G. Seventh Opinion

43. There is another opinion [from Thomas of Sutton] relative to the question which posits that the essence under one reason, altogether indistinct, is the principle of these productions; because just as two limited things can be the principles of two acts, so the same unlimited thing, containing those two virtually in itself, can be the proper principle of the same acts, and under no reason of distinction in itself but only from its lack of limitation, as it is indistinct, - just as is plain about the single respect of many generable things in what is down here.

44. And the confirmation of this position is that the divine essence must be posited as having immediately wisdom and goodness, and to be in some way the root as it were and principle of these perfect attributes, and without any distinction in the essence itself, - otherwise there would be a process to infinity. So therefore the essence seems it can be posited as the immediate principle of the two personal productions.

45. Against this [n.44]:

The action of willing in us is not formally free but the will itself is formally free, because action itself is a certain quality and a certain natural form in itself, and is not something intellectual having an inclination to opposites; so the action is not free. Thus therefore in divine reality the production of the Holy Spirit - as already posited in being -does not seem to be formally free, because there seems precisely to be liberty in the principle of this production, insofar as it is of this sort. But if no distinction precedes the production of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the first distinction which there is between this production and that is between them as they are posited in existence from that principle; therefore there is not one production in divine reality by way of intellect or nature and another by way of freedom, because no principle precedes what would be disposed differently toward this production than toward that, - and these productions, in which there is a first distinction, are altogether in themselves, as already posited in being, uniform in naturalness.

46. The assumption ‘about volition’ [n.45], although it could be proved in many modes or ways, can yet be made plain by the fact that, whatever volition generates, it generates naturally; hence appetitive habits are by virtue of acts of appetite as naturally generated from these acts as intellective habits are generated from intellections. It is also apparent from another fact, that then [if the assumption were not true] someone could formally rejoice and be sad freely, namely insofar as joy and sadness are properties consequent on willing and not willing, because the things that are immediate causes of those properties would be posited as formally free.

The consequent, however, ‘about properties’ seems to be sufficiently discordant, because being glad does not seem to be in the power of the will save because in its power is the ‘willing’ of that on which being glad is consequent - and so neither is being sad in its power save because in its power is the ‘not willing’ that on which being sad is consequent; and therefore someone who is sad about the happening of some harmful or disagreeable event, if he wishes to remove the sadness, must desist from not wanting what he did not want; but he is not at liberty to deliberate about this, that, while his not wanting and the event he does not want stay in place, sadness should not follow.

47. If this reason were conclusive [n.45], it would necessarily prove a distinction of intellect from will in the creature, and this a distinction in absolute realities on the part of the thing, which does not seem necessary; hence I reply that the same principle can have different relations to two products or two productions; but as it is freedom and naturalness do not essentially state an active principle but an aptitudinal relation of the principle to the product, and an aptitudinal non-relation - to wit, naturalness states a determination of itself of the first act to the second and third act, but freedom states a non-determination of this sort.

48. To the form [sc. of the reason, n.45]: I concede that neither posited act is free. Therefore freedom is in something preceding the act, as I agree, but not absolutely in it, but rather it states a respect of it to the act, - and naturalness likewise states another respect of the same preceding absolute thing to the other act. Likewise, in the case of the intended proposition, the response is easier, because the principle ‘by which’ seems to be naturally related (distinction 10 above, nn.20-21) to each production and product.

49. On the contrary: therefore in the ‘by which’ there is no distinction as it is ‘by which’ in respect of the production or the product save one of reason only, because it has no relation to the production or the product save one of reason only; again, freedom is an absolute condition, because it is a perfection simply (response: it gives one to understand perfection simply, but it only states a respect). - A corollary: therefore the whole deduction in distinction 2 about the primary duality of the active principles [I d.2 nn.300-303] is not valid save about relations that state a disposition of the active principle to the product; and it seems probable that there be a stand at something simply one, both in the productive principle ‘by which’ (although not ‘what’) and in the cause, because to be ‘by which’ belongs, for you [sc. Scotus] to perfection simply, just as to be a cause does.

50. Response: I concede that ‘freely’ and ‘naturally’ state a disposition, a determinate and a non-determinate disposition, to acting or to a term, but they establish a distinction in their foundations [sc. in will and in intellect]. And because it is a mark of ‘perfection simply’ to be an absolute thing by respect to what is posterior, therefore the principle to which belongs a greater absoluteness with respect to being a principle is simply more perfect than the principle to which belongs a greater determination with respect to being a principle, and this whether the things that are to depend on the principle are equally perfect or if the thing that depends on the principle of something absolute is more perfect than what depends on the principle of something natural, because in relation to an equally perfect posterior thing the more ‘absolute’ being is more perfect; therefore if our willing is not less perfect than our understanding, then from the respect of liberty in the will to willing, and of naturalness in the intellect to understanding, there follows on the will ‘the foundation of respect’ of being simply more perfect; this is in accord with the distinction of powers, on which see IV d.49 p.1 q.4 n.10.

51. But how is it in God?

The same thing seems to follow, that the Holy Spirit is as equally noble as the Son. Therefore the productive principle that is more absolute will be more perfect.

52. Response: each is infinite, both insofar as it is operative and insofar as it is productive.Note by Scotus: “Another way - in distinction 10 nn.18-19 - that infinite will is not more indeterminate for operation or production than the intellect.” ⁶ Therefore there is no excellence in the formalities, but only perhaps of reason, comparing infinite formalities to the finite ones with which they agree - and thus what agrees with the more perfect is conceived to have a certain reason of nobility, a reason that is a relation of reason to what is more noble.

53. To the argument [n.51]: the Holy Spirit and the Son are not posterior to the principles, nor are they more imperfect, but they are the same as them, - therefore absoluteness there does not argue perfection, nor determination imperfection, but only another way of producing.

54. On the contrary: at any rate in respect of creatures the intellect naturally understands, but the will freely wills; therefore with respect to them the will is more noble.

55. Response. This and that disposition [sc. naturally and freely] to first operations and products - if they were posterior - would prove the excellence of the foundation, but when the first operations and the first products are not posterior, but are the same or simply equal, the dispositions are of a different reason and are in different formalities, but without the excellence of one foundation in relation to the other. In whatever way the foundations may afterwards be compared - under these respects - to later operations and products which are simply posterior, no excellence of this foundation to that follows.

56. Note. A free power is a sufficiently active power, not determined of itself to operating about any object which is not finally perfective of it.

‘Active’ by action in the genus of action and from consequent operation; nor does ‘active operative’ suffice, because thus the intellect would be active although it is passive.

‘Sufficiently’ in its own order of acting; therefore it receives no act from another by which it may act in its order, because then it would be insufficiently active.

‘Not determined of itself’, that is of its own first act - and this in its order of causing (it follows from the corollary ‘sufficiently’) - and of the fact that it determines itself to acting; not indeed by any determination preceding the action in the genus of action, but it determines itself, that is, it is indeterminate from its own first act; yet it acts determinately, nothing else determining it to act.

57. This conclusion - thus expounded - is proved by the fact that whatever in its own order is sufficient for acting, if it is determined to act by another, it was already first determined to this in its own order or insofar as it was in its own order; for the fact it did not act was not because of defect of form or of determination on its part (but of the superior on which it depends) for acting, for operating; therefore it is operative and active. But freedom has per se more of a respect to action, at least more immediately; nor is it therefore determined to acting, but to some operation which is not about an object essentially perfective; but it is consistent with liberty that it be determined to operating about that object, and to acting - as a result - with respect to that operation; it was proved about the divine will with respect to God in distinction 10 [nn.41, 48], - here rather [sc. the proof is that] infinite liberty is necessarily determined.

58. But surely finite liberty is determined to operating about it [sc. an essentially perfective object]?

Response: liberty does not prevent that, as is plain about infinite liberty; nor does imperfection, as I prove because it is a mark of perfection to be determined to the perfective object, - it is plain about the will of God with respect to himself.

59. Therefore it belongs more to a more perfect thing to be determined with respect to a perfective object; the created will is more perfect than the created intellect, and the created intellect is necessarily determined to its perfective object, therefore the will is more thus determined (the opposite is held in distinction 1 question 4 [I d.1 nn.91-133, 136-140]).

60. Response: to determine oneself naturally to anything whatever is a mark of greater imperfection than not to determine oneself freely to a non-perfective object, because determination to what is non-perfective is a mark of imperfection; the intellect is necessarily determined to anything whatever, because it is determined naturally. And then to the proposition ‘it is a mark of perfection to be determined to a perfective object’: this is true when it is thus determined to that alone, and consequently not naturally [sc. but freely]; ‘therefore it belongs more to the more perfect’ is true, uniformly, because it belongs to the divine will and to no intellect.Note by the Vatican editors: “This is true but not in diverse way, as it is taken in the major [n.59] where two diverse things - intellect and will - are compared, but it is true in uniform way, namely by comparing either intellect to intellect or will to will; and thus it is true that it belongs more to the more perfect will, namely the divine will, which is more perfect than ours; but it does not belong to any intellect more, because any intellect is determined necessarily.” ⁷

61. But if from the greater perfection of the created will than of the created intellect [n.59] you at once infer that it is necessarily determined to its perfective object, this does not follow, because determination to the natural necessity which belongs to the intellect is repugnant to the will; but the other determination [sc. to the perfective object, as in the case of God nn.57-58] does not belong to the will from the perfection of the will in general but only to an infinite will. In another way: the intellect is necessarily determined by another; it is a mark of perfection that a thing not be so determined, and that, in determining itself, it necessarily determine itself to what is perfective, - and this belongs to the infinite will alone.

62. Whence is this indetermination of the [created] will?

Response. Not from the intellect, which is necessarily determined to anything whatever, although it can be impeded by a sophism (thus can a heavy object be impeded from falling); nay here, when it is determined by a sophism, it is necessarily determined, - in other ways by an opposite agent. The indetermination, therefore, is radically from the essence, but formally from the proper idea of the will. For because its nature is as it were unlimited, namely many things can be agreeable to it - therefore is given to it an unlimited appetite for agreeable objects and an apprehensive intellect, but determinately, according to determinate evidence for directing something; therefore further, so that as ‘undetermined to either’ it may be determined [sc. by itself].

63. Besides, second [nn.44, 45], if essence as altogether indistinct were the principle of the double production, then since the intellect under the idea of being infinite is a sufficient reason for producing the infinite word, and the will under the idea of being infinite is a productive principle of infinite love - and, before the infinite intellect and the divine will distinctly formally infinite are understood, the essence as essence is preunderstood - therefore through the essence, as it is pre-understood, there is a double intrinsic production; and when later the formally infinite intellect and the formally infinite will are there understood, there will be two infinite persons produced by virtue of those two principles; therefore there will be five produced persons.That is, the three persons before intellect and will are understood and two more afterwards (Son and Holy Spirit being, as it were, produced twice). The Vatican editors say otherwise: “namely two persons before the intellect and will, and three afterwards, because intellect and will are in the Father; cf. n.70.” ⁸

64. But if you say that there is never there infinite intellect and infinite will from the nature of the thing, but that there is only there the one nature altogether indistinct from the nature of the thing, and that from the idea of it there are the three persons there, and that intellect and will are there precisely through the consideration of the intellect and so these are not there principles, distinct from the nature of the thing, productive of real persons, - on the contrary:

If there are certain things distinct there by act of intellect, let them be a and b. Then I ask: either these are distinct from the nature of the thing, - and thus, you are contradicting yourself; if not, they are distinct by intellect, therefore the intellect under the idea of intellect distinguishes and not under the idea of nature. Either then the intellect is there under the idea of intellect before distinction of these things - and the intended proposition is obtained, because it is there from the nature of the thing; or it is not, but the intellect itself under the idea of intellect is there produced by act of intellect busying itself and doing the distinguishing, and then one would ask by what act this intellect is produced - either from the nature of the thing or from the intellect as intellect - and there will be a process to infinity, or wherever a stand is made the intellect will be there insofar as it is intellect and from the nature of the thing, or the first distinction that is placed there will be from the nature of the thing, the opposite of which you posit.

65. Further, God is formally blessed from the nature of the thing and not formally in relations of reason; but his beatitude formally consists in intellection and volition; therefore intellect and will - which are the principles of them - are there from the nature of the thing.

66. This reason is confirmed through the Philosopher Metaphysics 12.8.1074b17-21, who proves that “if God is not actually thinking there will be nothing honorable in him, - for he will be as if asleep;” therefore, according to Aristotle, God is not formally perfect in the nature of the thing unless intellect is formally there from the nature of the thing, because actual intellection formally cannot be understood without intellect formally.

67. Further, if the intellect is not formally there from the nature of the thing but in its foundation, then the intellect is not formally perfection simply, because it is not better to have it formally than not to have it; nay for you, it is not formally possessed in that essence, which is best, but only in an opposite way of possessing; therefore one cannot conclude that intellect is there ‘because it is a perfection simply’, but rather the opposite seems to follow. Why then does Anselm say in Monologion ch.15, that whatever is in God “is better it than not it”? - as is true of ‘being wise’. And Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.4 n.6: “In the volumes of the divine books authority only preaches that God is, but all of nature around us proclaims that he is the best and most outstanding Creator, who has given us mind, by which we judge that living things are to be preferred to non-living, things endowed with sense to things without, and intelligent things to non-intelligent ones, and incorruptible things to corruptible; and because of this, since we without doubt prefer the Creator to the things created, we must confess that he both supremely lives, and understands all things, and is most just, best, and most blessed,     etc .;” see Augustine there. - What would that consequence be if natural reason says that to be blessed is better than to be miserable, therefore      God is blessed (if what ‘it’ is in creatures is better than its opposite, this is because of its reality), and in God from the nature of the thing this reality is in some way there but only in its foundation, with the opposite mode of this sort of formality

68. But that this intellect - which is proved to exist there from the nature of the thing [nn.64-67] - is infinite the proof is:

For, as intellect formally, it understands the divine essence as object; nothing comprehends an object formally infinite unless what comprehends it is formally infinite;     therefore etc     .

69. Further, the divine intellect as intellect understands infinite intelligibles at the same time - according to Augustine City of God XII ch.18: “Is it really the case that God does not know the numbers because of their infinity? Who, even a complete madman, would say this?” and he adds: “The infinity then of numbers, although there is no number of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible to that intellect of which there is no number [Psalm 146.5].”

70. And if you say [another instance against n.63] that the intellect is not formally infinite insofar as it is intellect but insofar as it is the same as the divine infinite essence, and therefore it does not, insofar as it is intellect, have that whereby it is the productive principle of another infinite person, and so there will not be five divine persons [n.63], -against this I argue that in this way one could say that paternity is formally infinite because it is the same as the infinite divine essence, and then it would not be more discordant for the Son not to be simply intelligent than for him not to be formally Father, which is manifestly absurd.

71. There is proof also from another point, that things which are not formally infinite in divine reality, if they are taken in the abstract, are not predicated of each other, not even by identity just as not formally either; hence this proposition is not conceded ‘paternity is the property of not being born’. The reason for this was stated in distinction 8 in the question ‘About the attributes’ [I d.8 nn.219, 221], because ‘abstraction takes away that which was the cause of truth’, namely the identity of the extremes, - because, as precisely taken, ‘neither is formally infinite, and therefore neither as taken precisely abstractly includes its being the same as the other’. But this proposition is true ‘intellect is paternity’ and ‘intellect is filiation’, although there is not there formal predication; therefore the intellect has formal infinity, of the sort that filiation and paternity and the property of not being born do not have.

72. And if you ask, is the intellect altogether infinite from itself as the essence is? - I reply:

It can be said that, just as by distinguishing things from each other, one thing is infinite from itself and in itself (as the first person in divine reality), another thing is infinite in itself but not from itself (as the Son and the Holy Spirit), but another thing is finite from itself and is likewise finite in itself (as is the creature), - so, by considering things which are not formally the same, something can be taken as infinite in itself and altogether from itself, as the divine essence, which is the root and foundation, which has its infinity from nothing; hence according to John Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.9, the being of God is like “a certain infinite sea of the infinite substance of God [I d.8 nn.199-202];” but something is infinite through itself and in itself but not altogether from itself as first root and foundation of all infinity, as the divine attributes, which according to John Damascene ibid. ch.4 state something that concerns the essence - and well can such things be posited as formally infinite in themselves and through themselves, but radically in the essence as in the foundation with which they are identical; further, something is what is neither in itself formally infinite nor formally the same as the infinite, as the personal properties.

73. But what is the reason why these do not have formal infinity from the essence, as the intellect has?An empty space is left here by Scotus; the question is unanswered in the Ordinatio. ⁹

74. To the arguments for this finally rejected opinion [nn.45-46, 63-72].

When it is said that ‘the infinite from itself, altogether indistinct, can be the principle of distinct things’ [n.43], this is true when the distinct things do not from their own idea require a prior distinction in principles; but such a prior distinction is required by free production and natural production, because there cannot be a distinction first for such distinct things but there is pre-required some distinction in the principles, which in some way have to be principles naturally and freely of the divine persons.

75. Again, if the essence is per impossibile posited - as it is understood - to be the foundation of the perfections [n.72], and it is not understood to be intellective or volitional, nor consequently to be source of saying nor of inspiriting - could it really be a principle of communicating itself?

76. And from this [n.74] is plain the response to the confirmation adduced there [n.44]. The fact that the essence has wisdom and goodness and all the other perfect attributes before all consideration of the intellect, and this without any distinction presupposed in the essence, is true because those perfect attributes do not require an opposite mode of coming from a principle nor a distinction in the principles; for the essence is will as naturally as it is intellect; likewise these attributes do not properly come from the essence as from a principle, although the essence be conceded in some way to have the idea of radical and foundational perfection with respect to them [nn.72, 44].