of such a relation, just as was said in the question ‘About Circumincession’ [d.19 n.62]; for ‘not other than God, therefore not other than the Father’ does not follow (however in the affirmative the inference is good [n.24], by reason of the distribution of the term in the relation), because of the negation included in the idea of otherness.Tr. Sc. ‘not other than God, therefore not other than the Father’ is equivalent to ‘not not-God, therefore not not-Father’, which is equivalent to ‘God, therefore Father’, which is false of the Son and the Holy Spirit ⁹²

27. To the other proof, when it is said ‘only God, therefore only the Father or only the Son’ [n.3, and footnote], the response is that the subject of an exclusionary proposition [e.g. ‘only God’] can be taken in comparison to the exclusion or to the predicate; in the first way it is has simple supposition, for exclusion is made by it because of what is signified; in the second way it has personal supposition, because the predicate is attributed to it as to a supposit.Tr. Simple supposition is when a term is taken as to its meaning (a dog is a species of animal), and personal supposition is when the term is taken as to the thing it signifies (dogs run). So in the case of ‘only God is God’, if the subject term is taken in simple supposition the proposition is about the meaning of the term ‘God’ and not about the persons, so nothing follows about the persons. If the subject is taken in personal supposition, then it means ‘only the Father is God’ or ‘only the Son is God’ or ‘only the Holy Spirit is God’, and this way of speaking was rejected above in n.7. ⁹³

28. Against this: one extreme in one act of combining and dividing has one idea according to which it is taken in respect of the other extreme, because diverse ways of taking the same extreme in respect of the same other extreme do not seem to cohere with unity of combining act.

29. And if it be said that, in respect of exclusion, the extreme supposits under one idea, and that as taken under exclusion in respect of the predicate it supposits under another idea, - on the contrary: the subject does not supposit in respect of its own disposition but in respect of the predicate, and so it does precisely have the supposition [sc. personal supposition] that, as taken under its own disposition, it is understood to have in respect of the predicate.

30. Therefore I say that the subject of an exclusionary affirmative supposits only confusedly, just as does the predicate of a universal affirmative (which is proved from the fact that they are convertible, and because to give, in respect of the same extreme existing in the same way, a distributive argument on the part of the other extreme from a confused to a distributive supposition, is the fallacy of figure of speech), and one is not permitted to proceed downwards under a term that so stands - namely confusedly.Tr. If the subject term supposits confusedly (not determinately to this or that supposit) then one may not descend to such a determinate supposit. So here, because ‘only God’ in ‘only God is God’ supposits for the persons confusedly, one may not proceed from it to the determinate ‘only the Father is God’. To do so is to commit the fallacy of figure of speech, because it is to move from ‘God’ in simple supposition to ‘God’ in personal supposition. ⁹⁴

31. However, one could also say that in the proposition in question things are otherwise than they are in creatures, namely because ‘God’ under exclusion [sc. ‘only God’] stands for ‘this God’, who is common to the three persons (which response was touched on in d.4 nn.11-13), and for this God the subject there, ‘God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit’, stands; and this point could also be valid by d.30 qq.1-2, that he [sc.

God as this God] is the subject to which action in respect of creatures first belongs (because he is ‘this God’, as he is God ‘by this deity’, without understanding any personal property), although every predicate which is true of this predicate [sc. the predicate ‘acting in respect of creatures’] is true of the Father per se, yet not only of the Father but of the Son and Holy Spirit too.Tr. In other words ‘only God is the Father’ could be maintained if it is understood to mean ‘only this God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’. ⁹⁵