B. Rejection of the Opinion

14. Argument is made against this position in two ways.

15. [First argument] - First, because since grace is the same in reality as glory, or is a per disposition for it, the result is it is per se in the same subject as blessedness is; but blessedness is not per se in the essence but in a power; therefore grace is too.

16. A response is made that blessedness is principally in the essence and, by means of it, redounds into the powers.a The soul, by a special descent of God into it, is deiform in the first way (as burning embers are igni-form).

a. a[Interpolation] according as they are capacities, more or less, or prior or posterior.

17. On the contrary:

Therefore the soul, with its powers removed, could be per se blessed, and thus blessedness would not be in any second act, nor even in the attaining of the ultimate object, for an object is not attained as object save by second act, and second act belongs to the soul as it is a power.a

a. a[Interpolation] Again, blessedness is only present because it satisfies and gives rest to the blessed; this resting can only come through union with the beatific object; union is only through some act that belongs to a power alone - and this is the opinion of the Philosopher when he posits that blessedness is in an act.

18. Further, if blessedness were placed in the essence and if ‘grace in the essence’ is of the same idea in a wayfarer as in the fatherland, then the soul would be blessed now, although less so than in the fatherland; the consequent is false, therefore so is the antecedent. The proof of the consequence is that now the soul has - for you - a first act of the same idea as the act in which blessedness is.

19. A response is made that one could thus argue in the same way about the act as about grace, because the act is of the same idea now as it will be then; nor is it valid to make objection about the act of seeing and the light of glory, because these do not per se belong to glory.

20. I say that the argument about first act [n.18] proves that the soul would now be blessed (although less now than later), but not if blessedness is placed in the second act also of loving, because this act is not of the same idea here and in the fatherland [contra n.19]. For if intellection is a partial per se cause in respect of volition (as the third opinion says in the preceding question [lacking in the Ordinatio; see Lectura 2 d.25 n.69]), then it follows that vision and obscure intellection [cf. 2 Corinthians 13.12] -which are intellections of different idea - can come together for a volition of simply different idea (and this was one of the reasons touched on above for the third opinion [Lectura 2 d.25 n.79]), because the same object when known in diverse ways can be loved by acts diverse even in species. But if the view is held that the will is the whole cause of enjoyment, then it is more difficult to save the view that blessedness consists more principally in enjoyment; for that by which the perfect qua perfect is formally distinguished from the imperfect qua imperfect seems to be more perfect in it; but if enjoyment in the fatherland and on the way are of the same species (which seems to be the case), and if the will alone is the cause of enjoyment and if the object is the same and the habit the same, then the blessed qua blessed is distinguished from the non-blessed by vision and not by enjoyment, which is of the same idea in both; therefore vision would be nobler than enjoyment.

21. However, by maintaining that will is the whole cause of its own act [the opinion of Henry of Ghent, mentioned second by Scotus in Lectura 2 d.25 n.54], one can say that a cause that is without limit as to diversity of effects can cause things diverse in species because of the coming together of the diverse things required for the causation of a thing diverse in species, even though these diverse things do not come together in idea of effecting cause; hence a cause without limit as to diversity of effects causes diverse things when the requisites, according as they are requisites, come together - the way the sun solidifies mud and liquefies ice, because of the diverse disposition of the things it acts on [1 d.2 nn.347-350]; but the will is a cause without limit, possessing in its power volitions diverse in species, and so, when vision and obscure intellection come together (which are things diverse in species and per se required for an act of will), the will can cause acts diverse in species, and thus enjoyment in the fatherland and on the way can be distinct in species.

22. [Second argument] - Further, second [n.15]:

When some form is undetermined in its active power for several things, then what has a precise respect to one determinate action cannot be a perfection of the form insofar as the form is undetermined, but insofar as it is a power determinate with respect to the action in respect of which it is perfected by such perfection. An example: if the soul is undetermined as to the several acts agreeable to it according to its several powers, then wisdom (or any other intellectual habit) does not perfect the soul insofar as the soul is undetermined but precisely insofar as it is intellect (and the reason for this proposition is that, if wisdom were to perfect the soul insofar as the soul is undetermined in its active power, then wisdom could equally perfect the soul in its order to any of its acts whatever; likewise, if it does perfect the soul precisely in its order to a determinate act, it would thus perfect the soul only if the soul were an active power for that act and were not undetermined as to several acts). But grace only perfects the soul in its order to a determinate act (namely a meritorious act), which belongs namely to the will alone, according to Anselm, On the Virginal Conception ch.4 and frequently elsewhere;     therefore it precisely perfects the soul insofar as the soul is the power to which such act belongs; this power is the will, therefore etc     .

23. There is confirmation of this reason in that, if grace were to perfect the essence as essence of the soul, grace would be able to redound to the first act of the power, namely of the intellect, and so an act of the intellect, as it precedes an act of the will, could be meritorious; indeed, if the intellect existed alone without the will, grace and merit could be in the essence.