Question One. Whether Primary Causality with Respect to all Causables is of Necessity in the Three Persons

1. About the second book, in which the Master treats of God as to his primary causality, and this specifically of the causality of the triple cause that he has in respect of creatures, I ask the following questions - and first about the first distinction: whether primary causality with respect to all causable things is of necessity in the three persons; and I understand ‘with respect to all causable things’ in any existence [sc. real and in a certain respect], and this of necessity, such that it cannot be save in the three persons.a

a.a [Interpolation] After the Master has in the first book determined about God as the idea of his natural perfection, in this second book he determines about him insofar as his perfection shines out in the works of creation. And about the first determination, in which the emanation of creatures is determined in general, five questions are asked: the first is whether the first causality with respect to all creatable things, according to any existence of them, is of necessity in the three persons, such that it cannot be save in the three persons; the second is whether God can create anything; the third is whether it is possible for God to produce something other than himself; the fourth is whether the creation of an angel is the same as the angel; the fifth is whether the relation of the creature to God is the same as its foundation.

2. That it is not is argued as follows:

Richard [of St. Victor] in On the Trinity bk.3 ch.16: “If it were only in one person, there would still be in that person the fullness of wisdom and power.” Therefore that one person could produce everything producible.

3. Second as follows: action belongs to a supposit, therefore in the case of several supposits there are several actions; therefore there cannot be one action of three persons, -therefore not one power or one causality either, because “what the power belongs to, that the act also belongs to,” according to the Philosopher On Sleep 1.454a8.

4. The third as follows: ‘as the principle of operation is to the principle [sc. as the principle of operation of one power is related to the principle of operation of a second power], so the operation is to the operation’ (this proposition is plain in the sensitive, intellective, and volitional powers and their acts); but the principle of causation of causable things is something essential (because it is common to the three), therefore it is in some way prior to what is notional and personal; therefore so is action prior to action.a

a.a [Interpolation] On the contrary: the act of creating is related to the three persons as the act of inspiriting belongs to the Father and Son, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity 5.14 n.15; but the act of inspiriting so belongs to the Father and Son that it belongs to them precisely, and to neither without the other;   therefore the act of creating, which is the first act of causing, belongs to the three persons precisely. - Again, to be able to create belongs to no nature but the divine, nor can it belong to any supposit in divine reality besides the three persons, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity bk.2 ch.10 n.18, “the works of the Trinity are undivided;” therefore etc     .

[Note from the Vatican editors: the arguments to the contrary answered later in nn. 48-49 are actually other and come from the Lectura: On the contrary: as the goodness of God is to the goodness of the creature, so is production to production; but the goodness of the creature does not exist unless the goodness of God precedes; therefore neither will the production of the creature exist unless production of God inwardly is presupposed. - Further, person more agrees with person in operating in divine reality than substance and virtue in the creature do in operating; but in the creature substance cannot operate without its proper virtue; therefore neither can one person in divine reality operate without another.]

I. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

5. [Statement of the opinion] - There is here the opinion of Henry, Quodlibet VI q.2 - look at it there.a, b

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] [Henry’s opinion] that “the philosophers [sc. Avicenna] only posited in God an intellect of simple intelligence whereby he understands himself and all other things; and likewise they posited a simple will whereby all things are pleasing to him according to the fact they are good in their essence. Now such an intelligence, by the fact it is natural, is naturally disposed to producing the things it has understood and in one determinate way - and the like holds of the will concomitant to such simple apprehension; and therefore the philosophers had to posit that God produced creatures outside himself by necessity of nature and in accord with the best way of producing (namely by intellect and will as nature, not by will as dispositive and elective),” and in this they erred, because according to them no intrinsic personal emanation precedes the production of things externally.

    But this point, in the way the opinion of the philosophers says it, is not valid, because in order for God to produce something outside himself, simple knowledge and simple love of being well pleased (which alone belong to speculative knowledge) are not enough, but there is required a declarative and dispositive knowledge of things to be done and a love inciting and aspiring to the production of them; now this declarative and dispositive knowledge is the Word, and the aspiring love is the Holy Spirit; therefore the Word and Holy Spirit precede the production of things.

    Now the manner of positing [sc. by Henry] is as follows, that “however much God by simple knowledge knows things to be done and however much the will loves them, unless the intellect make disposition about them and the will aspire to the production of them, never would God by his wisdom and will produce them in being outside himself, because” - as I said [sc. just above] - “simple wisdom and its ensuing love pertain to pure speculation, but a work is then first produced when it is disposed by wisdom and aspired to by will, for the wisdom and love for this pertain to praxis. Hence, just as a natural form is not a principle of action as it is the perfection of what it is in but only as it has regard to an effect, so wisdom and love in divine reality, as they are the forms of intellect and will (as such, absolutely), are not a principle of action, but only as they have a regard to an effect; but the wisdom that disposes and the love that aspires, which have regard to act, are nothing but the wisdom and love that proceed [sc. as Son and Holy Spirit].”

    Hence he [Henry] says “just as a created artisan has in the wisdom of his art a double knowledge of the artifact, one of simple knowledge in universal art whereby he intuits things to be done purely speculatively, and another that disposes to a work whereby in his particular art, conceived from universal art, he intuits the order of his production (and this is practical knowledge, without which it is impossible for an artisan to proceed to a work) - so it is on the part of the will, because the artisan has a double love of the artifact, one simple whereby the form of the artifact pleases him (and this love does not order him to a work), and the other aspiring love whereby he desires the work to be made. Things are similar on the part of God, because by his simple knowledge he knows all things simply and absolutely, but in his practical knowledge he knows all things as in an art dispositive and declarative of them for a work - and one of these knowledges proceeds from the other; and likewise on the part of the will about simple and aspiring love.”

    Then they say that “intrinsic emanation is necessarily presupposed causally to emanation extrinsically, not because creatures are produced by way of efficient cause by the whole Trinity and by the produced persons, but because ‘produced wisdom and love’ are reasons in essential intellect and will disposing to the production of creatures by way of formal cause... such that the

    Word proceeding and Love proceeding are, with respect to the essence, the formal principle of the act of creating and as it were the proximate principle while the essence is the remote principle. And the essence, or the Father as he is essence, has the word in himself, that is in his essential intellect, for the perfection of his essential intellect - and similarly the Son (who is the Word itself) and similarly the Holy Spirit; but the Father has the word from himself (because he has it by speaking it), while the Son and Holy Spirit have the word in the essential intellect - perfecting the essential intellect - from the Father alone.”

    On behalf of this opinion, thus faithfully recited, one can argue as follows: Augustine On the Trinity 15.11 n.20 says that “just as there can be a word of ours which is not followed by a work, though there cannot be a work unless a word precedes, so the word of God can exist without any creature existing; but no creature can exist save through him ‘through whom all things were made’ [John 1.3];”     therefore etc     . - Again, there is an argument thus, that if creatures were produced only by simple knowledge and complaisance, then they would be produced of necessity, as the philosophers said; therefore they are produced by dispositive and deliberative knowledge and by elective and freely inclining will. Again, a natural form does not produce its effect immediately but introduces a certain respect; therefore the wisdom of artifice is similar. Third, speculative wisdom and the love corresponding to it are not the immediate principle of producing; but “wisdom as it is an essential in divine reality is speculative, possessing speculative ideas and reasons only for knowing, but wisdom that is personal is not only speculative but practical, possessing the idea of operating.”

    Once these things are seen, it is sufficiently plain what he [Scotus] is arguing against in this question [d.1 nn.6-14].

b.b [Interpolation from Appendix A] that although the whole knowledge that is in the Son is really in the Father (because the Son knows nothing that the Father does not know), and although the love too that is in the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son (because the Holy Spirit loves nothing that the Father and the Son do not love), yet the knowledge that is in the Son as it is in the Son has a certain special idea that it does not have as it is in the Father, which idea indeed is the idea of dispositive knowledge; likewise, the love in the Holy Spirit has a certain special idea that it does not have as it is in the Father and the Son, which idea indeed is the idea of love making aspiration for a work and aspiring to production of a work. For knowledge in the Father has only the idea of simple knowledge, but in the Son the idea of dispositive knowledge; for the Son in divine reality is nothing other than art or knowledge manifestive or declarative of the things that the Father knows in simple intelligence, making disposition and order for the things that are to be produced and for the manner of working; love too in the Father and the Son has the idea of love of simple complaisance, but in the Holy Spirit it has the idea of love making aspiration for and impelling to a work.

    Now this distinction of knowledge and love in divine reality can be taken according to a proportion to a double knowledge and love that are perceived in us. For an artisan first simply, and with simple intuition, intuits the form of the work, and second he orders and disposes for the making and for the manner of the making - and this is called dispositive knowledge, which is conceived from the prior knowledge. Likewise on the part of the will: when the form of the work is offered to the artisan he is first pleased in himself with it, and second he is moved by his complaisance with aspiration for the production of it - and this aspiration is called aspiring love, and it arises from the first love.

    One must imagine things to be thus in divine reality, according to their opinion; namely that in the Father there is as it were simple knowledge, not dispositive as to producing the thing or to the manner of producing it, but in the Son there is knowledge having the idea of this dispositive knowledge; similarly there is in the Father and the Son the love of simple complaisance in understood things, but in the Holy Spirit there is the idea of love making aspiration and inclination to a work.

    The second thing - which is said by this opinion - is that, for the producing of an effect, simple knowledge on the part of the intellect is not enough, but dispositive knowledge is required; nor even is the volition of simple complaisance on the part of the will enough, but there is required a love or volition making aspiration; from this a third thing follows, namely that the extrinsic production of creatures presupposes the persons in the divine essence as certain formal ideas of the essence whereby creatures are immediately produced - and this extrinsic production presupposes the intrinsic productions as what these formal ideas are acquired by. Hence this is the conclusion of this opinion, that extrinsic production presupposes intrinsic production as the cause by which is got the immediate productive formal principle; for as the author of this opinion expressly maintains (in the afore noted question, n.5), the essential acts of knowledge and love in divine reality, without the produced persons in addition (namely without produced love and produced word), were not complete or perfect for producing, but they are perfected through the produced word and produced love; and so these terms ‘word’ and ‘love’, perfecting the essential acts of understanding and willing in the three persons, are the immediate formal ideas and immediate principles for producing creatures.

    On behalf of this opinion the same doctor, in the same place [n.5], seems to gesture toward three reasons.

    The first is as follows: that which is produced by the knowledge of simple knowledge and by the love of simple complaisance, as by the immediate principles of production, is produced necessarily by the necessity of a natural determination for producing and for the manner of producing. The point is plain, because such knowledge and such love are disposed in a natural manner to producing their effect, and are disposed only to one determinate manner, no less so than heat is disposed to heating; hence too the philosophers (who posited in God only such knowledge and such love) posited that the world proceeds from God by a natural determination for producing and for one manner of producing only, such that God was not able not to produce nor able not to produce in a way other than he did produce, as is plain from Avicenna Metaphysics 9. Therefore, in order for God not to have produced the world by necessity, it is necessary that he have produced it not through knowledge of simple knowledge and love of simple complaisance - as through immediate principles - , but through dispositive knowledge (dispositive about producing and manner of producing) and through elective love and love freely aspiring to a work, as through acts supervenient to the earlier produced acts; but such dispositive knowledge and such aspiring love are the Word and the Holy Spirit in the case of divine reality; therefore the world is produced by produced word and produced love as through the immediate principles of its production.

    The second reason is as follows: as natural form is disposed to producing its effect naturally, so intellectual wisdom and the volition concomitant to it are disposed to producing their effect intellectually and by art; but “a natural form is not the immediate principle of operation as it is the perfection of that in which it is, but only insofar as it introduces a respect to the effect;” therefore in this way the wisdom and the volition of the artisan are not the immediate principle of a work save as they introduce a respect to the work. But this respect they do not introduce save as they are in the produced word and the produced love; therefore produced word and produced love are, in any artisan whatever, the immediate principle of doing a work by art. - Here one must note that, according to this doctor, intellectual wisdom as an essential is as it were the form of a natural agent as it is the perfection of what it is in, but wisdom itself, as it assumes the idea of word, is as it were the natural form itself as having a respect and order to the effect; hence, according to him, the word has, from its proper idea as word, a respect and order to making things, which essential wisdom, as such, does not have.

    The third reason is thus: speculative wisdom and the volition or love corresponding to it are not the immediate principle of operating, but only practical wisdom or knowledge and the love corresponding to it are - as is plain in the rational artisan, because the universal knowledge, whereby he considers something doable in general and according to its common principles, is not for him the idea of operating, but a certain practical knowledge is, one conceived from or under the universal knowledge; but “wisdom in divine reality, as it is an essential perfection, is only speculative, having, as such, speculative ideas only as ideas of knowing, but personal wisdom -which is the word - is not only speculative for knowing but practical, containing in itself ideas as they are principles of operating;”     therefore the produced word corresponding to it and love are the immediate principle of operating and producing in divine reality. - The reason is confirmed by the verse of the Apostle I Corinthians 1.23-24, “‘We preach Christ,’ he says, ‘the virtue of God and the wisdom of God;’ ‘virtue’ insofar as Christ possesses the idea of practical science (and this is proper to him), according to which also the word is called operative power - ‘wisdom’ insofar as he possesses the idea of speculative science etc     .” (look there in Henry [n.5]).

6. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this opinion there is a threefold argument: For first it seems to follow [sc. from Henry saying that ‘the three are with respect to the essence one formal and, as it were, proximate principle of the act of creating, and the essence is the remote principle’] that the Father does not formally create. For nothing formally acts which is not in act according to the proximate reason for acting; the Father is not formally in act with the Word or with the Holy Spirit. But according to this position the Word and Holy Spirit are the proximate reason for acting and causing, as understanding and volition are the remote reasons for causing; therefor the Father does not formally and proximately create.

7. And if you say that they all create ‘because they all have one word in their intellect by which essential intellection is perfected (although that word is only from the Father who speaks in turn for all), and all have one love in the common will (although that love is inspirited by the Father and Son together in turn for all)’, - against this I argue thus: I ask how the Father has this generated knowledge. Not formally (according to Augustine On the Trinity bk.7 ch.2),a but he has it as a correlative, as the producer has the produced; but in this way the haver is not in act formally with what is had by him; therefore he does not formally act by the action with respect to which the had - or that which is had - is the formal reason for acting.

a.a [Interpolation] because, according to him there, the Father is not wise with generated knowledge or wisdom.

8. It seems further to follow that the Son and Holy Spirit do not create, because generally the formal reason for acting does not act in the action with respect to which it is the formal reason for acting.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] but the Son and Holy Spirit, according to this position, are the formal reason for creating;     therefore etc     .

9. And if it be said that the Son creates and the Holy Spirit creates - however, neither of the persons seems to create proximately, because neither is in act formally through the other, and ‘everything acting proximately through intellect and will’ is in act by both the knowledge and the volition necessary for such act.

10. Further, second: I ask what you understand by dispositive or disposing wisdom and by aspiring love. For these are either appropriated to the Word and Holy Spirit or they are proper. If appropriated then in truth they are common to the three, and thus two persons are not the proximate formal reasons for creating. If proper, and if they state a respect of reason to creatures (because according to him [Henry] disposition states a respect of reason to the disposed things), then some respect of reason is proper to some divine person, which was rejected earlier (1 d.27 n.95, Lectura 1 d.18 nn.6-16 [no d.18 in Ordinatio]).

11. Further, what he says about practical ideas, namely that they are not in the Father but in the Word (as if one Person were not sufficient for production), seems to be contrary to Augustine On the Trinity 15.14 n.23, “Therefore this Word is truly truth, because whatever is in the science from which he is generated is also in him - but what is not in the science is not in him either;” and a little later, “God the Father knows all things in himself, and knows them in the Son;” and later, “All things that are in their science are fully seen by each of them.” From these words - and from others set down there -Augustine seems manifestly to maintain that nothing is in the Word more actually than it is in the intelligence of the Father, and consequently that nothing is more distinctly in the Word than it is in the intelligence of the Father.

12. Further, what he [Henry] says there, that ‘the word exists for perfecting essential intelligence’ seems to be false, because that which is the reason for acting with some non-immanent action is not perfected by that action (just as the hot, qua hot, is not perfected by the heating that is received in some passive thing); but according to him [v. 1 d.2 nn.277-79, 290-96] actual intellection is the reason for generating the Word, and the generating is not formally immanent in the Father himself, because the term of generating is not the form of the Father; therefore essential intellection - which is the reason for generating the Word according to him - is not perfected by the produced Word.

13. What he says about universal knowledge, that it is speculative, was rejected above (Prol. nn.360-61, ‘about divine theological science, whether it is speculative or practical’), because practical conclusions are resolved to practical principles and not to speculative ones, just as speculative conclusions are resolved to speculative principles and not to practical ones

14. Also, as to his statement that ‘the philosophers for this reason conceded that God necessarily produces what is other than himself, because they denied that in him proceeding dispositive or disposing wisdom and proceeding aspiring love are produced’, does not seem true, because essential volition - whether as it is in the three persons or as it is in the Son or as it is in the Father - is not necessarily of something other than itself

(as of a creature); for the divine will does not necessarily will anything other than itself, even if, per impossibile, it were not a principle productive internally - because then it would necessarily depend on a creature, which is unacceptable in the extreme.

II. Scotus’ own Solution

15. For the solution of the question, then, three things need to be looked at: first, that the first causality with respect to caused things is necessarily in the three persons, and this in respect of caused things as caused whether as to their true being or as to their being simply; second, because of what was added in the question, ‘about causables according to their causable being’ [n.1], one must look at causality with respect to all causables as to their being in a certain respect, as their being known or their being willed; third, because of what was also added in the question, ‘such that it could not be otherwise than in the three’ [n.1], one must look at whether - ifper impossibile one absolute person were posited - there could be in that one person perfect causality with respect to all causables.

A. The First and Perfect Causality is Necessarily in the Three Persons

16. As to the first point, I say that the perfect causality is necessarily in the three persons.

17. The proof is threefold:

First, because in the case of the principles of the two productions, namely the necessary and the contingent, the principle of necessary production is necessarily prior to the principle of contingent production (for a necessary effect cannot presuppose a contingent one); but something in divine reality is principle of intrinsic production, which production is necessary - and something in divine reality is principle of extrinsic production, which production is contingent; therefore necessarily something in God is principle of production that is necessary and intrinsic before something in him is principle of production that is contingent and extrinsic. In that prior stage then, when intrinsic production is complete, there is communicated to the three persons all the fecundity that is not repugnant to them, and consequently there is communicated to them that which is the productive principle of extrinsic communication; therefore in the instant in which there is in God a proximate principle for producing something contingent extrinsically, that principle is communicated to the three persons.

18. Again, the first object is naturally present to the power that has regard to such object as first before a secondary object is present to it, and this is especially true when only the first object is object of the power from the nature of the thing and of itself, and the secondary object is not of itself object of the power but comes to exist as such through the act of the power; now in this way the first object of the divine intellect and of its will is the divine essence alone, and all other things are only secondary objects and are produced in some way in their being by the divine intellect; therefore the divine essence is naturally present to its intellect as first object before anything else is. But the divine intellect, possessing the object present to itself, is not only an operative power about it, but also a productive power of knowledge adequate to the intellect as productive power; therefore it is then productive of the infinite Word and consequently of the Word generated in the divine nature. Likewise the divine will, possessing the essence actually understood as object present to itself, is not only an operative power (by which, namely, what formally has the will loves the object), but is also a productive power of adequate infinite love and consequently of a person inspirited in divine nature. Therefore naturally before the divine intellect and divine will naturally have or regard some secondary object, the complete idea is possessed of the production of the intrinsic divine persons and consequently those persons are produced before any other object is presented, and consequently much more are they prior to the causing of any other object.

19. Further, third, as follows: the relation of nature to supposit is prior to its relation to second act, because acting presupposes being and the relation of nature to supposit pertains to being;a likewise the relation of nature to supposit is essential and is in the whatness, but the relation that is of nature to acting does not appear to be thus essential.     Therefore divine nature has being in the persons before it is a principle of extrinsic production.b

a.a [Interpolation] because nature must have being before acting; but it only has being in a supposit, just as the species only has being in an individual; therefore etc     .

b.b [Note of Scotus] The first reason [n.17], if it proves any priority, does not however prove that contingent production necessarily pre-requires necessary production, because this priority is not as to the dependence of contingent on necessary production but as to the principle ‘by which’, which is common to both productions. Likewise, the second reason [n.18] assumes that the intellect, having the divine essence present to it before it has the secondary object, is the idea of generating, and this is true in such way that ‘as it is the idea of generating’ it does not require the secondary object; thus it may be said, contrariwise, that although the secondary object pre-requires that the first object be present to the power, yet it does not pre-require that, when the first object is present, the second person be generated, because the first object present in one person is sufficient for making the secondary object present. Likewise to the third argument [n.19]; action presupposes nature in some supposit but not necessarily in several - or not even in any supposit when the nature is agent. Thus these reasons [nn.17-19] are conclusive in the way explained in the third article [nn.41-43]; not because the order is by reason of these productions (so the extrinsic production is not properly said to presuppose or pre-require the intrinsic production), but the order is by the common foundation, in which the intrinsic production is more immediate and therefore prior.

20. Secondly, as to this article [n.16], one must look at what is the reason for this [sc. the priority of intrinsic production to extrinsic production].

And I say that the reason is not as the first position [sc. Henry’s, n.5] gestures to, namely that the Word and Holy Spirit are the proximate formal reasons for causing, or that in some way they complete the causality of the Father [nn.6, 12] (rather the same and equally perfect causality is in the Father as in the three persons). Therefore this priority [sc. of intrinsic to extrinsic production] is of the same sort in the Father and Son with respect to the Holy Spirit as was stated in 1 d.12 nn.7, 38-40 - and the reason posited there for this is not that there is a more imperfect fecundity in one person than in two, but that fecundity is communicated to the Son before the Holy Spirit is inspirited; and then in the instant of origin in which the Father produces the Son, the fecundity by which the Holy Spirit is produced will be in the Father and the Son, and from this the consequence is that then the Spirit is produced by the two, and the fecundity in them is one.

21. And thus here: the divine nature is communicated first in nature to the three divine supposits (according to the reasons set down above [nn.17-19]) before the creature can be immediately created; and therefore in the instant in which the creature is immediately producible, there is one causality in the three persons with respect to the creatures to be produced.

22. And this is the reason of Augustine On the Trinity 5.14 n.15, that ‘just as Father and Son are one principle for the Holy Spirit, so all three persons are one principle for the producing of creatures’.

B. On Causality in regard to all Causables as to their Being in a certain Respect

23. As to the second principal article [n.15], it seems that if in the intellect of the Father there are also practical ideas (as was argued against the first opinion [nn.17-19]), then the Word is generated from a creature as it is an idea in the intellect of the Father; and this is also confirmed by Augustine On the Trinity 5.14 n.15, “[The Word is] born from all things that are in the knowledge of God.”

24. But against this there is argument as follows:

In that case [sc. if the Word is generated from all things as they are ideas in the Father’s intellect] the Holy Spirit is inspirited not only as love of the divine essence but as love of every understood lovable thing, and thus by force of his production he would be love of creatures just as of the divine essence; either then God would necessarily love creatures or the Holy Spirit would not necessarily be produced - both of which are false.

25. Again, not only does the Father know creatures formally but he also knows the Son formally; therefore if the Word is generated from all things as known to the Father, then the Word would be generated from the Word as known to the Father, and thus the Word would be generated from himself.

26. Again, no real relation of any divine person seems to be to anything outside it (as to a creature), from what was said in 1 d.30 nn.49-51; but of the generated to that from which it is generated, if it is really distinct, there is a real relation; therefore the Word is not generated from a stone as it is known to the Father.a

a.a [Interpolation] Again, the Word is generated by act of the paternal memory, not of the paternal intelligence - from 1 d.2 n.291. But in the paternal memory, as it precedes intelligence as it were, a stone does not have intelligible being; for it is not intelligible before it is actually being understood or has actually been understood, but the divine essence alone is first actually intelligible, and it as it were makes all other understood things; nor are these other things intelligible before they are understood, because then they would precede by some distinctness the act of understanding, which is false. Therefore they are only in the memory virtually, because the essence is there formally. - If it be said that they first shine forth as intelligibles before they are actually understood, this should be denied of ‘actual shining forth’; it is only true of ‘virtual shining forth’, because the divine essence actually shines forth.

    Again, a stone in intelligible or understood being is not formally of itself necessary being, because then it would in that being not be a secondary object but the primary one; therefore when produced as such by God, it would not be formally necessary being. Again, the divine intellect would be cheapened if it were moved by a stone; therefore similarly if knowledge of a stone were generated in it by a stone.

27. As to this issue [n.23] therefore, I say as follows that two orders can be understood in divine reality, namely the order of nature and the order of origin (and these are of different ideas), and to each degree of one order the whole of the other order can be assigned.

28. An example first: in a creature, where there is order of origin, of nature, and of duration (which are of different order and of different idea), the whole of one order can be assigned to one degree of another order; for let one instant of duration be taken, and to that one instant all the things ordered according to origin and nature can be assigned -also let one instant of nature be taken, and to it can all the things ordered to origin be assigned.

29. Simply, however, the order of nature is first in divine reality, such that, by proceeding simply, the whole first order of origin should be assigned to the first instant of nature, and if to the second instant of nature the first order of origin is assigned, then it is not the first order of origin but the second. I understand this as follows: the order of nature is taken by comparing objects to the divine intellect and will, because when comparing God’s essence to his intellect and will - which essence is the first object of his intellect and will - there is the first instant of nature, and when comparing other and secondary objects to the divine intellect and will, which objects are not of themselves objects but things produced in their being as objects by intellect and will, there is the second instant of nature.

30. In the first instant of nature, if one stops at it, there is a perfect person, possessing perfect memory of the divine essence (namely possessing an intellect to which the divine essence is present in idea of actually intelligible object), and this person, by this memory of the divine essence, can formally operate and formally produce, as was said before (1 d.2 n.311); but this person is understood in some way first to operate by this memory than to produce by it, and in this prior stage this person is understood perfect in himself and is blessed in his act of intellect in understanding the divine essence as his object. Also, the same person, producing by this memory, produces knowledge adequate to this object, and this object, since it is infinite, produces a per se subsistent formally infinite person; and to this produced person is communicated will as first act, not yet having an adequately produced term. Now by this single will, the first and second persons operate about the divine essence as about the object, loving it infinitely, and at this point they are in themselves perfect and blessed in the divine essence; in addition to this, however, these two persons by this same will - being single in them - produce love adequate to this object, known under the idea of being lovable, and so produce infinite love and so inspirit a divine person, because nothing is formally infinite save what is God by identity.

31. Stopping therefore precisely in the first instant of nature, comparing the divine essence to intellect and will, there exists in it the whole first order of origin (namely because two perfect persons are originated); and the whole perfection of the divine persons intrinsically, in intellect and will, exists in the first instant of nature, because the whole perfection simply of any person in understanding and willing the divine essence is complete in that instant.a All this therefore as to the first instant of nature.

a.a [Interpolation] because in understanding and willing it they are formally blessed.

32. The second instant of nature follows, when the divine intellect and will are compared to another object, a secondary one. And because in this instant the object is not intelligible of itself but becomes actually intelligible through the intellect and will [n.29] - therefore it does not have being in the divine memory as it is memory, but is produced into the being of object by an act of intelligence (just as second intentions are produced in us by intelligence and are not in memory as it is memory); and whether too these objects be posited as having being through the memory or as being produced in known being by the intelligence, at any rate both memory and intelligence exist in the three persons prior in nature to these objects having being in the memory or intelligence - and so, insofar as memory or intelligence is in the three persons, it is the reason for producing the objects in their being as objects. The Word, therefore, is not produced by first production from a stone as it is in the memory of the Father, because either a stone does not have being in the Father’s memory as this memory is the principle of producing the Word, or, if a stone does have being in the memory, it does not have it naturally before memory is understood to be in the three persons.

And in this way can it be proved that causality with respect to causable creatures in known being is necessarily in the three persons, as was proved in the second reason for the first article [n.18], and this reason is equally valid for this second article.a

a.a [Interpolated note] About the remark that ‘it is produced by act of intelligence’ [n.32] there is a doubt, because at least it does not exist as formally intelligible in an act of intelligence, although it is there produced by action of memory and not of intelligence. - An example about second intentions is perhaps not similar, because a comparison with an object made by the intellect seems only to be a comparison with the considering intellect as cause, and an absolute object that is shown to the intellect by virtue of another object existing excellently in memory is not like this; a second intention is not made to be actually understood by virtue of the thing that shines forth in memory in the way this stone is made to be understood by virtue of the divine essence shining forth in God’s memory; for take away the comparing act [sc. of the human intellect thinking a second intention] and posit only absolute acts in some way or other, and the stone will be known, but a second intention without a comparing act will never be. Likewise, a second intention is made in its true being and not in known being, therefore it exists before it is known because it is known by a reflex act; a stone is not made in its being save only in diminished way, and so it is known -and by a direct act - before it exists. See on this 1 d.10 n.41, because memory is a principle productive of knowledge of an object shining forth in memory not only formally but also virtually, and so the object exists formally first in produced knowledge, or more or less.

33. However, in the second instant of nature there can be assigned a certain order of origin, because the Father understands stone first in origin before the Son does, because the Father understands stone from himself while the Son not from himself but gets this from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; but this second order of origin is not origination simply, namely that by which the divine persons are produced in being of nature simply, but is as it were origination in a certain respect, consequent to the persons already produced.

34. An example of this in creatures: if there is an origin of Socrates from Plato per se in humanity, the order of origin in them in having humanity is the first order of origin simply, but the order of them in having the capacity to laugh is a different order of origin, in a certain respect as it were - because just as in the first instant of nature Socrates has humanity from Plato, so in the second instant he has the capacity to laugh from him; and if both naturally had humanity before the capacity to laugh was produced, both would together cause the capacity, and yet one would have from another the fact that they caused it.

35. So I say in the issue at hand, that the Word’s being infinite generated knowledge is his being infinite knowledge of infinite essence, and this is through his origin from the Father in the first instant of nature; but the Word’s being knowledge of a stone [n.23] or having knowledge of a stone from the Father generating him, this is as it were to originate the Son in a certain respect or in a respect that is additional to ‘Word simply’; for this is not his being generated simply under the idea of a divine person, because neither is it under the idea of knowledge simply infinite and of formally infinite essence as its per se object; for although this infinite knowledge, which is of infinite essence as per se object, is concomitantly knowledge of a stone, yet insofar as it is of a stone it does not have infinity formally.

36. And as has been said of what is produced in understood being [nn.32-35], so can it likewise be said of willed being [n.15].

37. And if it be objected against this [sc. against the causality of the three persons in respect of the creature in known being] that the Father produces a stone in known being prior in origin to the Son’s producing it, therefore the Son does not produce it or the same thing may be produced twice or at any rate may be produced after it is understood to have been already produced (for it is already understood to have been produced by the Father in the prior instant of origin) - I reply that the Father does produce a stone prior in origin to the Son (that is, the Father from himself and the Son not from himself), and yet the Son produces the stone with the same production and in the same instant of nature, and yet to the same instant of nature can be assigned all the degrees of origin [n.33]. So it does not follow that a stone is twice produced or is produced naturally beforehand, because then it would be produced by the Father in an instant prior in nature than by the Son, which is not true; for in the same instant of nature when the Father produces a stone in such being, the Son has the same nature and consequently all the productive fecundity (that is not repugnant to him), and so has the virtue of producing a stone - and before that instant, in order of nature, the stone is not understood to have been produced in known being.

38. And if you say ‘at any rate there is some order in which stone is understood to have been produced by the Father before by the Son, therefore it cannot be produced by the posterior in origin, therefore not by the Son either, for the Son cannot produce a son, because the generative force as it is in the Father prior in origin has a term adequate to it’ - I reply and say that in the case of origination in a certain respect things are not as they are in origination simply; for origination simply posits an originated in being simply, and therefore what in real being precedes origination simply precedes also the originated simply, and thus it cannot be from the originated - and hence it is that the Word cannot produce another word; but in the case of origination in a certain respect the thing originating does not produce an originated in any being simply, and so there can stand with this that its production precedes some originated in such a way that yet it does not simply precede that originated.

39. But this does not seem to suffice, because there seems to go on being a doubt how the Word can produce a stone in known being and how a stone can be produced by the Word when it is produced first in origina by the Father in such being, and the Word cannot produce a word, therefore likewise neither can he produce a stone in known being - provided the reason that the Word cannot produce a word is this which is commonly posited, namely that ‘a term already adequate to the generative virtue or force as it is in the Father is pre-understood’ [n.38] - I reply that this proposition ‘every power having an adequate term prior in origin before it exists in something is not for that something a principle of producing’ is not true unless is added that ‘the haver of the communicated (or adequate) principle cannot be a different term’, or unless is added that ‘the term is not producible a second time by this haver’. So it is in production simply, because ‘the Word having the same memory as the Father’ cannot exist really before the Word is produced simply, and neither is another word producible by the Word having that memory; but it is not thus in the case of the production of creatures in intelligible being.

40. But this response destroys a certain position that is set down by many in 1 d.7,Vatican Editors: Scotus did not deal with this question in 1 d.7 in the Ordinatio and he here corrects a position he had himself embraced in the Reportatio, IA d.7 n.58, “Although the Son has the essence that is the productive principle of the Son, yet he cannot produce by it, because it is already understood to have in the Father a term adequate to the production; and so the essence in the Son cannot be a principle of production of the same idea, because then the production would not have been adequate to the principle in the Father.” ¹ which posits that the Son cannot generate; for the whole reason is not that ‘the memory as it is in the Father has an adequate term’, but one must add that ‘it has a term adequate to the principle, and a term not producible by that to which such a principle is communicated’; because if it were producible by that to which such a principle is communicated, the principle would be communicated to it also in idea of being a principle for producing, and so it could produce by that principle. Now when one asks further why ‘to the Word having the same memory as the Father’ the memory is not communicated in idea of productive principle, it seems one must prove it by something other than by a term adequate to the idea of this principle as it is in the Father.

a.a [Interpolated note] Understand that ‘first in origin’ does not only mean ‘from itself’ (or ‘not from another’) but also ‘from which a second’. Although therefore the Father understands stone from himself, yet if, insofar as he understands stone, he is not ‘from whom is the Word’ (neither simply nor as understanding stone), the Father will not, insofar as he understands stone, be perfectly prior in origin to the Son; and this supposition seems true because the essence ‘as it is in the Son’ is not a less perfect idea of understanding all things than as it is in the Father; therefore since the Father knows all things by the essence alone, the like will hold of the Son.

    Again, if the essence can be the reason for the Son of knowing all things, then it is in fact the reason - because although the science of stone in the Father could be the idea of the science of stone in the Son, yet the essence precedes stone understood by the Father, because it moves more efficaciously.

    Again, stone formally known is only in the intelligence of the Father; the intelligence is not the idea of generating [sc. rather the memory is].

    Again, the remark of Augustine On the Trinity 15.14 [n.23, “[The Word is] born from all things that are in the knowledge of God”] is expounded thus: “from all things... ” supply ‘virtually’ because from the essence, which is virtually all things.

    But does the Son have actual knowledge of stone by virtue of the essence as it is in the memory of the Father or as it is in the memory of the Son? It seems that, as it is in the memory of the Father, it precedes, giving to the Son everything that it can give.

    I reply that the essence absolutely is the first object (not the essence ‘as in someone’), but along with the essence the intellect concurs, by which intellect each person operates as it is his and not as it is another’s. Therefore one should posit only one order of origin, because in the second instant of nature there is no origin; not simply so, as is plain - nor in a certain respect, because what is in the Son in the second instant is not in him through anything in the originating person as through a principle productive in the second instant, but what is in the Son in the second instant is in him only through what he received in the first instant.

    And then the example about ‘capacity to laugh’ [n.34] seems apt, understanding it in this way, that there is origination simply as to humanity, but in the second instant - as to the property [sc. capacity to laugh] - there is not, because he who is generated by what he receives in the first instant is now capable of laughter in the second, and not because of some other beginning in the generator; thus did the Word receive intellect in the first instant (to which the essence is present in itself) and through this in the second instant he knows it.

    But is there not some order to knowledge of a stone in the Father and the Son [n.38]? - I reply: not first but as it were concomitantly, because of that in each person which the knowledge is concomitant to in this person and in that, and in it they have per se an order of origin.

    Yet the doubt seems to remain (touched on here [n.39]), how does the Son produce stone if the Father produces it first in origin? - I reply: the productive principle is in the Father first in origin before it is in the Son, but the Father does not produce stone in that priority of origin but only when the essence has been communicated to the three. One should not say, then, that the principle is communicated under act, as it were, and therefore the act is communicated, but that the principle is first communicated and as ‘already communicated’ it is under act.

    On the contrary: therefore the Father does not, in the first now of origin, have the principle under act. - This can be conceded as he is the principle of origin simply; but in the second instant of nature there is a certain order of origin, not simply nor in a certain respect, but concomitantly as it were (as was said above, in this note), namely in having the principle under act ‘because in having the principle’ - and thus the Father in the first moment of origin has concomitantly the knowing of stone, but this knowing is not the idea of originating anything in the Son.

C. Whether in an Absolute Person, if posited, there could be Perfect Causality with Respect to all Causables

41. As to seeing and understanding the third article [n.15], one needs to know that, in the case of creatures, if a cause is compared to two ordered effects, the comparison of it to each effect is more essential than the comparison of one effect to the other; for they depend in order on each other because of their dependence on the same cause, and do not, conversely, depend in order on the same cause because of the dependence of one on the other; therefore if in this case, per impossibile, the order of effects ordered among each other be destroyed, then not for this reason is the order and dependence of each on the cause to be denied, because a more impossible thing is not to be conceded because of a lesser impossible thing, nor is a more necessary thing to be denied because of a lesser necessary thing.

42. An example. If it be posited that fire has two ordered effects, namely to heat and to burn, and if fire is disposed to each effect more essentially than burning presupposes heating - then, if it is posited per impossible that fire cannot heat, not for this reason must the denial be made that fire cannot burn, nor is he who binds himself to holding the first obliged to hold the second. For this consequence would only hold, ‘if fire could not heat therefore neither could it burn’, because of this understood affirmative proposition ‘what can burn can heat’ - which is destroyed by the supposition [sc. ‘if it be posited that fire cannot heat’], where the perfect idea of fire is posited as being able to stand with the opposite of what it is to heat [sc. not to heat]; and so that which is more immediate to fire (namely to burn) than heating is can stand with the opposite of what it is to heat (because it is posited as standing with ‘not to heat’), and so this position destroys the proposition by which such a consequence would hold.

43. So applying this to the proposition,a one can say that something in God is the principle of intrinsic production and something in him is principle of extrinsic production, so that these productions are ordered to the same principle, and in some way the order of each production to the cause is more necessary than the order of either production to the other. If then - per impossibile - it be posited that one of the principles is not a principle of a prior production (which is posited when one person is posited to be absolute and when intrinsic production is denied), yet not for this reason does it seem one should deny that the other principle is a principle of extrinsic production, because even on this supposition the whole idea of a principle of extrinsic production is still had and all that is denied is the order of production to production, which order does not stand but is destroyed by the supposition. And so if the argument is made ‘this person cannot produce inwardly, therefore he cannot produce outwardly’, the consequence should be denied by one who is bound to the antecedent; for the consequence only holds through the proposition ‘the power to produce something outwardly presupposes inward production’, which is destroyed by the hypothesis. And therefore it seems that a causality perfect in its idea - namely insofar as it states a comparison with an outward product or with extrinsic production - does not require a relation to intrinsic production, although the same foundation is necessarily the idea and cause of each production, intrinsic and extrinsic, and of intrinsic before of extrinsic. Now for this reason does it seem that the philosophers did not posit a relation between these productions; for although they saw a necessary relation to an efficient principle, yet they did not see a necessary relation of extrinsic causation or production to intrinsic production - and so, while they denied the intrinsic production, yet they conceded the extrinsic causation or production [n.14].

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] This reason seems to stand on this claim: every cause productive of two ordered effects, one of which is necessary and the other contingent, if per impossibile the cause not produce the first of these effects it could still produce the second; but the eternal Father is productive principle of the Word necessarily and of creatures contingently; therefore if he does not produce the Word, he could still produce creatures.

    An objection is that the soul produces understanding before willing, and yet it cannot produce and create willing without understanding.

D. Conclusion

44. To the principal question therefore [n.1] it is plain that perfect causality with respect to causables outwardly is of necessity in the three, and this with respect to all causables in any causable being (whether being in a certain respect or simply), so that it could not fail to be in the three [nn.21, 32]; yet if per impossibile there were one absolute person, it should as a consequence be said that in such an absolute person simply there would exist such ‘perfect causality’ [n.43]. And thus ‘perfect causality’ does not seem, from the idea of this term, to include necessarily that it exist in the three persons, just as neither does it include, from the idea of this term, the idea of inward production, even though in fact inward production is necessarily presupposed to it - just as neither does being able to burn, from the idea of it, necessarily include being able to heat, although in fact the latter is presupposed to the former [n.42].

III. To the Principal Arguments

45. To the principal arguments.

First to Richard [n.2]: it is plain that he concludes to the third article of the position [nn.41-43].

46. To the second [n.3], it was stated in a like case, 1 d.12 n.49-52, how Father and Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit - and better, as to the issue in hand, in 1 d.4 nn.11-13, where there was discussion about the truth of the proposition, ‘God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit’; and it was also touched on 1 d.20 nn.24-27, about how power is the same in the three persons.

47. To the third [n.4] I say that although something essential is the principle of producing something externally, yet it is only a principle immediately applicable to work or to act as it is understood in the three persons, because - as was said in 1 d.12 nn.38-40 - what is a principle of ordered acts is only understood to be in proximate potency to remote act as it is under prior act (just as the soul is never understood to be in proximate power to an act of willing save as it is actually understanding, because when it is in proximate potency for willing something it does actually will it, and nothing is willed unless it is understood); and thus although any essential [sc. in God] - in respect of itself - precedes the notional [sc. in God] in some way, yet not every essential needs to be in every outward respect able to precede something notional.

48. To the first argument for the opposite [sc. the second argument from the Lectura, note to n.4 above] I say that the divine persons necessarily come together in every operation outwardly, and more so than substance and virtue - because the divine persons have one operation, by which they are one operator simply; and yet if per impossibile the virtue were in one person, nothing of perfection would be lacking to him to prevent him being perfectly able to produce everything producible.

49. To the second argument [note to n.4] I say that it proceeds about the fact, that production presupposes production - not however as ‘formally cause’ or under the idea by which it is production, but as immediate principle as it were.