I. To the Question

6. To the question:

It seems one must say that the three are sufficient for a real relation; first, because the foundation is real and the term is real; and second, because there is a real distinction between the extremes; and third, because, from the nature of the extremes, such a relation follows without the work of any other power comparing one extreme to the other.

A. As to the First Condition for Relation

1. Opinion of Others

7. As to the first condition for real relation [n.6], it is denied [by Henry of Ghent     etc .] that there is here a foundation, because it is said that magnitude passes over into the essence (according to Augustine, in many places), and so it does not remain under the idea of magnitude save in reason.

8. But against this:

The divine essence as it is the first object of the divine intellect, seen in the first intuitive cognition, is, before any busying of the intellect, the beatific object of that intellect, because the intellect is not beatified by a busying act; therefore      it is of itself, without any busying of the intellect, formally infinite, because nothing beatifies save what is formally infinite. So there is magnitude of virtue there - nay an infinity of magnitude - from the nature of the thing.

9. Again, the intellect, before it understands that it is understanding something or is busy about something, has a comprehensive grasp of the essence as first object, and from this - that it busies itself about it - it is possible to reduce to act all the ideas that can be considered in the essence; therefore from the nature of the thing the intellect is infinite, - therefore the essence too, on which it is founded.

10. Further, their reasoning [n.7] is not valid, because although a quantity of bulk states something added to the nature of the subject, and therefore it cannot remain under its formal idea and also pass over into the essence by identity, - yet magnitude of virtue in every being passes over into that which it by identity belongs to, even in the case of creatures. - Proof: for if an angel has some magnitude of virtue (about which Augustine speaks in ibid. VI ch.8 n.9: “In things that are not great by bulk, what it is to be greater is to be better”), and if its perfectible magnitude is not the same as its essence, let it be removed from the essence. With the essence then remaining, I ask what grade of perfection it has among beings? For it will be nothing unless it has some determinate grade of perfection among beings; therefore there still remains in the essence a magnitude of virtue, whereby it is said to be thus or thus perfect. Therefore the quantity in everything passes over by identity, and remains in everything in its proper idea, because the nature of such quantity is to state the intrinsic mode of the perfection it belongs to; and from the fact that it states ‘mode’, it remains - but from the fact that it states ‘intrinsic’, it passes by identity into the essence it belongs to.

2. Scotus’ own Opinion

11. I say, therefore, that there is here a foundation or equality that is real and from the nature of the thing, not only a remote one, which is the essence, - but a proximate one, which is magnitude or specifically ‘infinity’. And this is proved by all the reasons that are given to show that the essence of the first thing is infinite; they do all indeed conclude that from the nature of the thing it is infinite; for all things that depend on it - whether on it as it is first in idea of effective principle, or in idea of final principle, or in idea of being eminent and measuring and participated (which ways were touched on in distinction 2 nn.111-144) - all these things, I say, depend on it according to what it is from the nature of the thing, after removing every act of intellect, because no dependence of a finite effect rests on something under the formal idea of a being of reason, as can be proved by the reasons given in distinction 13 against the sixth opinion [nn.31-42]). There is also here from the nature of the thing what is posited as the proximate foundation of equality, or the idea of founding it, namely unity, because according to Damascene ch.8: “In him” (namely in God) “common and one are considered to be in the thing;” it is not so in the case of creatures, but the common there is ‘one’ by intellect only.

B. As to the Second Condition for Relation

12. In this way, namely that the relation requires extremes really distinct [n.6]: The thing is clear from Hilary, as said in his opposing point [n.5].

13. And from Augustine, ibid. VI ch.10 n.11: “In the Son,” he says, “is the first equality.” Which would not be true if some person could be said to be equal to himself; for then the Father would be the first equal. But because equality cannot be understood without distinction, and the first distinction is in the produced Son, so the ‘first equality’ is there in him, - taking as term or as quasi subject the equality by which the Son is equal to the Father.

14. This is also proved by the fact that the relations of origin are posited as real, and they do not pre-require a distinction of the extremes, but as it were formally cause it; for the relations in question here presuppose the distinction ‘as caused by relations of origin’, just as the common position is that they cannot burgeon in the essence unless the relations or origin are pre-existing in it [d.26 n.96]; therefore they seem more to require distinct extremes than the relations of origin, or at any rate not less.

15. And if you object that they are not of different ideas as the relations of origin are, - this is not conclusive unless because they are not distinct in species; but in the case of creatures not only are the relations of supposition and superposition real, where the extremes differ in species, - but also the common relations are real, where the extremes differ only in number;     therefore a real numerical distinction in the extremes is here sufficient for the reality of the common relations, just as for the distinction of the relations of origin, which differ as it were in species.

C. As to the Third Condition for Relation

16. As to the third article [n.6] - it seems that this relation [sc. equality etc     .] is consequent to the persons from the nature of the thing, without any comparison by some extrinsic power comparing them.

For because the Father by generating communicates his essence perfectly to the Son, therefore he communicates the same infinite magnitude - as Augustine says Against Maximinus II ch.18 n.3: “If,” he says, “you say ‘the Father is by his very self greater than the Son, because he generates’, I quickly reply: no, therefore the Father is not greater than the Son, because he generates an equal.” Therefore there does not seem to be any reason why the equality of the Father with the Son should not be posited as a real relation.

17. One can speak similarly about likeness. And - just as in creatures - there is a double likeness, namely essential, according to specific difference, and accidental, according to some accidental quality. And even if the first be denied in the issue at hand (because God does not have any specific difference), yet because - if the fact ‘there is a specific difference in creatures’ were the whole essence of the individual - there would no less be a form in respect of the individual (therefore no less a relation of likeness than there is now), therefore it seems that likeness can properly be conceded there (not insofar as it is ‘what’, but insofar as it is act and quasi form, by which the persons are God), and also a likeness as to all the attributes, which are as it were properties of this nature (as Damascene says ch.4: “Things that concern the nature state the nature”): and then, just as there is from the nature of the thing a foundation of equality and a real distinction between the extremes (and this relation is without any operation of the intellect [nn.11-13, 16]), so also in the case of likeness.

18. About identity too one can say that it is taken in two ways in divine reality; in one way of the same person to himself, as the Father is the same as himself, - in another way of one person with another, as the Father is the same as the Son and conversely. About the first identity, see elsewhere [II d.1 qq.4-5 n.24].a About the second one can say - as also about the others [equality, likeness] - that it is real, because there is there a true unity from the nature of the thing and a sufficient distinction between the extremes, nor does a comparison by the intellect seem necessary for the being of this identity. And if the identity of the same supposit with itself in the case of creatures is a relation of reason only, then there is never a true and perfect identity save in God alone; for Socrates is not a perfect identity with himself, because it is a relation of reason only, - and so every such relation is in a certain respect; nor is there a perfect identity of Socrates with Plato, because it is not founded on perfect unity. But here there is a perfect identity of the Father with the Son as to foundation, because there is a perfect unity of the Father with the Son, - and a real identity, because there is a real distinction and a sufficient one between the extremes.

a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Response.

     In distinction 19 to the ultimate: it is a mark of imperfection in creatures that the foundation is distinguished; there is only required a distinction of supposits.

     There, at the bottom: the passion of the quantity of virtue as also of bulk.

     Again, here in this distinction question 1: it does not only state negation, as neither does unity of essence and the distinction of persons which it follows.

     Here in question 2: the respect formally in its reason, causally and of the person and unity of essence, - just as in creatures there is a respect of the supposit to supposit according to one form.

     But what he [Bonaventure] does not understand, that they are distinct in reason, is not only proved in 19 (‘passion’) and in the first question here (‘it follows’), but because he never adds the distracting thing (in distinction 30, ‘About the relation of God to the creature’).