a. The Relation of Creature to God is the same really as its Foundation

261. The first point is proved by two reasons:

Because what is said properly to be present in something, and in the absence of which the something cannot be without contradiction, is the same as the something really; but relation to God is properly present in a stone, and in the absence of this relation a stone cannot be without contradiction; therefore the relation is the same really as the stone.

262. Proof of the major: because just as a contradiction stated of certain things is a way of proving distinction, so an impossibility of receiving the predication of contradictories pertaining to being is a way of proving identity in being - and this when there is no essential dependence that requires a manifest distinction (which I make clear thus: because the impossibility that a [e.g. a creature] is without b [e.g. relation to the Creator] is either because of the identity of a with b or because of its priority or simultaneity in nature with b; therefore if b is not naturally prior to a nor necessarily simultaneous in nature with it, and if a cannot be without b, the result is that a is the same as b; for if b is other than a or posterior to it, it is not likely that a could not naturally be in the absence of b without contradiction); but what is present in something properly, as relation is present in the foundation (that is, what is so present in what it is present in that if it were other than what it is present in then it would be posterior to what it is present in), is not prior in nature nor simultaneous in nature with what it is present in; therefore if what is present in something is necessarily required for the being of what it is in, such that what it is in cannot be without it, necessarily it is the same really as what it is in. So it is as to the issue at hand.

263. The minor [n.261] is manifest, because just as it is impossible for a stone to be without God, so it is impossible for it to be without its dependence on God - for it could be without the term of the dependence in just the same way as it could be without the dependence; for being without the term is not incompossible save because of the dependence itself - but something ‘not necessary simply’ is not the idea of what is simply necessary;     therefore etc     .

264. Against this reason [n.261] I raise the objection that then [sc. if relation to God were the same really as the creature] any relation that is present in the divine essence through act of the divine intellect would be the same as the essence (proof: it is incompossible for the essence to be without it - for if such a relation could be new then the divine intellect could change, which is impossible); but to posit that such a relation is the same as the essence is unacceptable, because then it would be real (for whatever is the same as a thing is real); but the relation is not real (from 1 d.31 nn.6, 8-9, 16, 18); wherefore     etc .a

a.a [Interpolated note] Again, the relation of likeness is not the same as whiteness, and yet it is necessarily present when the term is in place; therefore      if the term were necessary, the relation would simply necessarily be present - and yet it is not then more the same, because it is not more intrinsic to the term just because the term is incorruptible. Likewise there is this argument: if the term were corruptible the relation would not be the same as the foundation, therefore neither is it the same when the foundation is incorruptible. - This reason well shows that incorruptibility of the term does not make per se for this identity; but incorruptibility of the term in comparison with the foundation does well make for it, that is, if it is simply impossible for the term not to be unless the foundation is not - and further, if this is the first relation of dependence of the foundation on a term, because then by reason of the foundation there is simply this necessity of coexistence; because of the first of these points [‘if it is simply impossible for the term not to be     etc .’] the relation, according to one opinion, of vision to the object would be that of identity - because of the second of them [‘and further, if this is the first etc .’] the dependence of our nature on the person of the Word in Christ would not be identical with our nature.

    Again, a relation to something simultaneous in nature as to a term is posterior to the foundation (as likeness is posterior to whiteness); therefore      also a relation to something prior in nature to the term can likewise be posterior. Nor does it therefore follow, from the fact that the foundation’s being without the term is a contradiction, that the foundation’s being without the relation is a contradiction [nn.262-263].

    These two reasons [sc. in the preceding two paragraphs] are probable reasons against the first reason about the contradiction of ‘being without each other’ [n.261]. Likewise, the foundation cannot generally be without a respect that is other than it (as body and figure); therefore the inference ‘not without this, therefore the same as this’, when the thing in question is a respect, does not follow.

    Against the other reason, namely that a respect common to everything other than the term is not the accident of anything [n.266], has a logical instance against it, that creation is not created (a concrete is not asserted of an abstract). Again, more really: ‘inherence accidentally’ is itself present in a thing but whiteness is not; therefore a relation is itself related but the foundation is not. There is therefore not the same reason of standing in the first case and the second. [Vatican editors: these interpolated objections are left without answer.]

    Note, in the year 1304 (almost at the end): ‘the two extremes are the one total cause of relation’; later differently: ‘because the foundation is the total cause of relation but the term is a sine qua non’ (just as fire is the total active cause of heat but wood is a sine qua non), such that the foundation is prevented from causing as long as it does not have the term. [Vatican editors remark that the first note in this paragraph is the regular teaching of Scotus; the second or later note is nowhere found in him.]

265. I reply. The incompossibility of a separation can be by reason of that from which something is inseparable, and it can be by something extrinsic. An example of the second: because, according to the Philosopher, for the heaven to be without motion would be a contradiction, not indeed from a cause intrinsic to the heaven (because the heaven is receptive of motion, indifferent to rest and to motion), but from an extrinsic moving cause; yet it does not follow that the heaven is [the same as] its own motion, although it cannot be without motion. Now I say that the incompossibility of being a stone without dependence of it on God is by reason of the stone precisely; and by this reason is also the reason for the incompossibility of being a stone without a term for the dependence of it - and whatever is the reason for requiring a term of dependence is the reason for having the dependence. But in the objection adduced [n.264], there is no necessity for the inherence simply of such relation, nor any incompossibility of the nonbeing of the object on the part of the divine essence itself (as if it were impossible for the essence to be unless it required a term ‘to which’ and this term was unable not to be), but there is only incompossibility from an extrinsic cause, namely the divine intellect (a cause, I say, simply necessarily acting), and the incompossibility is on the part of the intellect’s doing something new.

266. The second principal reason for the first member of the solution [nn.260-61] is as follows: what is uniformly said of everything other than the term [of a relation] is not accidental to anything that is said relative to that term; the relation of creature to God is of this sort [sc. said uniformly of everything other than the term];     therefore etc     .a - and so it is the same as the foundation.

a.a [Interpolation] but such a relation, common to every creature, is uniformly said ‘of everything other than God’ in relation to God himself; therefore it is not accidental to any creature.

267. Proof of the major: because if it were accidental to one it would, by parity of reason, be accidental to another; as, for example, if the relation of effect to cause were accidental to the stone (and would consequently be a thing other than the stone), then by parity of reason this relation would have the relation of effect to God - and then another relation of effect would be accidental to the first relation, and so on ad infinitum.

268. Against this reason [n.267] I raise the objection that there appears nothing unacceptable in relations proceeding to infinity; for it was said in 1 d.19 n.6 that relation is founded on relation, as proportionality on proportion. From this the argument goes as follows: if Socrates is the same as Plato then the sameness of Socrates is the same as the sameness of Plato, and by parity of reason the sameness is the same as sameness; and the first sameness [sc. of Socrates with Plato] is a thing other than the foundation, because the foundation could be without it; therefore by parity of reason any sameness will be a thing other than that which it belongs to, and so there will be infinite real relations. And so can it be argued about proportions and likenesses.

269. To this I reply that there is a stand in the second stage [of the infinite process]. To understand this, let the first foundations be taken, namely Socrates and Plato, between which there is mutual sameness, and let this sameness in Socrates be called a and that in Plato b; let the sameness of a with b be called c, and let the reverse sameness, of b with a, be called d. I say that a differs from Socrates because Socrates can be without a (because he can be without the term of a), and a cannot be without the term; however a does not differ from c but c is the same as it, because a cannot be without b (since they are by nature together); and consequently it is a contradiction for a to be unless both the foundation of that which is c and also the term of it are. But when the foundation and the term of c exist, c will necessarily exist - so it is a contradiction for a to be without c; and c is formally present in a, because a is said to be the same with the very sameness that is c; therefore c is the same as a, and consequently a stand will be made there.

270. And if you ask by what sameness c is the same as a, I say that it is so by a itself, because the sameness is only one of reason, for it is simply of what is the same as itself.

271. In the same way there is a stand in likenesses of proportionalities, because one proportionality is like another with essential likeness (but two individuals of the same species are said to be alike in specific form), and so just as there is a stand in specific sameness in the second stage [of the process to infinity] (and not in the first stage), so too in the case of likeness of proportionalities.