Question Three. Whether the Divine Word states a Respect to the Creature

9. Third the question is asked whether the divine word states a respect to the creature.

That it does:

Augustine On the Trinity VI ch.10 n.11: “the Word is the art of the almighty God, full of all living reasons;” art states a respect to the thing made by art; therefore word also states a respect to creatures.

10. The opposite:

Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.2 n.3, through the same as before [n.8]; Son does not state a respect to creatures; therefore neither does the word, because “he is word by that by which he is Son.”

I. To the First and Second Questions

A. The Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

11. [To the first question] - To the first question it is said that the word is actual intellection, and not any intellection but a declarative one.

12. To understand this the position is set down as follows:

The intellect receives first a simple impression (or intellection) from the object, by which received impression the intellect - as it is active - converts itself to itself and to its own act and object, by understanding that it understands; third, there follows an impression of declarative knowledge in the bare converted intellect, and this from the intellect informed with simple knowledge, such that the intellect informed by such knowledge is the reason for impressing declarative knowledge, - and the converted bare intellect is something properly receptive. And between these two intellections, namely the first, which is the reason for the impressing, and the second, which is the one impressed, there is a middle disposition that is an action in the genus of action, and it is marked by that which ‘to say’ is; for this ‘to say’ is to express or impress a declarative knowledge of simple knowledge, - and so this ‘declarative knowledge’, impressed on the converted bare intellect and being the term of the act of saying, is the word.

13. Not any actual intellection, then, is the word, but the one that is declarative, that presupposes simple actual intellection and actual conversion to it, and is born in the act of saying, whose active principle is simple knowledge and whose receptive one is the converted bare intellect.

14. [To the second question] - In agreement with this, an answer is given to the second question [n.5], that the intellect of the Father is first informed with quasi simple knowledge of the essence, to which it was quasi merely in passive potency, and, when brought into this act of ‘simple knowledge’ as bare, it is converted to itself as thus informed; and on it when converted, as if on a passive disposed thing, there is impressed declarative knowledge by virtue of simple actual knowledge, which declarative knowledge and term of the act of saying is the word. And according to this, it is plain that the word is the term of generation as also of the Son, and so it will be proper to the second person.

This opinion was stated above in distinction 2 nn.273-277, 280, in the question ‘On the two productions’.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

a. As to the First Question

16. Against this opinion - as to the first question [n.12] - I argue first that it seems irrational to posit that the same power is active with respect to one of its acts and passive with respect to another of its acts, because from this it seems that it is not a power of the same nature. For any power of one nature involves a like disposition of the power to the object; for sight is not active with respect to one act of seeing and passive with respect to another; hence any act of one power has a like disposition of power to object. Therefore if the intellect is only passive with respect to simple knowledge of a stone, and perfectly active with respect to conversion - which is second act - whereby it understands that it understands a stone, it will (as it seems) not be one power; it also seems unacceptable that it would be unable to have some activity with respect to a more imperfect act and yet could be totally active with respect to a more perfect act (now it is posited by some people that that conversion is a more perfect act than simple intellection).

17. As to what is added afterwards, that actual intellection is the reason for generating declarative knowledge [n.12], this seems to be unacceptable in our own case, because a more imperfect form cannot be a perfect reason for generating something perfect; but the first knowledge in us is confused and more imperfect than distinct knowledge;     therefore etc     .

18. Besides, if first knowledge is the reason for generating second knowledge [sc. distinct or declarative knowledge] - then either when it is not first, and then a non-being will be the reason for acting, or when it is, and then they [sc. first and second knowledge] will be either of the same idea or of a different one; if the latter, and the prior is more imperfect than the second, then it is not a principle for generating the second, because the more imperfect is not a principle for producing a more perfect (hence in equivocal production the cause is always more perfect than the effect); if the former, then two acts of understanding of the same species will be in the same intellect or in the same power (and with respect to the same object), because memory and intelligence are one power.

19. Again,a then a trinity would not be posited in the mind according as it is mind, because the mind will not have any proper activity according as it is mind, but precisely according to an accident of it through an accident (which is simple knowledge), just as neither does wood have any activity with respect to the heating that is attributed to it through the heat that is an accident of it through an accident; and so it seems Augustine sought in vain for parent and offspring in the mind ‘according as it is mind’, because the idea of parent does not seem to belong to the soul according to anything in it, but according to some accident precisely, which is imprinted on it by the object.

a [Interpolation] Further, as to any reflexive act of the intellect there is some more perfect direct act that can be had, because a direct act of the intellect - by which it understands a quiddity - is more perfect than the act by which it understands its own understanding, because it has a more noble object; therefore since the word is perfect knowledge of the thing, it does not include the act by which one knows that one knows.

20. Further, to generate a word is not an act of intelligence but of memory, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.14 n.24; but every actual intellection belongs to intelligence, not to memory, according to him ibid. XIV ch.7 n.10; therefore no actual intellection is a reason for generating the word.

21. Further, what it says about conversion, that it is necessarily previous to generation of the word [n.12], seems to be against Augustine ibid. XV ch.16 n.26, where he seems to say that our most perfect word will be in the fatherland with respect to the beatific object, - and yet that act will not be a convertive one, because the beatific vision does not have any created thing for immediate object (but every convertive act in us has something created for object, as the act or the power); nor does that vision presuppose conversion, because if that vision is the effect of the divine essence alone (or of the intellect cooperating with the divine essence), it naturally precedes the conversion of the intellect to its own understanding.a

a [Interpolation] Again, as confused intellection is to an object confusedly presented, so is a distinct intellection to an object distinctly presented, - and it will not be a word of the object but of the act.

22. Also as to the statement that the intellect, as it is being converted, is purely active and yet, as converted, it is purely passive with respect to the generated knowledge which is the word, - it seems thoroughly irrational that the same thing under the idea under which it is ‘active’ is only passive with respect to an act of the same idea, or that insofar as it is purely ‘passive’ it is active with respect to an act of the same idea; but the intellect, insofar as it receives simple knowledge, is only passive and, insofar as it converts, it is only active; therefore it seems that it is unacceptable that insofar as it converts it is passive with respect to generation of the word, and insofar as it has simple knowledge it is active with respect to the same generation.

b. As to the Second Question

23. Also against what it says to the second question the same objection, it seems, can be made, that the intellect of the Father ‘as it is converting’ is purely active and ‘as having simple knowledge’ it is purely passive, according to him [Henry of Ghent];     therefore it seems unacceptable that ‘as converted’ it is that as from which the word is generated, and that ‘as knowing with simple knowledge’ it is the reason for generating the word quasi actively.

24. Further, some say that this conversion of the intellect is a quasi disposition of matter, - which seems unacceptable, because the disposition of matter is not more perfect nor as equally perfect as the active form of the agent; but this conversion is as equally perfect as simple knowledge, or more perfect; therefore etc     .

25. Further, this conversion is with respect to first act as object, - therefore it is declarative knowledge of that act, just as any knowledge declares the object of which it is; therefore, before the generation of the word that follows this conversion (according to him [Henry]), there is had a declarative knowledge of first act, and so a word before the word!

26. Again, this opinion, as to the fact it posits the intellection of the Father to be the reason for generating the word, was refuted above in distinction 2 nn.291-296, in the aforesaid question ‘About productions’, and as to the fact that it posits the intellect of the Father to be that from which the word is generated, it was refuted in the same place, nn.283, 285, and also in distinction 5 nn.72-75; and I repeat one of the arguments touched on there.

Because the intellect as converted belongs to some supposit; for the conversion is, according to him, a certain action of understanding, and acts belong to supposits; therefore the conversion belongs to some supposit. I ask whose supposit it is as it is converted? If the Word’s, and ‘as it is converted’ it precedes generation (according to him [n.25]), then it precedes the Word, and so the Word exists before the Word! If the conversion is the Father’s, and whose it is ‘as it is converted’ is his as from whom generation happens by impression, and whose it is ‘as from whom something is generated by impression’ is his as the impressed thing exists in him and consequently is his ‘as he has that impressed thing’ - then, from first to last, it follows that the intellect of the Father ‘as Father’ formally has generated knowledge impressed on it, and so the Father formally understands by generated knowledge, contrary to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2.

27. The response made is that, just as in generation in creatures there are three moments of nature to distinguish, the first moment in which matter is under the form that is to be corrupted, the second in which the matter is under no form but is quasi bare and in proximate potency to the form that is to be generated, and the third in which it is under the form of the generated thing, - so it can correspondingly be said in divine reality, that the intellect in the first moment, as it is in the Father, is thus being converted to itself, and this conversion is a quasi disposition of the matter for the generation of the Son; in the second moment, in which it belong as it were to no person, it is then in proximate potency to the term of generation; and in the third moment, in which it is under the property of the generated person, it belongs then to that person.

28. An example is set down: if wine is in proximate potency to vinegar (so that the form of wine is pre-required in the matter in natural order for its being in proximate potency with respect to vinegar), if along with this the matter of wine were not limited to these two forms and consequently neither of them, when introduced, would expel the other, and if along with this each is hypostatic, bestowing personal existence - then vinegar would be generated from matter ‘as it was the matter of the wine’ as if from matter disposed with a previous disposition necessarily preceding this form. But if it be asked whose it is as vinegar is immediately generated from it, - the response is that it is no one’s but is generated from it immediately when matter is under neither hypostatic form.

29. Hereby response is given to the argument here in the matter at issue; the concession is made that it is the Father’s, the way the matter is the wine’s as it is disposed to the form of vinegar.

30. And when it is argued ‘therefore as it is Father’s it receives generated knowledge’, the consequence is denied; nay, by the fact that it receives generated knowledge it belongs to another subsistent, and even that from which the word is immediately generated does not exist as the Father’s but as converted.

31. And if it be objected against this that generation is not from the intellect as it is the Father’s more than from the intellect as it is the Son’s and the Holy Spirit’s, - the consequence is denied, because there is a double ‘as’ there. One that indicates the idea of the immediate principle ‘from which’ - and thus the word is generated from it as it is no one’s, as from the immediate receptive thing, which indicates the idea of what is disposed to the form that is the term, although it is not the idea of the immediate receptive thing absolutely; therefore the word is generated from the intellect as it is no one’s - as however it was first the Father’s it was also first existing in the Father, so that neither reduplication [sc. of ‘as’] is precisely without the other. And yet by the fact the word is generated from it [sc. the intellect], it is not in the subsistent of the word but of the Father and not no one’s.

32. But the addition is made that some people are deceived when they argue against this opinion ‘from which, as from matter or quasi-matter’, as if they imagine that there is there [sc. in God] a distinction of a quasi-passive potency from act, - which is not true, the way it is held generally by certain people about the attributes; but only, just as there is there wisdom formally and goodness formally, without distinction, so it is posited that there is truly impression there and truly the one impressing, - and everything that is said there to be without distinction; but a distinction of these things is only by act of intellect busying itself about the same one thing that exists in reality.

33. Against these arguments [nn.27-32]:

Generation in creatures is a change formally, for the reason that the matter, belonging to nothing before, is afterwards understood to be under the form of the generated thing; for by this it is understood to be changed from privation to form, which change is formally generation-change. Therefore if under this idea passive potency is posited in divine reality, then there will be true change in divine reality.a

a [Interpolation] at any rate in the intellect as it busies itself about it, and so there will necessarily be imperfection there; or if only through the act of the busying intellect this conversion and generating of the word takes place, the word will not be a real person but only a person of reason and in intention.

34. The reason is confirmed by the example they give [n.28], that although the wine is not corrupted in the generation of vinegar, yet the generation would be truly a change from privation to form, although there not go along with it the other change, ‘from form to privation’, as now commonly happens when one thing is generated and another corrupted; for in this case there commonly come together there two changes and four terms of change (two forms and two privations), but - after removing one of the changes and its terms - the other change would no less exist; therefore so will it be in the proposed case, that insofar as it belongs to nothing before - and so is under privation of the term ‘to which’ and is later under that term - it changes.

35. Further, if first it belongs to the Father and secondly to nothing, and third belongs to the Son by the fact that it receives the impressed knowledge (so by the fact it belongs to the Son, because it is quasi-potential, it receives the formal feature of the Son [nn.27, 30]), and belongs to the Son as the formal term communicated to the Son by generation (as was shown in distinction 5 nn.64-85), - then the Son will have intellect in a double way of having it, such that, when either of these ways is removed, it would no less have it in the other way of having; just as in creatures the composite has matter as something of itself, and truly has it, although it is not the formal term of generation; also the same composite has the form as something of itself, and truly has it, although the form is not subject of generation.

36. But the inferred consequence, namely that the Son has the essence in two ways of having, seems impossible, both in reality and in the consideration of the busying intellect. There is proof also through this, that what is material in generation is in potency to the formal term of the same generation; but the same thing, under the same idea, is neither in reality nor in the intellect in potency to itself; therefore neither will the intellect be at the same time a receptive potency and the formal term of the same generation.

37. And as to what is added about the double ‘as’ on the part of the matter, as if there is pre-required for the ‘as’ which is the idea of the proximate susceptive factor the ‘as’ which is the same ‘as’ under the form ordered to the form of generating [n.31], - this does not seem to exist per se in creatures, because if the matter which is under the form of wine is posited to be without any form and a created agent can act on it as it is denuded of form, then it would be the proximate receptive factor of any form that is of a nature to be impressed on pure matter, and such a form could be induced by any sufficient agent at all. Therefore the second ‘as’ is precisely sufficient in creatures for proximate potency, although frequently now its ordering is concomitant with it, because matter is never without form and is, as it is under form, not changed indifferently from any form to any form - by a created agent - but from a determinate form to a determinate form; the proof is that when it is understood to belong to nothing, then it is not under the prior form, which is posited as the disposition for the form of what is to be generated [nn.27-29]; its order then to that form is only a relation of posterior to prior, which perhaps is not a positive relation (because the term ‘to which’ is not then of the nature of the thing), or if it is a real relation, it does not seem to be the proper reason in the matter for receiving the form to be induced. - Applying this to the issue at hand, it seems that although the intellect should in origin be in the Father before it is in the Son, yet, if it were posited as receptive of generated knowledge, it would not be posited to be such essentially because of some order to existence in the Father, but according as it belongs precisely to nothing and, according to the way they themselves say precisely, to ‘quasi nothing’.

38. What is added to exclude a deception [n.32], seems to be the remark of someone deceived, because that remark seems in itself absurd and to destroy itself.

39. The first point is proved by the fact that the intellect in the nature of the thing is as truly a passive potency and as truly receptive as God is from the nature of the thing truly act and wise and good, - which seems absurd, because what in creatures necessarily has imperfection annexed to it or is an imperfection (as is the nature of passive potency, because it always states an imperfection the way it divides being against active potency) is posited to exist as truly in God as what is a perfection simply!

40. And if you say that rather passive potency states a perfection, although one not distinct from act, - this seems to be a fiction, because there is nothing lower in creatures than the idea of passive potency; for this idea belongs truly to prime matter, which is posited as the lowest of beings; therefore more truly can it be said that God is formally a stone than passive potency, if it is because of some perfection in the idea of passive potency that passive potency should be formally posited there.

41. Second I prove that the remark destroys itself [n.38], because it does not seem intelligible that there be opposite relations there without there also being distinct relations (if real, really, - if of reason, by reason) just as much as opposite ones; therefore if there is there from the nature of the thing something that impresses and something that is impressed and something on which it is impressed (which cannot be understood without relation), then to posit that they are there from the nature of the thing without any distinction is a contradiction.

B. Scotus’ own Response

1. To the First Question

42. I reply therefore in a different way to these questions.

To the first. - Because we chiefly take the idea of the word from Augustine’s book On the Trinity, certain definite things must be supposed that according to him belong to the word;a from these we must investigate what in the intellect they most belong to, and that thing must be set down as the word.

a [Interpolation] and second these things are by division to be removed from everything that is not the word (as the Philosopher does in Ethics 2.5.1105b19-06a13 when inquiring into the genus of virtue, where he divides the things in the soul into powers, passions, and habits); third, when those things have been removed that do not belong to what is being investigated.

43. The word according to himb is not without actual cognition, as is plain from ibid. XV ch.15 n.25.

b [Interpolation] it is an act of intelligence, as is plain by comparing the trinity he posits in ibid. IX to the trinity that he posits in ibid. X (for knowledge corresponds to intelligence). Also the word...

44. Also the word is generated from memory or from science, or from the object shows itself in the science, as is plain from ibid. XV ch.10 n.19: “The word is thought formed from the thing we know;” ch.14 n.24: “Our word is born from our science in the way the word of God the Father is born by science alone.” And all these things are the same, because according to ibid. IX ch.12 n.18: “from the knower and known together knowledge is born,” which two things are one integral cause with respect to generated knowledge, as was said in distinction 3 question 2 n.494.a

a A blank space was left here by Scotus

45. Third, the word is investigated by him because of the image [sc. of the Trinity] in the mind and is set down as the second part of the image (namely the offspring), as is plain from ibid. IX ch.32: “There is a certain image of the Trinity; the mind itself, and its knowledge (which is its offspring and its word from itself), and love third.”

46. The word may therefore be described as: the word is an act of intelligence produced by perfect memory, not having existence without actual intellection, representing the divine word (because for this reason Augustine inquired into our word).

47. From these it is plain that the word is nothing pertaining to the will, nor to memory (because the word is the second part of the image, not the first or third), and consequently it is not the intelligible species nor the habit, nor anything pertaining to memory; it is therefore something pertaining to intelligence.

a. Which of the Things Found in the Intelligence is the Word

48. Now in the intelligence there seems only to be [1] actual intellection, [2] or the object that is the term of that intellection, or, according to others, [3] the species generated in the intelligence from the species in the memory, which ‘species in the intelligence’ precedes the act of understanding, or, according to others, [4] it is something formed by an act of understanding, or fifth, according to others, [5] intellection itself as a passion, as if caused by itself as action; and according to these five there can be five opinions about the word.

49. Now the species in the intelligence is not prior to the act of understanding [contra the third opinion], because positing such a species is superfluous. For it does not more perfectly represent the object than the species in the memory, and it is enough to have one thing perfectly representing the object before the act of understanding.

50. But that it is not ‘more perfect’ is plain from Augustine ibid. XV ch.14 n.23: “There is nothing more in the offspring than in the parent.”

51. Also in that case two species of the same idea would be in the same power, because these two species are of the same power; and the intellect itself as memory and intelligence is one power, because it is pure act, and that by which the possessor operates and that by which it has first act is in second act.

52. In that case too the habit would not be the immediate principle of the act, nor would what has the habit be in accidental power to acting according to the habit, because a prior form would be required for the operation, different from the habit.

53. Nor can the ‘species in the intelligence’ be posited as being born naturally, supposing it could never exist without actual intellection, because actual intellection is subject to the command of the will; nor even can it be said that it is born freely or that its generation is subject to the command of the will - as it seems - if it is posited as a species prior to act, because it seems that the first thing pertaining to the intellect that is in our power is actual intellection.

54. Nor can the object itself be posited as the word, as another opinion says [the second, n.48], because the object in itself is not anything produced by virtue of memory (or of anything in the mind), such as the word is, - nor is the object ‘as it is in the memory’ produced by virtue of the memory, as is plain; but the object ‘as it is in the intelligence’ is only generated because something is first generated in which the object has being, because, as was said in distinction 3 nn.375, 382, 386, these intentional actions and passions do not belong to the object save because of some real action or passion that belongs to that in which the object has intentional being.

55. Nor too is it some term produced by intellection [sc. the fourth opinion, n.48], because intellection is not the productive action of any term; for then it would be incompossible to understand it to exist and not to be of the term, just as it is incompossible to understand that there is heating and no heat toward which the heating exists. But it is not impossible to understand intellection in itself without understanding that it is of some term as produced by it.

56. There is a confirmation too, that such operations ought to be ultimate acts, from Ethics 1.1.1094a3-5 and Metaphysics 9.8.1050a-b1. - This matter was spoken about above in distinction 3 nn.600-604, as to how it is a certain action of the genus of action, and another action that is quality, of which sort intellection is.

57. This way - and the following one about intellection-passion - are also refuted [sc. the fourth and fifth opinions, n.48] through the same middle term, that then the intelligence and not the memory would generate the word, which is contrary to Augustine [n.44]; for intelligence would produce the term of the action of understanding, if there were any - and intelligence would produce intellection-passion, if there were any.

58. Also this way ‘about intellection-action and passion’ [the fifth] does not seem reasonable, because intellection is one form, which although it can be compared to the agent from which it is and to the subject in which it is received, yet it does not have from it such distinction that it could be as it were the cause of itself or the term of action in accord with this [sc. the subject] and not in accord with that [sc. the agent]; because if it is the term of action, this is in accord with itself, and not in accord with this respect or that, but those respects are concomitants of it.

59. It follows,     therefore , by way of division that the word is actual intellection [the first opinion, n.48].

60. And there is confirmation from Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.16 n.23: “Our thinking, reaching to that which we know, and formed from it, is our word.” The same is held by him in ibid. ch.10 n.19: “Formed thinking, indeed,” etc     . “is the word,” as was said above [n.44].

61. There is confirmation of this through a likeness about the vocal and imaginable word: for the vocal word is formed to signify and make clear what is understood, but that a vocal sound is not at once formed by someone who understands insofar as he understands but through some other middle power (namely a motive one), this belongs to imperfection; if therefore it were generated or formed at once as expressive of that which is latent in the intellect, and this by virtue of the understanding intellect, it would no less be the word. Now the object lies habitually latent in the memory; if therefore by virtue of it is at once caused some actual intellection, which once generated expresses and makes clear the object latent there, - truly it is the word, because expressive of what is latent and generated by virtue of it to express it.

b. Whether any Actual Intellection at all is the Word

62. But a further doubt remains, whether any actual intellection at all is the word.

63. [Opinions of others] - To this a reply is given in the negative, and that one must add - as a specific difference - ‘intellection which is declarative’ [n.11].

64. I argue against this because in the Father there is declarative knowledge formally, - for the intellection that is in the Father ‘insofar as he is intelligence’ is declarative of the Father ‘insofar as he is memory’, and thus perfectly, just as actual intellection ‘as it is in the Son’ declares habitual knowledge as it is in the memory of the Son; but in the Father there is not the word formally, as will be said in the solution of the question [n.71].

65. Likewise, the word declares itself, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.3 n.4: “If,” he says, “this word that we pronounce is temporal and manifests both itself and that of which we speak, how much more does the word of God etc.” and manifest itself? ‘To declare’ then does not state a real relation, nor consequently the relation of what is generated; but the word is nothing but generated intellection (ibid. IX ch.12 n.18), otherwise it could be posited formally in the Father.

66. A reply is also given in another way as concerns this article [n.62], that the word is actual knowledge ‘that is the term of inquiry’.

67. This is shown from Augustine ibid. when he says that the word is a thing born or an offspring; but it is a thing born because it is a thing found, - but it is not a thing found save because it is inquired into; hence Augustine means that this thing born of the mind is preceded by an appetite moving to inquiry.

68. He seems to mean the same in ibid. XV ch.15 n.25 when he inquires as follows: “Then a true word comes to be when that which I said to us ‘spreads with a certain rapid motion’ comes to that which we know and is thence formed, taking on its likeness in every way, so that in whatever way each thing is known so too is it thought;” this ‘rapid thinking’ is inquiry, of the sort that will not exist in the fatherland, as he indicates [ch.41 or 16]: “Perhaps there will not be rapid thoughts there.”

69. The position then is that after confused knowledge there follows inquiry and argumentation, and finally one reaches perfect knowledge, which is as it were generated by that inquiry; and the perfect knowledge, which is the term of inquiry, is the word.

70. Against this I argue as follows: if it belongs to the idea of the word that ‘it is born through inquiry’, then God does not have a word; second, in that case an angel does not have a word about things naturally known to him; third, then the blessed do not have a word about the divine essence, nor about anything perfectly known without inquiry; fourth, therefore he who has the perfect habit of science and at once operates through the habit cannot have a word, - all which things seem absurd.

71. [Scotus’ own opinion] - Therefore, setting these opinions aside, I say as to this article [n.62] that not any actual intellection at all is the word (as was proved against the way that set down ‘declarative’ as proper to the word [nn.64-65]), but generated knowledge is; and therefore in the Father there is no word formally.

72. But any generated knowledge whatever - which Augustine calls offspring - is a word, though not in the way Augustine posits a perfect word, namely one that represents the divine word [nn.45-46].

73. I make clear the first of these [sc. that any generated knowledge is a word], because any actual intellection is generated from memory, imperfect from imperfect as perfect from perfect; therefore any knowledge is offspring and expressive of the parent, and is generated to express the parent. - And this is confirmed first from Augustine On the Trinity IX ch.10 n.15: “Everything known is said to be a word impressed on the mind, as long as it can be defined and produced from the memory;” again ibid. XV ch.12 n.22: “Nor does it matter when he who speaks what he knows learnt it; for sometimes as soon as he learns it he says it.” And briefly, whatever difference is found between the first generated imperfect knowledge and the knowledge that follows inquiry, there is no formal difference because of which the latter could be called word and the former not, as it seems.

74. I make the second clear [sc. not any generated knowledge is the perfect word, n.72], because our intellect does not immediately have perfect knowledge of the object, because according to the Philosopher Physics 1.1.184a16-23 what is inborn in us a way of proceeding from the confused to the distinct; and therefore first, in order of origin, there is impressed on us a confused knowledge of the object before a distinct one, - and therefore inquiry is necessary for our intellect to come to distinct knowledge; and therefore inquiry is necessary previous to the perfect word, because there is no perfect word unless there is perfect actual knowledge.

75. So then one must understand that when some object is known confusedly inquiry follows - by way of division - into the differences that belong to it; and when all the differences have been found, definitive knowledge of the object is perfect actual knowledge and is perfectly declarative of the habitual knowledge which was first in the memory; and this definitive knowledge, perfectly declarative, is the perfect word.

76. This is what Augustine says ibid. IX ch.10 n.15: “I define what temperance is, and this is its word;” and in the same place Augustine premises, in the same chapter, what he was already set down above: “as long as it can be defined and produced from the memory,” [n.73] - that is distinctly and definitively and actually known, by virtue of what is in the memory.

77. It does not     therefore belong to the idea of the word to be born after inquiry, but it is necessary for an imperfect intellect - which cannot at once have definitive knowledge of the object - to have such knowledge after inquiry; and therefore the perfect word does not exist in us without inquiry. And yet when a perfect word follows such inquiry, the inquiry is not the generation of the word itself formally, but is quasipreliminary to the word being generated; which Augustine well indicates in the afore cited authority [n.68] “hither and thither with a certain rapid motion” etc     . “when it comes to that which we know and is thence formed,” it is the word etc., - indicating that this scattering about (that is, inquiry) is not the generation of the word formally but is followed by the generation of the word from what we know, that is, form the object habitually known in the memory.

78. And if it be objected ‘for what then is inquiry necessary?’ - one can say to this that motion is necessary for the introduction of perfect form (which could not be introduced at the beginning of the motion), or there is introduction of many forms ordered to the introduction of the final form, and without that order of forms the final form could not be at once introduced. And accordingly this order is posited: first there is habitual confused knowledge, second confused actual intellection, third inquiry (and in inquiry there are many words from many habitual knowledges virtually contained in memory), which inquiry is followed by distinct and actual knowledge of the first object whose knowledge is being inquired into, - which ‘actual distinct’ knowledge impresses perfect habitual knowledge on memory, and then first there is perfect memory and it is likened to the memory in the Father; ultimately, from perfect memory is generated a perfect word, without inquiry coming between it and the word, - and this generation is likened to the generation of the perfect divine word, from perfect paternal memory. No word is perfect, then, representing the divine word (which is what Augustine is most investigating) save that which is born of perfect memory without inquiry coming between such memory and such word, although neither could that memory be had by us - because of the imperfection of our intellect - unless inquiry precede.

c. Whether Will Concurs in the Idea of the Word

79. The last doubt in this question [sc. question 1] is whether the will concurs in the idea of the word, - namely whether it belongs to its idea that it be generated voluntarily or by an agent will ‘joining the intelligence to memory’, according to what Augustine says in many places.

80. This question is moved by Augustine in On the Trinity IX ch.10 n.15: “Rightly,” he says, “is the question raised whether all knowledge is a word or only loved knowledge is;” and he replies: “Not everything words in any way touch upon is conceived, but some things are so in order only to be known and are yet not called words - as things that displease are said to be neither conceived nor brought to birth;” “in another way everything that is known is called a word, as long as it can be pronounced or defined from memory.” And afterwards he adds: “However, although the things we hate displease us, yet the knowledge of them does not displease us,” - such that it does not belong to the idea of the word that it is generated by love of the known object, nor does it even belong to the word to be born by love of the knowledge that is the word.

81. Yet there accompanies the perfect word a double act of will: one is previous, whereby the act and the previous inquiry are commanded without which the perfect word would not be reached (as is plain in ibid. IX ch.12 n.18), and the other is that in which the intellect rests in intelligible knowledge already possessed, without which the intellect would not persist in that knowledge. An act of will, therefore, is not of the essence of the word, neither formally nor as cause, but is necessarily concomitant with the generation of it in us because of previous inquiry into it and for continuing it; likewise because of the fact that the intellect - if the will is not well pleased in the knowledge - would not persist in it, and so this knowledge would not have the idea of permanent word. Yet this permanence is not of the idea of the perfection of the word intensively, because a whiteness of one day is not less perfect than a whiteness of one year; but the will that has regard to the object - of which there is a word - does not pertain to the idea of the word save when taking word strictly, the way Augustine takes it in the afore cited chapter [n.80], “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ save with the Holy Spirit” (this ‘saying’ includes acceptance of the said object and adds something beyond the idea of word absolutely).

2. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

82. To the arguments of this question [nn.1-3].

As to the first [n.1] it is plain the authority needs interpretation. For Augustine says there: “the image itself of it” (namely of Carthage) “in my memory is its word;” but it is clear, according to him On the Trinity XV ch.15 n.25, that the word is not formally in the memory; therefore it must be understood in a causal way and not a formal one.

83. To the second point [n.2]. Although there has been a lot of dispute about ‘vocal sound’, whether it is a sign of a thing or a concept, yet I concede in brief that what is signified properly by a vocal sound is a thing. However letter, vocal sound, and concept are ordered signs of the same signified thing, just as there are many ordered effects of the same cause none of which is cause of the other, as is plain about the sun illuminating many parts of the medium; and where there is such an order of caused things, apart from one being cause of the other, there is an immediacy of any effect with respect to the same cause, excluding anything else in the idea of cause but not excluding anything else in the idea of a more immediate effect. And then one could concede that in some way a nearer effect is cause of a remoter effect, not properly but because of the priority that exists between such effects in relation to the cause; thus one can concede about many ordered signs of the same signified thing that one of them is in some sense sign of the other (because it gives to understand it), for a remoter sign would not signify before a more immediate one in some way signified first, - and yet, for this reason, one is not properly sign of the other, just as is true on the other side about cause and things caused.

84. To the third [n.3] I concede that knowledge is offspring and truly generated, namely actual intellection, - but it is not an action in the genus of action (because, as said above d.3 nn.600-604, actual intellection is not action in the genus of action), but it is a quality of a nature to be the term of such an action, which is signified by what it is to ‘say’ and - in general - by what it is to ‘elicit’. A word, then, is not something produced by an action that is intellection, because the intellection itself is not productive of anything but is itself produced by an action that is in the genus of action, as was said above [ibid.]

3. To the Second Question

85. To the second question [n.5] I say that concrete and abstract per se signify the same thing, although in a different way of signifying, as son and filiation, - because just as filiation signifies a relation in the genus of relation, so does son (by way, however, of denominating the relative supposit), and if it is taken substantively [d.26 n.100] it signifies the same as such subsistent thing. Thus therefore word and the abstract of it signify the same thing: but its abstract - if it were named - would be ‘word-ness’, which indicates a relation formally (for it signifies the same as the passive expression of something of the intellect); but just as son connotes a living nature, in which there is such relation, so word connotes actual knowledge, of which it is such expression; therefore since in divine reality ‘to be intellectually expressed’ is the property of the second person, it follows that the word is there purely personal, and it signifies a personal property.

86. It is plain too that the reason for generating the word is not the Father as actually understanding, but the Father as perfect memory (namely as intellect possessing the actually intelligible object present to itself), as was made clear above in distinction 2 in the question ‘On Productions’ [nn.291-293, 221, 310].

87. It is plain also that the word does not have anything from which it is produced, from distinction 5 nn.80-82, - because if the productive principle have virtue sufficient for producing a per se subsistent, it produces such a subsistent, and especially if such subsistent is not of a nature to inhere in anything; but the expressed knowledge is not of a nature to inhere in anything,     therefore it is of a nature to subsist per se; and the productive principle of it possesses sufficient virtue, therefore etc     .

4. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question

88. To the Arguments [nn.5-7].

When it is argued first from Augustine “the word goes with known love” [n.5], I say that his using the phrase ‘with love’ is a circumlocution for generated knowledge in us, because love does not have causality with respect to the word save as it commands its generation, as was said in the preceding question [n.81]. But in divine reality the word is knowledge naturally expressed, because the fact that the will has causality in us with respect to generating the word through its command is a mark of imperfection in our intellect; because it does not immediately have a perfect word; and as to how the will is disposed in God and in us, this was stated in distinction 6 nn.16-29.

89. To the other - from On the Trinity XV [n.6] - I concede that in the Father there is intelligence formally, but I deny the proposition that ‘every act of intelligence is formally a word’, because this is not true save of the intelligence that can have some generated act or generated knowledge; such an act cannot be had by the intelligence as it belongs to the Father, because the Father is form himself and has nothing by generation. Yet one can concede that the actual intellection of the Father is as it were generated by virtue of memory as it is in the Father, but it is not truly generated, because it is not distinct.

90. To the third [n.7] I say that they are not two properties but the same, because the son and word signify per se the same relation, although they connote something different (namely the son connotes living nature, in general, and the word connotes actually expressed knowledge [n.85]). These connotations are not always the same, but passive relation - when signified - is always the same.

II. To the Third Question

A. The Opinion of Others

91. To the third question an answer given is yes [sc. that the divine word does state a respect to creatures], because of the authority of Augustine 83 Questions question 63, where he speaks of the beginning of John’s Gospel and says: “Logos is better translated by us in this place as ‘word’” (instead of as ‘reason’), “so that there may be signified not only a respect to the Father but also to the things that are made through the word by his operative power.”

92. There is added too that the word states a proper respect to creatures, because word, of its idea, is declarative knowledge; therefore it belongs to it in its idea ‘to declare’ things.

93. There is also appropriated to the Son a relation to creatures: but the appropriation is only made because of the agreement of such appropriated thing to the property of the person to which it is appropriated. And it is made clear by a likeness about gift.

94. And in a similar way is set down that just as there gift, as it connotes an aptitudinal relation, pertains to the property of the Holy Spirit, so the word, as it states an aptitudinal relation - not an actual or habitual one - pertains to the second person.

B. Rejection of the Opinion and Scotus’ own Response

95. Against this one can argue as was argued above about gift [in d.18, which is missing in the Ordinatio; see equivalent in d.18 of the Lectura and Reportatio], that no respect to creatures is a property of a divine person nor is per se included in any property of a divine person, and just as it was rejected there so it can be rejected here, - and this I concede.

96. And then there is no force [sc. to the question] save about the name ‘word’. For formally a respect of expressed knowledge to the one who expresses it is different from its respect to the creature that is declared; and not only this, but also the respect of the expressed word to the one who expresses it and the respect of the word as declaring something qua declared to the one who expresses it are two respects, because the first is real and the second of reason. But these two do not make anything per se one, because a true thing and a being of reason constitute nothing ‘per se one;’ and therefore if both these respects are signified by one name, they do not for this reason make a concept that is ‘one per se’, but one of them is precisely the property of the second person (namely the passive expression, which is a real respect), but the other - namely the respect of what is declarative - is only a respect of reason, or exists toward the declared Father or the declared creature. This was otherwise touched on above from the authority of Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.3 n.4 where he means that the word declares itself, - and the same ibid. XV ch.14 n.23: “The Father is perfectly a sayer of himself,” that is perfectly declares himself etc.;a from which two authorities is plain that the same thing can be referred to itself as declarer to declared, and consequently it is not a real relation.

a [Interpolation] “As if saying himself, the Father generates a word equal to himself in everything; for he would not have perfectly said himself if something less or more was in his word than in himself;” and ibid. VII ch.1 n.1: “With a Word, equal to himself, he always says himself.”

97. And then indeed it seems that the word per se and first signifies that real respect, because its abstract - as was said [n.85] - and its concrete first signify the same thing; but because word connotes perfect knowledge, by which knowledge it has a respect of reason to the things known through it, therefore it also connotes - as if still more remotely - the idea of what is declarative. And so the word will signify the property of the second person, although it connotes something absolute in that person (which is as it were the formal term of the production of that person), and through it as means it will connote, as if more remotely, a respect to all that to which the absolute can have a respect of reason, namely to all things it declares.

C. To the Principal Argument

98. To Augustine On the Trinity VI [n.9] I concede that the Word or the Son is the art of the Father; he is thus also called the wisdom and virtue of the Father [I Corinthians 1.23-24], and yet just as the Father is formally wisdom and virtue, so also is the Father formally art; for if he formally creates, and this as artisan, the creative principle is formally in the Father, - and so the respect of art to creatures ‘as to artifacts’ is common to the three, although it is appropriated to the Son, just as to him is appropriated wisdom because of its agreement with his own production.

D. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

99. To the remark - on behalf of the opinion - from 83 Questions question 63 [n.91], one can say that logos (in Greek) is better translated through what is meant by ‘word’ than by what is meant by ‘reason’, because reason does not thus signify a respect to the Father as word does, nor does it thus connote a respect to what is declared as word does. But Augustine does not mean to say that word states essentially relation to the creature under the idea of what is declarative, because he says “so that not only is respect to the Father signified, but a respect to those things too that are made through the word by operative power;” but the word is not said to be ‘operative power’ of the Father save as it is said to be the wisdom and art of the Father, which are not the word’s save by appropriation. Or if Augustine intends this name ‘word’ to signify both respects, then it does not precisely signify the property of the second person but, along with this, another appropriated respect; and then the interpretation of logos as ‘word’ and not as ‘reason’ is fitting, because ‘reason’ does not thus signify either a proper or an appropriated respect. The interpretation as ‘word’ is indeed true (for that reason it asserts more than the property of a person), nor does Augustine say the interpretation is in something that signifies a property of the second person.

100. When the addition is made that it asserts a respect to creatures, proper to the word [n92], - this seems much more false than the opposite conclusion that I maintain [nn.95, 98, 100], because not only is relation to creatures not included in the essential idea of any person, but it can also in no way pertain to any person without uniformly pertaining to the whole Trinity, because the whole Trinity is uniformly related to everything other than itself, according to any existence whatever, whether existence in reality or intelligible existence.

101. And when proof is given through the word’s being ‘declarative’ [n.92], I say that the actual intellection of the Father is declarative. Nor is ‘declarative’ the proper idea of word, but what is declarative is concomitant to expressed knowledge, because the expression is of actual knowledge; and therefore what is declarative is appropriated to word, although it is not proper to it.

102. When proof is afterwards given that ‘appropriation is not made save because of agreement with what is proper’ [n.93], the inference does not hold - from this - that appropriated is proper, but the opposite holds; and I concede that what is proper to the Son - which is ‘to be expressed’ - has an agreement with wisdom and with what is declarative, and with art, because of the fact that this expression is of something by way of intellect and by virtue of intellect; and such expression is actual knowledge, to which it belongs to declare the habitual knowledge from which it is expressed [n.64].

E. A Doubt about the Expression of the Divine Word

103. Here, however, a difficulty arises (a better one than is that ‘about the idea of declarative’), namely whether the word is expressed by virtue of the paternal intellect not only about the divine essence as object present to the intellect of the Father, but about other intelligibles, so that it should thus have a respect to creatures not as they are in themselves but as they have being first in origin in the paternal intellect (as it seems) before the word is expressed. And then it would have to them the relation of what is expressed; for then the word would be expressed not only about the essence as it is object of the intellect of the Father, but also about other intelligibles. - But about this difficulty elsewhere, in the question ‘On the Uniform Relation of the Trinity to what is Other than Itself’ [II d.1 q.1 nn.12-19].a

a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Whether by natural reason it can be known that the word is not an ‘essential’ in divine reality.

     That it cannot be: for then the Trinity would be known by natural reason; again, in the creature the word is equally of any supposit in nature.

     On the contrary: it is known that it is not necessary that the first person is word, - it is another person.

     Solution:

     To the negative answer the solution is plain, because the concept of the term - whether true in itself or not - shows that the negation can be proved about the positive. It cannot, on account of causing an effect, be a common term. It can be known that the not-impossible and anything contrary are solved.

     Whether the idea of Word is prior to the idea of Son in the second person.

     That it is: it is more of a per se term of the productive principle (on the contrary: there is no prior knowledge).

     On the contrary: Augustine, On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2 [“He is Word by that by which he is Son”].

     Opinion: intellectual nature. - On the contrary: nature thus states a mode of active principle.

     Solution: the Son is a subsistent in intellectual nature, generated by virtue of a nature of the same idea, existing in the first person (Hilary, On the Trinity V n37 [“For he is not God by cutting or extension or derivation from God, but by virtue of nature he subsists by birth in the same nature.”]).