A. First Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

11. To the first question [n.1] it is said [by Henry of Ghent] that there is no new relation in God, because just as his action is the same, although considered in diverse ways (as in aptitude, as in power, as present, as past, as future), so the relation founded on his action - as thus and thus considered - is the same relation; therefore it states the same relation in God, that he is creative and creating;a but he was creative eternally; therefore when he is said to be ‘creating’ there is not in him a new relation but a new relative appellation. This is confirmed from Augustine On the Trinity V ch.16 n.17, where he seems rather to say new ‘appellation’ than new ‘relation’.

a [Interpolation] so what he [Henry] says elsewhere, that creative and creating are the same relation in idea, differing according to one or other way of naming (which is a minor difference), and this sort of ‘other way of naming’ is because of a new passion in creatures.

12. To the second question he [Henry] says no, because that which is really related is really ordered - just as whiteness, which is the reason for a reference really to another whiteness, is naturally and really ordered to it, because of the fact that it has some perfection from it insofar as there is in them a more perfect nature together than in either of them alone. But everything naturally ordered depends on that to which it is naturally ordered (namely to the extent it waits for it, so that the relation to it may be founded in itself); and if it depends, then it is changeable, because dependence is not without potentiality for act; and if it is changeable, then it is imperfect, because lacking the perfection to which it changes; and if it is imperfect, then it is limited. Therefore, from first to last: if it is really related, then it is limited.

13. And because an instance could be made that then there would not be a real relation in divine reality, therefore the proposition ‘about what is related to another in nature’ [sc. everything naturally ordered depends on that to which it is naturally ordered; above] seems to need an exposition: for if it is really referred to something which is the same really with it in nature, there is no need for it to be dependent, because it does not wait for something other than itself in nature, in order for the relation to it to be founded on it.

14. Then to the issue at hand: since God is not an imperfect something, nor changeable, nor dependent,     etc ., - therefore      he is not really related to anything other than himself; therefore not to creatures.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

15. Against this opinion, as to what it says to the first question [n.11]:

If actual and aptitudinal relation are the same thing, and because of this there is not any new actual relation of God to creatures, then by parity of reasoning there is not any new relation of creatures to God, because to the aptitudinal in God there will correspond an aptitudinal in creatures,a just as actual corresponds to actual; and then, if the actual and aptitudinal are the same in God, by parity of reasoning the aptitudinal in creatures will be the same as the actual, and thus there will be no new relation in one extreme just as not in the other either.

a [Interpolation] because as God was creative from eternity, so was the creature creatable.

16. This consequent seems in truth absurd, because then neither would there be a new essence nor would ‘anything absolute’ be new; for it is impossible that a foundation is new and the relation according to that foundation is eternal. And something impossible according to them follows, because then, since all things are ‘what they are’ with respect to God as to exemplar cause or efficient cause, it follows that all things are eternal and nothing is new (because if a respect is not new neither is the absolute [sc. on which it is founded] new), because a respect cannot be eternal without eternity of the foundation. It also seems especially unacceptable according to them that they say ‘the being of existence states a respect to the efficient cause as it is efficient’ (and it is a new ‘existence’,a by creation), and yet this respect is in creatures in comparison to God; therefore notwithstanding the preceding aptitudinal relation as it is aptitudinal, there can be a new actual one, as being other than that aptitudinal one.

a [Interpolation] or there will be nothing new.

17. Further, the same relation cannot exist save between the same extremes. But now the divine intellect not only from eternity understood the soul of Antichrist as possible for such and such a time, before it was created, but also understood it as actually existing for that instant of creation; but this ‘intelligible thing’ seems to be distinct from that intelligible thing, in idea of being intelligible, because the being ‘potential’ and being ‘actual’ of the soul seem to be different intelligibles;a therefore divine intellection, which is single, can have them for distinct objects of its single act, distinct in reason, just as they can be distinct objects of two acts of our intellect; and consequently, the divine intellect when comparing itself to the first extreme ‘as creative to creatable’ and to the other extreme ‘as creating to created’ seems to produce as it were in its essence two relations of reason to distinct extremes, and so the relation of creative to creating is not one relation of reason, just as neither are the extremes - to which it is compared - the same.

a [Interpolation] because there can be two acts of understanding about them, since each can be understood with the opposite of the other; therefore in respect of the divine intellect they are two intelligibles, according to two acts in reason.

18. There is a confirmation for this reason: in any genus, that which exists in potency is only such ‘in a certain respect’; therefore it is not simply the same as that which is actually such, - and consequently, if this thing be understood as such in potency and that thing as such in act, it will be ‘another intelligible’ simply.

19. Further, as to what is said about new appellation [n.11], it seems irrational, because anything in which the same form has the same being seems able to be named in the same way by it; for because such a form is in such a thing, therefore it is named such by it, and not conversely; therefore if the relation is the same and is uniform to creatures on the part of God, there seems no reason that God cannot always be uniformly named by it.a

a [Interpolation] For that a form is in something, and yet that it cannot be denominated by it as it is said to ‘have the form’, is a contradiction, because the concrete and abstract of a form do not differ save in denomination of the subject; therefore that creation-action is in God, and yet God cannot be denominated by it, is a contradiction.

20. Against what is said to the second question [n.12], it seems that the things posited as connected there [sc. real relation and dependence] are not connected.

First indeed, because if two things most white are posited, they will be perfectly alike (which is made clear by the fact that now there is perfect likeness and equality in the divine persons, and the perfection of likeness is not taken away because of the infinity of the foundation but rather is the more posited);a therefore there would be the most perfect likeness there, and yet neither would be ordered to the other as that from which it had the perfection.

a [Interpolation] and if per impossibile there were there two foundations, there would be a real likeness, because now a likeness is not posited to be one of reason save because of the intellect comparing the one magnitude.

21. If you say that a specific nature is more perfect in two than in either alone, -this is not ‘one of them being ordered to the other’, because one of them has no perfection by the fact that it is other, whether or not the nature exists more perfectly in both together than in one.

22. Further, a natural created agent does not act insofar as it is imperfect, because to act belongs to it insofar as it is in act (and ‘to act’ belongs supremely to God), and yet such an agent - insofar as it is thus agent - is posited to have a real relation to its effect; therefore there is no need that every related thing, insofar as it is such, depend really on that to which it is referred; for although a created agent depends on something, yet it does not seem to depend on something which is caused by it, nor insofar as it is potential and imperfect and changeable does it cause it, but insofar as it is in act.

23. Further, if a, insofar as it is referred to b, really depends on it, by parity of reasoning (if the relations are mutual) b will depend on a insofar as it is referred to a, and so the dependence will be circular, a on b and conversely - which seems impossible, because in no essential order is there a circle.