F. Sixth Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

30. In another way it is posited that they are distinguished by principles distinct in reason, namely by nature and will, which have to be principles of distinct emanations, -and yet these [sc. principle, nature, will] are not distinguished in the essence save by reason alone [sc. according to Henry], as was proved in the question ‘On attributes’ in distinction 8 [I d.8 nn.174-176].

2. Rejection of the Opinion

31. Against this: a real distinction does not necessarily require first a distinction of reason; but the distinction of these emanations for you necessarily requires first a distinction of elicitive principles; therefore if this distinction [sc. of emanations] is real, it is not distinct only through a distinction of reason alone [I d.8 n.177].

32. The major of this reason [n.31] is denied by some, and an instance is posited about ideas, which only differ in reason while creatures differ really, - and yet the real distinction of creatures necessarily presupposes a distinction of reason in the ideas.

33. There is an argument against this objection [n.32] - and first the major is proved [n.31], and second the instance [n.32] is excluded.

34. The major is proved according to this understanding, that a difference of reason in the cause will not be the proper reason for a real distinction in the effect.

[First proof of the major] - Because if it is [sc. if a difference of reason in the cause is the proper reason for a real difference in the effect], let the cause be a, and let the diverse reasons under which it causes be b and c; but let the things caused be d and e. Then as follows: if b and c are the proper reasons for a insofar as it causes d and e, then a is, insofar as it is under b, the proper cause of d, - for if not, ‘this difference’ is no more a distinct reason for causing than if the difference did not exist, because neither reason [sc. neither b nor c] is the proper cause appropriating this cause to this effect; anyone then who concedes that the cause, insofar as it is under b and c, causes d and e, has to concede that each reason is the proper reason of the cause with respect to its proper effect. But this consequent is false, that ‘a insofar as it is under b is the proper cause of d’, because a being, insofar as it is under b - which is only a being of reason -, has being only in the intellect, because a being of reason is not caused by the object save insofar as it is known, and it has, as such, being only in the intellect, because it is a diminished being, from Metaphysics 6.4.1027b25-1028a2. But nothing, insofar as it is a diminished being, is the proper reason of a true being and the proper cause of a perfect being; and the proof of this is that everything that causes a true being must have some being of existence, insofar as it is cause; but a diminished being, namely which is known being, does not have being of real existence; therefore neither can it, insofar as it is such, be the proper cause of any real being.

35. And if you say that although it does not have the being of existence, yet it does have the being of existence of the intellect in which it is, because it participates in the ‘being of the intellect’ insofar as it has being in the intellect, - on the contrary: from this it follows that no causation belongs to known being, insofar as it is such, save in virtue of the actual existence of the intellect itself, in which it has the being of actual existence in a certain respect; and then the will, further, will not be the principle of inspiriting save insofar as it participates the idea of the intellect, and then the divine intellect will be the reason of the inspiriting rather than the will; and thus it follows further that the intellect with respect to the generation of the Word will be a double principle, namely immediate, insofar as it is a productive principle, - and mediate insofar as it is the operative principle, through whose operation it has being insofar as it is productive, just as a known thing, insofar as it is known, has participated being in its knower. But if you do not attribute such real action to the existent intellect itself but to the object that has diminished being in the intellect, - it follows that there would be a real action of a thing that ‘is no less such than if it altogether did not exist’, for it is not repugnant to anything to be a known being although it have in itself no true and real being.

36. If it be said here that the divine intellect knows nothing here save intuitively, and thus that which has being known in the intellect - insofar as it is such - has the being of true existence, but it does not have such being as is being known in abstractive intellect or cognition (of which sort is my intellection of a rose that does not now exist, which is not intuitive intellection), - on the contrary: the reason that is posited as proper to a principle, insofar as it is a principle, is posited as being caused by an act of intellect in a known object; but the divine intellect causes nothing in the divine essence as it is existent (as they concede about the opposite opinion, that there is no difference there of reasons in the essence as it is existent but only as it is known), and it is per se plain, because whatever is in the essence as it is existent would exist in it if per impossibile there were no intellect busying itself about it.

37. [Second proof of the major] - Further, second: the divine essence, as it is in the Son and the Holy Spirit, naturally has some priority to the simple intellection of the essence; for just as the essence is of a nature ‘as it is in the Father’ to move the intellect of the Father to simple intellection of itself, so it is of a nature ‘as it is in the Son’ to move any intellect to simple intellection of itself, because according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.14 n.23 “the Father sees everything in the Son as in himself.” But if the essence ‘as it is in the Son’ has such priority as regard the simple intellection of itself, then ‘as it is in the Son’ it precedes every idea that the intellect can, by busying itself, construct about it; therefore no idea constructible about it naturally precedes it ‘as it is in the Son’, - otherwise there would be a circle in natural priority, because the reason too ‘that is caused by the intellect’ would naturally precede its being in the Son, and conversely.

38. If you say that the essence in the Father naturally precedes every reason producible about it, but that ‘as it is in the Son’ it follows some reason already produced in him by the act of the paternal intellect, - and then there is not a circle of the same thing to the same thing in accord with the same extremes, or in accord with the same existence or in accord with existence in the same thing, because the essence according to its existence follows in one supposit and precedes in another:

39 [Third proof of the major] - Against this response [n.38], I argue as follows: of one cause, in one order of causing, there is one per se reason of causing, - therefore much more in divine reality, where there is a primacy of being principle, must there be posited one reason per se of being principle; therefore the reason of being principle of the generation of the Word will be some one per se real reason. But thing and reason do not make a per se unity, because neither can any property consequent to a thing from the nature of the thing make a per se unity with the subject whose effect it is; therefore much more is this not so with a reason that is not consequent to the thing from the nature of the thing but is only consequent to it through an act of intellect. Therefore the second of these two [sc. the reason and the thing] will be precisely the principle ‘by which’ - by the Father himself - of the producing, and not the reason alone, because it is not formally infinite; the proof is that neither is a real relation formally an infinite perfection, because then some person in divine reality would not have formally all infinite perfection; therefore much more can a being of reason not be formally infinite and, consequently, not be the principle ‘by which’ of producing an infinite supposit; therefore the thing alone, to which this reason is attributed, will be the principle of producing the infinite supposit. But in whatever there is a principle ‘by which’ of some production, in that there is the principle of producing, if the supposit is suitable to such production; but the suitable supposit in divine reality for producing such a person in divine reality is something that does not have such nature by that production, nor by any production prior to it; such is the Father; therefore the thing alone will be for him the principle by which he produces, and in no way the reason.

40. [Fourth proof of the major] - Further, fourth: in divine reality that which is not formally the same as something is not truly the same as it unless either each is formally infinite, or one is, or at least each is truly the same as something formally infinite. But these reasons, which are posited as appropriating the productive principle of the two persons [nn.34, 30], are not formally the same, because then they would not be distinct reasons; nor are they truly the same as anything formally infinite, because then they would exist in that ‘formally infinite’ thing from the nature of the thing, as wisdom exists in the deity formally from the nature of the thing; nor is one or other of them formally infinite, as was proved in the preceding reason [n.39]. Therefore neither of them is truly the same as the other, in any way. Therefore in the way that both exist there, they are so truly distinct that they seem to stand in the way of supreme simplicity, whatever sort of entity is posited for them, because nothing can be posited there - according to any entity - which is not simply the same as the other, because of the simplicity of that essence.

41. [To the instance] - I exclude the instance [n.32], - first because it seems to be for the opposite; for if the distinction of creatures necessarily presupposes a distinction of ideas, and if for this reason God is under one idea the proper cause of one patterned thing [patterned after the idea], this would therefore be because a diminished being of God, namely known being, is simply more perfect and naturally prior to a perfect patterned thing, because patterned things are artificial things in respect of God, and the known being of an artificial thing, or the exemplar - in which the example or the artifact has being - is simply prior to the being of existence of the patterned thing. But this reason is altogether lacking in the divine persons, because the known being of essence cannot be naturally prior to the perfect being of the essence in itself; and therefore, although in the case of the artificial agent the first major were false [n.31] - for the proof of which four reasons have been posited [nn.34, 37, 39, 40] -, it would yet not be false in a natural production where there was communication of the same nature (as in the intended proposition), because there it does not seem that any known being could naturally precede the natural being of the nature.

42. Further, the instance assumes something false about the ideas, because the distinction of reason in God is not necessarily presupposed to the distinct patterned things, nor is God under the reasons of the ideas the proper cause of the diverse patterned things, as will be clear later in distinction 35 ‘On Ideas’ and in distinction 45 ‘On the Will’ [I d.35 q. un nn.5-10, d.45 q. un nn.2-3].