I. On the Question itself

27. [Opinion of others] - Here it is saidThe Vatican editors say the opinion is found in an anonymous commentary on the Sentences, though they also note that the opinion is attributed by some to John of Berwick and William of Macclesfield. ¹ that the question is null, because a position that involves incompossibles cannot be posited nor sustained, for the refutation is included in it all at once, which is the ultimate discordance to which a respondent can be reduced; for when such a position is set down, no rule of disputation can be kept to (namely by conceding what follows and denying what is repugnant), for at once must the repugnance be conceded that is included in the position set down. Now the proof that the position is of this sort is that the supremely impossible is repugnant to the supremely necessary; whatever is in God inwardly is supremely necessary;     therefore what is repugnant thereto is supremely impossible. Therefore the position that supposes the Holy Spirit not to proceed from the Son is ‘supremely impossible’ because its opposite is supremely necessary inwardly (namely that he proceeds from the Son), and an impossible that includes incompossibles seems to be more impossible than an impossible that does not include such; therefore etc     .

28. [Against the opinion] - Against this position [n.27] is that the position seems to be an avoiding of the question. For the question is being moved so as to inquire what the first real thing is that distinguishes the Son from the Holy Spirit, whether filiation or active inspiriting only, - because if it is filiation, then, however much active inspiriting is per impossibile removed, there remains still a reason for distinguishing.

29. Further, although a position that, as soon as it is understood, includes contradictories cannot be admitted, yet that which, when understood, includes only one of the contradictories, and the other only through an accidental consequence or through topics extrinsic, seems it can well be admitted, because when such a position is set down rules of disputation can be kept to; for ‘what follows by an essential consequence’ can be conceded and what is repugnant can be denied; but if something ‘repugnant’ is inferred that follows from an extrinsic topic or by an accidental consequence, one must deny that it follows, because the proposition by which such a consequence would hold would be destroyed by the position. But now active inspiriting is not of the per se understanding of the Son, as he is a person, but is a quasi-property common to the Father and the Son; therefore, with this removed, then, in the positing of the Son in the being of Son, there are no contradictories posited by the first understanding of the proposed supposition [sc. that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son], but only one of them, namely that the Son is Son, and the other exists only as it were by accidental consequence and by an extrinsic topic, from the removal of the quasi-passion by removing the quasi-subject; therefore the position does not so include opposites that it cannot be admitted.The logical point being made here is hard to follow, even with the explanations provided by the Vatican editors. ²

30. Again, if something included essentially in something is posited as removed from it, which was yet not the reason for the inherence of any predicate, - one can well ask whether, with this or that removed, such a predicate would inhere or not; and however much the proposed supposition includes contradictories, it is yet not repugnant to this supposition that one part of the question is not determinately to be given; for example, if animality is removed from man - which however includes incompossibles -and the question is asked whether, with this removed, man can be distinguished from ass, a response that he can would seem determinately possible, because it does not belong to man to be distinguished from an ass by animality but by rationality. Therefore, even if active inspiriting were of the idea of the Son, yet one can still ask whether - with that removed - the Son may be distinguished from the Holy Spirit or not, because the question is only ‘whether the removed predicate was the precise cause of the distinction, or whether some other predicate was that was not removed’.

31. Further, it is one thing to posit something and, with that posited, to ask about some proposition, - and another thing to ask about the truth of some conditional, because to ask about some conditional commits one to nothing. Although     therefore the opinion [that the question cannot be posed, n.27] has some probability if one posited that the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son etc     ., yet it has none when the question is proposed (in the way I have proposed it) as follows: ‘whether, if the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, a real distinction between him and the Son could stand’. For there I am asking about a certain conditional, whether on ‘the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son’ it essentially follows that ‘he is not distinguished from the Son’, so that the opposite of the consequent cannot stand with the antecedent, speaking of the formal understanding of them.

32. Against this position [the opinion stated in n.27] there are also many authorities.

One is from Augustine On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7: “If the Father were not unborn, nothing would prevent him from having generated the Son,” - and yet this position concomitantly includes incompossibles, namely that the Father is unborn [sc. since the Father is by definition unborn, to suppose him not unborn is to suppose incompossibles].

33. And Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity ch.16: “If there were just one person, nothing would prevent him having the fullness of wisdom,” - although, however, on the fullness of wisdom or intellect there concomitantly follows a plurality of persons.

34. Thus too the Philosopher Physics 4.7.214a9-11 argues: supposing that there were some space, and it contained no body but sound or color, he asks whether it would be a vacuum; and he responds that if it was of a nature to receive a body, it would be a vacuum; if not, not. Therefore, with such a supposition in place, which however of itself posits incompossibles (because an accident - as sound or color - would be without a subject), one can ask about something whether it follows, namely by understanding it of natural consequence, - because although the posited supposition includes incompossibles, it does not however include all the incompossibles by natural consequence, but one of the contradictories can follow on it by natural consequence and the other contradictory not at all, save as on something or other impossible.