Question Two. Whether there can be Some Real Relation of God to Creatures

5. Secondly I ask whether there can be some real relation of God to creatures.

That there can be:

Because God from the nature of the thing, without consideration of the intellect, is omnipotent and omniscient (for these are posited in God as attributes stating in God a perfection simply, and everything such is there from the nature of the thing, according to Anselm Monologion ch.15); but these terms [sc. omnipotent, omniscient] state a respect to possible and knowable creatures;     therefore etc     .

6. Further, God from eternity willed everything needing to be created to exist for the time for which he created it; ‘to will a creature’ includes relation, and not a relation of reason (proof, because he could will a creature before he understood that he willed it; for he willed the creature, not because he knew it, but because he willed it); therefore that eternal relation of the will of God to the creature was real, because it is not in the will by act of some intellect comparing it to something.

7. Further, relations founded on quantity are real, from Metaphysics 5.15.1021a8-14; therefore the inequality of God to creatures, founded on the quantity of virtue in God (namely on the infinity of his magnitude), and on the finite virtue of creatures, and on the magnitude of virtue in creatures (namely the finite magnitude of creatures), will be a real relation. - A confirmation is that magnitude in God is the foundation of equality, which is a real relation inwardly, and magnitude in creatures is the foundation of a real relation;     therefore , by comparing this magnitude with that, it seems that the disposition founded on them is real.

8. Further, relations of the second mode of relatives (which namely are founded on action and passion, Metaphysics 5.15.1020b28-30, 21a14-29) are real relations; but such is the relation of God to creatures insofar as he is efficient cause; therefore etc     . - If you say that this is not true save of agents acting naturally [sc. and not by will], on the contrary: then the created will will not have a real disposition to its effect.

9. Further, as a form is in something, so does it denominate it; therefore if there is not any relation in God to creatures really, God is not really lord of creatures (or he is not really creator), which seems absurd.

10. On the contrary:

A real relation is toward a term according to its real existence; but a term is necessarily required for a real relation; therefore if God is really referred to creatures, then creatures according to their real being have been eternal.

I. The Opinions of Others as to Each Question

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.

B. Second Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

24. It is said in another way [Richard of Middleton] to the first question [n.1] that in God there is not any relation to creatures from time, but in the creature alone there is a relation to God from time, - and thus the relation by which God is said with respect to the creature is only in the creature, and not in God. Which seems to be taken from Augustine in the cited chapter [nn.11, 4] and from the Master here in the text.a

And to the second question [n.5] it is said that no such relation can be real, because a real relation is not without order; God has no real order to creatures, because he is above order.

a [Interpolation] There is a confirmation in that action is in the patient (from Physics 3.3.202b5-6), and yet it does not denominate the patient but the agent; thus too God is denominated by the relation that is in the creature.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

25. Against the first [n.24]:

Because then relation would be in that in which there is no foundation; for the foundation of the relation by which God is said with respect to the creature (if he is so said) is not in the creaturea but in God; therefore that relation will not be in the creature.

a [Interpolation] because the power, which founds the relation, is not in the creature.

26. Further, the opposite relations of cause and caused cannot exist in the same thing, because they are more repugnant than the relations of producer and produced, -which however cannot exist in the same supposit, although they are in the same nature.

27. And if you say that here the opposite relations are in the same supposit but do not denominate it, - this seems altogether irrational, that some form is in some subject and the subject cannot be said to be of the sort that that is which is of a nature to be constituted by the form.

28. The response that is given to the second question [n.24] seems to beg the question and to be a fault in the consequent.

Proof of the first, that since God is prior to the creature with a multiple priority -extending the name of ‘order’ so that not only is a posterior said to be ordered to a prior but also a prior to a posterior (although in a different way), one must prove that this priority (which can be called order) is not a real relation in God; this point therefore is begged. Nor does it follow from the known fact ‘that God is above order’, taking order as it is of posterior things ordered to a prior; for from this there only follows ‘that he is not posterior’, and from this it does not follow that he has no order, taking order generally.

29. But that the argument is a fault in the consequent is proved by the fact that order is a certain relation; but not every relation is an order (because it is not the case ‘common relation, founded on one of them’, as with equivalent relations), but only nonequivalent relations state an order. Therefore by arguing from a negation of order to a negation of relation is to argue as if the antecedent were first denied and afterwards the consequent.

II. Scotus’ own Response to the First Question

30. I respond therefore to the first question [n1] that the relations of creatures to God are new and from time, nor is there need, because of them, insofar as they are related to God ‘as to their term’, to posit any relations in God from time to be their term.

I prove it thus:

First, because according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-30 ‘About relation’, relatives in the third mode are called those that are said ‘to something’ because other things belong to them, - so that this is the per se difference of the two first modes from the third, that in the first two the relation is mutual, but in the third it is not mutual, but one of the relatives is referred precisely to the other and the other is not referred but is only something of it; but all relations of creatures to God pertain to the third mode of relatives; therefore of whatever sort those are which are in one extreme, there is no need for the other extreme - according to some relation in it - to be the term of those relations, but it can be the term precisely under the idea of an absolute.a

a [Note of Duns Scotus] Henry [of Ghent, Summa a.55 q.5 ad 4]: “Praepositinus responds saying that ‘not every relation has a correlation, for there is a relation of the creature with respect to the creator, yet there is not one in the creator with respect to the creature, - which is true as to the reality; yet it is present according to a consideration of the intellect.”

32. And this is also proved from the intention of the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.8.1049b12-17, where he proves that ‘act is prior to power in definition, because power is defined by act’; but if act were referred to power, then - conversely - act would also be defined by power, as Porphyry says Book of Predicables ch.3 ‘About species’, because in mutual relatives “the ideas of both must be posited in the ideas of both.”

33. Then the argument goes: act defines power as it is the term of the relation; either then it is term of the relation as an absolute, and the intended conclusion is gained, - or as a correlative, and thus power will define act; therefore as act is ‘prior’ in definition it is ‘posterior’ in definition!

34. Therefore act so defines power that it is not conversely defined by it, and consequently act is not referred to power but is a pure absolute, and this under the idea under which it defines power; but it defines power insofar as power is to it as a relation to a term; therefore act, according as it is a pure absolute ‘something’, is the term of this relation, whatever the relation be, whether simply so or in a certain respect.

35. This is also more generally proved by all relatives, because no relative is referred first to the correlative as to a term in the case of creatures.

Proof: a relative, insofar as it is relative, is first defined by the term to which it is referred, - therefore the term ‘as term’ is prior in definition to the relative as relative. The inference is plain from Metaphysics 7.4.1030b4-7, where the Philosopher compares accident to substance - and from him Metaphysics 9.8.1049b12-17, where he compares potency to act.

36. If then the term, insofar as it is term, is referred to the related thing insofar as it was related, then ‘insofar as it is term’ it will have regard to the related thing for definition, and consequently for what is prior according to definition; therefore father would be prior to son in definition and conversely. But it is impossible for there to be a circle in any essential priority whatever, therefore it is impossible for father to be referred first to son insofar as son is referred to father. Therefore it is referred first to the absolute that is the proximate foundation of the relation (namely of filiation), and the absolute is prior to the father as father; and conversely, son ‘as son’ is referred to the absolute which is the proximate foundation of paternity, and the absolute is prior to filiation and to son insofar as it is son.

37. Nor is there because of this any circle, as that to the father ‘insofar as he is father’ a should be prior (which is an ‘absolute’ and the proximate foundation of filiation), and that to filiation ‘insofar as it is filiation’ b should be prior (which is the proximate foundation of the relation of paternity). For from this there only follows that these two absolutes are prior to two relations, and this is true; nay both absolutes are prior to each relation, because any relation pre-requires not only the foundation but also the term as it is term. Thus therefore is how things are when the relations are mutual; but it happens there to the term, as it is term, that it is conversely referred. It is possible therefore for something to be referred to an absolute, - and so it seems reasonable to posit this in God, who most of all has the idea of an absolute as creatures are related to him.

38. Further, although the intellect could busy itself about the term of some relation of the third mode [n.31] and cause a relation of reason in that term, yet that is not a reason for being the term; for although some intellect confer the squaring of the circle on science, causing in that absolute the relation of reason which is knowability, yet that is not a reason for terminating the relation of reason to it; for this relation of reason is not in this absolute save as actually considered by the intellect, but science is really referred to it, not merely as it is considered by the intellect; therefore the relation of reason in the knowable was not the reason for terminating the relation of the science.

39. This can also be made clear in the issue at hand about God, because although the divine essence can be compared to creatures, and this through an act both of the created intellect and of the uncreated intellect, and so this act can cause in the essence a relation of reason, yet it will not be the reason for terminating the relation of creatures to it. Certainly not the one that is caused by act of the created intellect; proof, because then, when no created intellect was considering, by comparing God to a stone (if God were to produce a stone) there would not be in the stone a real relation to him, because neither is there a relation of reason in God which would be the reason for terminating the real relation of the stone to him; the consequent is false. Therefore also not that one either that the divine intellect causes in its own essence; proof, because if per impossibile God were not an intellectual nature (as some have said, positing that the sun is the first principle [Wisdom 13.1-2]) and he were to produce a stone, the stone would be really referred to God and yet then there would be no relation of reason in God to it.

40. Absolutely then I say that, because of the termination of relations in creatures from time to God, there is no need to posit any relation in God, neither new nor old, which might be the reason for terminating the relation of the creature.

41. Yet there can be posited in God some relation of reason, new indeed, as that which is caused in him by act of our intellect when considering him, but not any new one by act of his own intellect.

Which I prove because never is there passage from contradictory to contradictory without change; for if there were no change in anything, there would be no reason why one of the contradictories could now be true rather than the other, nor why one should be false rather than the other, and so both are false at the same time and true at the same time; but if in God there could be a new relation by act of his own intellect, one extreme of some contradiction would now be true about something which before was not true;a therefore there is some change in something. Not in the divine essence as known, - nor in the object considered, because it does not yet exist. Nor in anything to which it is compared by his own intellect, unless change is posited in the intellect itself when comparing; because, as the object compared and that to which it is compared - insofar as they are such - do not have another being save in being understood, so they cannot have another being or exist in another way unless something else is understood of them or understood in another way; but if something different being understood of them or being differently understood is impossible without some change of the divine intellect, then no relation can be new in God by act of his own intellect comparing his essence to something temporal. But this is not for this reason, that an actual and a potential relation are one (as the first rejected opinion said [nn.11, 15-19]), but for this reason, that the divine intellect - whatever it compares its essence to - compares in eternity, although not for eternity; hence just as in eternity he compares his will ‘as creative’ to the soul of Antichrist as possible for a certain time, so he compares in eternity his will ‘as creating’ to the soul of Antichrist as actually existing for the now for which he wishes to create that soul; and these indeed are two relations of reason, as they are two extremes, - but each is eternal, although not for eternity.

a [Interpolation] because now it is being considered under some idea under which it was not being before considered by the divine intellect.

42. From this is apparent the response to this objection: ‘If there can be no new relation in God by act of his own intellect, then if no created intellect were possible and God could create a stone, he could not understand himself creating a stone as a created intellect can understand him now creating a stone, when he does create it; the consequent appears unacceptable, because whatever is knowable by us is much more knowable also by him’. - I reply: God could know himself creating a stone at time a; but he could not newly know himself creating a stone, but in eternity he would know himself creating a stone at time a just as in eternity he knows himself to be at some time creative of a stone. This is to say, in eternity he knows the actual relation of it to that at time a, just as he also knows the quasi potential relation of himself to it - a relation of reason, however - at some time.

43. In brief I say that it is plain there is no new relation in God, per se terminating a new relation of a creature; there is however some new relation by act of a created intellect, but none by act of his own intellect.

44. But then the first member [n.43] seems doubtful, as to how God is to be posited as lord, - according to Augustine On the Trinity V ch.16 n.17 [above, n.4].

I reply: by the sole new relation that is in the creature to him is he denominated ‘lord’; not indeed that in creatures there are two opposite relations [sc. of lord and servant] (by one of which God is denominated [n.24]), but there is one relation only [sc. of servant], which is to God as he is absolute. And for this reason, because ‘as absolute’ he is the term of that relation, he is denominated as if there were in him a new relation, namely the corresponding one [sc. lord], - in the way that a work made by a man is called ‘human’, not because of something of humanity that is formally in the work, but because of the humanity that is formally in man, to whom the work has a disposition.

45. And this seems to be the intention of the Master expressly in the text [d.30 ch.1 n.264], when he concludes this from the words of Augustine. For he speaks thus: “The appellation by which a creature is said relatively to the creator is relative, and it indicates the relation that is in the creature itself; but the appellation by which the creator is said relatively to the creator is relative indeed, but it indicates no relation that is in the creator;” and this same thing is what Augustine seems to say On the Trinity V [nn.4, 11, 24, 44], as the Master adduces him: “That God begins in time to be called what he was not called before is manifestly relatively said, not however according to an accident of God (because something has happened to him), but plainly according to an accident of that to which God begins relatively to be said.”

III. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

46. To the arguments [nn.1-3].

To the first [n.1]: I concede that whatever is in God is eternal by identity; but it is not necessary that whatever is predicated of God, by the fact that something else has a disposition to him, is eternal formally, because nothing else has an eternal disposition to him - just as if God is eternal and loved in time by a created will, he is indeed said to be loved by us but not ‘loved eternally’.

47. To the second [n.2]: the consequence does not hold, because when extremes are of different ideas, then, on account of the fact that one extreme exceeds the other, there is no need for there to be a like coexistence of one with the other and conversely, -just as this inference does not hold, ‘whatever is eternal is with the whole of time, therefore everything temporal is with the whole of eternity’; for the first part is true by reason of the immensity of eternity, and that is lacking in the other extreme, - and so there is no need for concomitance conversely, of the sort there is in the above inference. So here, the eternal can be the term of a new disposition to it (because what eternally exists can produce something de novo), and some appellation can be said of him from time, but the temporal cannot thus have the disposition of something eternal to him; or one can concede that the temporal too can be denominated from the disposition of something eternal to him, - as a stone, not only as ideational but as existing, is eternally known by God.

48. To the third [n.3]: ‘to come to be’, not determined through anything (namely when it is predicated according to something added to it [sc. ‘comes to be white’]), does not indicate the making simply of that of which it is said, - as that, if it be said ‘man comes to be’, making is indicated to be simply present in man; but if an adjacent third thing is predicated, as ‘man comes to be white’, coming to be is not indicated save according to something of him, namely what specifies him. And so someone might perhaps concede that God comes to be lord by indicating a making ‘in a certain respect’, namely a making according to some relation of reason or according to the termination of some relation; what however is conceded rather is that he begins to be lord, because this does not signify imperfection as ‘comes to be’ does; however in no way, either ‘comes to be’ or ‘begins’, is it conceded absolutely.

IV. Scotus’ own Response to the Second Question

49. To the second question [n.5] I respond that in God there is not any real relation to creatures.

50. The reason for this is taken from the perfect simplicity and perfect necessity of God: for because God is perfectly simple, there is nothing in him which is not him (according to Augustine City of God XI ch.10: “God is simple, because he is what he has”); also his perfect necessity is of itself such, because his being will not vary whatever hypothesis is laid down - whether possible or impossible - about anything other than himself, because other things are not necessary except secondarily.

51. From this it follows that there is no reality in him which necessarily corequires anything other than himself; for such a thing, necessarily co-requiring something other than God, would not exist if that co-required thing does not exist, and consequently something that was perfectly the same as God would not exist when something else -which was not necessary of itself - does not exist; but a real relation of necessity corequires for its ‘being’ the term of the relation; therefore in God there is no relation to anything other than himself.

52. Against this reason instances are raised:

First, because although the creature is not necessary in actual being, yet it seems that ‘something other than God’ is necessary in possible being, because the ‘possible being’ is necessary (which is proved by the fact that something seems possible by its possibility in itself before there is a relation of God to it, for there is no power in anything save with respect to something possible in itself; therefore a relation to a creature ‘insofar as it is possible’ does not co-require anything that is not necessary under the idea under which it is its term); but a relation in God to a creature ‘as possible’ seems to be the same as his relation to a creature as actual, by the deduction set down for the first opinion to the first question [n.11]; therefore there can be in God - while his necessity stands -some relation simply to creatures as possible, and the same relation as that which is to creatures as actual.

53. Again, if the creature has quidditative being insofar as it has exemplared being (according to one opinion), this being is necessary for the creature; therefore a respect to this being, as such, seems to be possible without possibility in that in which such respect is.

54. Again, if the philosophers were to posit certain things produced by God as formally necessary (as was said about the opinion of Aristotle and Avicenna in distinction 8 nn.251-253, 255, 248, 242), then the respect to those things could be the same as God and yet the necessity of the divine could still stand, because of the fact that the term of the relation, according to the opinion, would be necessary; therefore, by holding the position of the philosophers who yet denied a real relation in God, the reasoning already set down (from the simplicity and necessity of God) does not seem sufficient.

55. Again, fourth: in that case there should not be posited in a more necessary creature a real respect to a less necessary creature, and so in the celestial bodies there should be no real respect to generable and corruptible things.

56. To these objections [nn.52-55].

Although to the two first objections [nn.52-53] a response can be made in more or less a single way (to the first by the fact that possible being is only being in a certain respect,a and therefore there is no relation to it simply but in a certain respect, - and to the second in like manner, that exemplared being is only being in a certain respect, and therefore the disposition to such term would not be real, just as neither is the term real), yet one can say with one general response to all these instances, that the necessary of itself - as was said [n.50] - will not change according to anything perfectly the same as itself, whatever possible position is constructed about what is other than it; but whatever is in the perfectly simple is the same as it perfectly; therefore the necessary of itself cannot be changed according to anything that is in it, whatever is posited about something else. But nothing other than God is as formally necessary as God, according to any position, because if something else formally necessary were posited, it would not be without all dependence on the first necessary, and so would not be of itself necessary; therefore no reality in the first will change because of any position about anything of such a sort that it is not of itself formally necessary; but some change could come to be in some reality in the first because of a change in something other than itself, if some reality in it necessarily required something other than itself.

a [Interpolation] because this sort of being is not being simply, just as neither is ‘being a dead man’ being a man - nor does this possibility posit more in reality than blindness does in an eye.

57. And next to the two instances about potential and quidditative being (according to some) I reply [nn.52-54] that neither is the ‘possible’ of itself necessary in such being - even a necessary possible - in the way God is of himself necessary act; thus too neither are those quiddities of themselves necessary in their quidditative being, but they are necessary beings thus by participation; nor, third, would creatures - if they were necessary (according to the philosophers [n.54]) - be as necessary as the first, but they would have only a participated necessity. And so to posit that they do not exist would not be as impossible as that some reality in the first does not exist (because none of them is as necessary as any reality in the first is necessary), and yet from positing ‘the less impossible’ something more impossible would seem to follow! Therefore there could not be as regard any of these things, although they are in some sense necessary (though not of themselves necessary), any reality in that which is necessary of itself.

58. To the fourth [n.55] I say that if something ‘more necessary’ were also simple (that is, not composite, nor combinable with any non-necessary reality), the more necessary would exist when it does not have a respect outside itself to the less necessary; but this supposition is false, because although some celestial body were posited to be in itself necessary, yet it is not a simple that could not receive any non-necessary reality other than itself; but God, just as he cannot be what exists in order to something not of itself necessary, so he cannot have any reality in order to such a thing, because that reality would be himself.

V. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question

59. As to the arguments about omnipotence and omniscience [n.5], and about willing future things [n.6], there will be discussion in the questions specific to them [I d.43 nn.6-14, d.35 nn.27-34, d.45 n.7].

60. To the argument about action and passion [n.8]: the Philosopher does not say that those relations are real, but he says that they are mutual; and in this precisely are the relations in the first and second mode distinguished form the third mode of relation [n.31]. But however it may be with what he said, the position of the Philosopher is not of itself true when the agent is of itself necessary and perfectly simple, as was said when solving the point [nn.49-51].

61. But you ask: why then are the relations real that are founded on action and passion in creatures?

62. Although there is no need to speak to this point for the solution of the argument [n.8, 60], yet one can say that this is true in the case of a natural agent, because the form it has - whereby it is active - is naturally inclined to producing the effect; but a free agent is not naturally inclined to the effect from the form it has, - and then, since God is a free agent, it follows that on his action there is not founded a real relation.

63. On the contrary:

The philosophers, when conceding that God produces things by natural necessity, denied a real relation of him to them [n.54]; therefore that [n.62] is not the precise reason.

64. Likewise, a created will seems to have a real relation to its effect, although it is free.

65. Further, an effect does not by its absolute entity necessarily require a proximate cause (for the same absolute entity could be from a remote cause), and yet when it is produced by its proximate cause it has a real relation to it; therefore there is not required for a real relation that the absolute nature, on which it is founded, be necessarily inclined of itself to one of the two extremes.

66. Again, the likeness of two white things is a real relation in them, and yet one white thing, precisely considered insofar as it is the foundation of the relation, does not seem inclined of its entity (whereby it is the foundation) to one of the two extremes -especially a supreme whiteness, if it is posited in relation to another supreme whiteness, as was argued against his [Henry’s] first argument to this question [nn.12, 20].

67. Again, if it is always necessary, before there is a real relation, to posit in the foundation a natural inclination to the term, then there is a real relation before the real relation, because the inclination to another is a real relation!

68. Therefore in brief:

It does not seem necessary for a real relation that the absolute thing which is the foundation of the relation be inclined of itself to the remaining thing, but that it be such that, when the term is posited, there follow on it and on the term such disposition from the nature of the extremes,a - and then that every created agent is such that, when some effect is posited to exist through it, the disposition of them follow on it as on the foundation and on the product as on the term.

a [Interpolation] so that any relation that follows the extremes from the nature of the thing, without consideration of the intellect, is real.

69. But the reason why a real relation follows is only because this is this and that is that; just as the reason why a real relation (as ‘likeness’) follows on whiteness and whiteness - once posited - is only this whiteness and that whiteness; and there is no other reason why a real greater-ness follows on double and triple - once posited in existence -than that this is double and that is triple.

70. And yet the idea of potentiality in the foundation and the term can be assigned as the general cause, namely as to why a real disposition can follow:

For whatever things can be parts of some whole are potentials for the form of the whole, - and if they can be parts of something per se one, they can be potentials for the form by which it is per se one (as is plain about the parts of the organic body with respect to the intellective soul), and also, if they can be parts of something that is one with unity of order, they can be potentials for its form, by which form the ‘whole’ is one in order; and generally, the proposition about the potentiality of parts is plain, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.2.1013b19-21, where he means that parts are like matter with respect to the whole. All created things - because they are limited - are of a nature to be parts of the whole universe, which is ‘one’ with unity of order (as is plain in Metaphysics 12.10.1075a16-19), and therefore any of them is potential for this form which is ‘order’, so as namely to have an order to another part; and this either according to the eminence which is in diverse natures in the universe, or according to equality (because “order is of things equal and unequal,” according to Augustine City of God XIX ch.13 n.1), or according to action and passion, or according to causality. And therefore any created agent, when producing an effect, is potential such that on it and on its produced effect an order among them can follow.

But it cannot be thus as regard an unlimited agent and its effect, because the unlimited agent is potential neither to absolute form nor to relation, on account of its infinity.

71. One can reply through the same point to the argument about quantity [n.7] because every created quantity - whether in virtue or mass - even if it be posited to have a real relation to another quantity (because of the fact that the order, from which comes the unity of the universe, can exist between such quanta), yet there can be no real disposition of an infinite quantity to a finite one.

72. And when a confirmation for the argument is given through equality, which is a real relation in creatures and even in divine reality [n.7], - I reply that in divine reality it is real because it is a disposition from the nature of the thing, and it stands together with the simplicity and necessity of the related thing in itself because it is not referred to another that is less necessary formally than the related thing itself; in creatures the relation is real because of the very potentiality of the related quantities. But when comparing the infinite quantity to this [finite] one, both reasons are destroyed, because then simplicity and necessity are taken away from one of the extremes, and potentiality and limitation are taken away from the other.

73. To the other argument [n.9] I say that reality sometimes determines the composition [of a proposition], and then it means nothing other than that it is so truly, -as when it is said ‘that proposition is really false’ that is, ‘it truly is false’. But if reality is taken as it adverbially determines the predicate, here ‘God is really lord’, - although this proposition can be denied, yet it can be conceded according as ‘lord’ does not indicate any relation in God but according as God is the term of a real relation of the creature, as was said in the preceding question [n.44].