Question One. Whether in Christ there is some Existing other than Uncreated Existing

1. About the sixth distinction I ask whether in Christ there is some existing other than uncreated existing.a

a.a [Interpolation] About this sixth distinction, where the Master treats of the incarnation considered as it is in fact, three questions are asked: first whether in Christ there is an existing of the Word different from the created existing; second whether Christ is some two things; third which of the three opinions reported by the Master should be held. Argument about the first.

2. That there is not:

Because existing constitutes a thing, and thus, if Christ had two existings, Christ would be two things - or, if he were one thing, he would only be per accidens one; but this is unacceptable according to blessed Bernard, writing to Pope Eugenius [On Consideration 5.8-9], “This unity [sc. the unity of Christ] is the greatest after the unity that is in the Trinity.”Bernard, “Among all the things that are rightly called ‘one’, the summit is held by the unity of the Trinity, whereby the three persons are one substance. Excelling in second place is the unity by which, conversely, three substances are one person in Christ... I mean that in Christ the Word, the soul, and the flesh are, without confusion of essences, one person.” ⁵¹ Per accidens unity cannot be greatest among created unities;     therefore etc     .

3. Further, human nature is not united to the Word as form to matter or as act to potency but rather vice versa, because the Word is act;     therefore human nature is not united to the Word as giving existence to potency but rather as receiving existence; therefore etc     .

4. Further, the infinite cannot receive existence from a creature;     therefore it does not get any created existence from the assumed nature.

5. On the contrary:

Augustine On the Trinity 5.2 n.3, “Just as ‘wisdom’ [sapientia] is taken from ‘to be wise’ [sapere], so ‘essence’ [essentia] is taken from ‘to exist (existing/existence)’ [‘esse’];” but there cannot be many wisdoms unless there are many ‘to be wises (beings wise)’; therefore etc     .

6. Again Anselm Monologion 6, “As the three of ‘light’ [lux], ‘lighting’ [lucens] and ‘to light’ [lucere] are related, so are ‘essence’ [essentia], ‘thing’ [ens], and ‘to exist (exsting/existence)’ [‘esse’];” but there cannot be several lights in something if there are not several ‘to lights’, because when a prior is multiplied, its posterior is necessarily essentially multiplied;     therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

7. I respond.

In this question it is certain about the existing of essence that, if existing differs from essence only in mode of conceiving, there are as many existings in Christ as there are essences.

8. It is certain about the existing of subsistence too (namely that there is an existing of actual existence in itself that is not dependent, in its subsisting, on something else or on another supposit), because there is only one such existing in Christ, just as there is also only one supposit.

9. About the existence too or the ‘is’ that signifies the compounding by the intellect uniting predicate with subject, and that is syncategorematic ([sc. co-signifying with another term, as in ‘.. .is white’] about which the Philosopher says Metaphysics 5.7.1017a31-32 that “‘is’ signifies true and ‘is not’ signifies false”), it is plain that there are as many ‘is’s as can be predicated of a subject.

10. But about the real existing of actual existence, as it is distinct from the existing of essence and the existing of subsistence, there is doubt whether there is any such existing different from uncreated existing.

A. Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

11. And answer is made that there is not [Aquinas, Godfrey of Fontaines], because if ‘this nature’ existed in its own supposit there would be the same existence for the nature as for the person; therefore now too, if ‘this person’ supplies the nature’s proper personhood as to the existing of the person, then it does so also as to the existing of the nature.

12. I reply that it does the supplying by terminating the dependence of the nature on the supposit, but it does not do so by positing that identity between them. Likewise, the existing of the nature and of the person, when the nature exists in its own supposit, are the same for the reason that person only states a double negation by reason of the nature [d.1 nn.44-47 supra]; therefore, however much person is taken away, the existing of nature is not taken away.

13. Again, if a part were to come newly to a whole that possesses perfect existence, the whole would not possess any of the whole’s existence from the part but would only have a new relation to the part, and the part would exist through the existence of the whole, as would be the case with a hand newly created for pre-existing Socrates. But human nature comes to Christ engrafted as it were into a pre-existing supposit; therefore it does not give the supposit any existence but only receives existence from it, and the supposit has only a new relation to it.

14. Further, an accident does not give any existence to the subject, because then there would be as many existences in Peter as accidents; human nature comes as it were accidentally to the Word because coming to what pre-exists in itself actually.

15. This position is made clear in another way, that just as quantity is compared to quality and to substance, and each of the latter is quantified by the same quantity (the subject formally because it receives it, and the quality as it were by accident because the quality is received in a quantified thing), so the Word and human nature exist with the same existence; and this existence is the same in supposit, and it gives as it were existence formally to the Word and per accidens to the nature united to the existing supposit, because the nature is received in the existence which the assumed nature participates; and so there is no need for there to be several existences there.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

16. [Against the conclusion in itself] - Against the conclusion of this opinion there are multiple arguments.

First as follows: the term of generation is the being of existence or something having such being, Physics 5.1.225a12-16; the Son of God was truly generated from

Mary in time, according to Damascene ch.51, and the term of this generation is something as it has the being of existence; but not uncreated existing (for that existing was not effected by temporal generation); therefore some other existing.

17. Further, On the Soul 2.4.415b13, “For living things to exist is to live;” in Christ there was a life other than uncreated life, otherwise he would not truly have died, because death is the privation of true life; uncreated life too he could not have been deprived of; and so there was in him another ‘living’, and consequently another ‘existing’.

18. Further, his soul was created; creation terminates at something actually existing;     therefore there was some actual existence of his soul insofar as this existence terminated the action of creation; it was not uncreated existence, because nothing creates itself; therefore it was created existence.

19. Again, the whole Trinity under the idea of efficient cause produced and conserved the nature that the Word was the person of; the causality of the efficient and conserving cause terminated only at some ‘existing’, and so the nature had the being of existence; not uncreated existence, because nothing is efficient cause of itself; therefore etc     .

20. Further, if this nature were to be let go by the Word, a new existence through generation or creation would not have to be acquired by it, because it was already in existence; for even if it were let go, yet it would not, by the fact of being let go, be annihilated or a being in potency (as is the soul of Antichrist before its creation);     therefore it would have some actual existing; and not a new one because not by any positive change; therefore the same existing as it has now; therefore etc     .

21 To the first, second, third, and fourth of these arguments [nn.16-19] it might be said [Aquinas] that uncreated essence is the term as it belongs to this nature.

22. On the contrary: the existing of uncreated essence states only a relation of reason as it belongs to this nature;     therefore etc     .Text cancelled by Scotus: “Further, the nature of an angel could be assumed by the Word, and it cannot remain the same, according to them [Aquinas], unless it remains with its own same existence; therefore neither could human nature now remain the same in Christ unless it remained with its own existence. The consequence is manifest, because its own existence is as intrinsic to one nature as to the other; therefore etc.” ⁵²

23. Further, the foundation of a relation naturally precedes the relation [d.2 n.114 supra], and precedes, in actual existing, the idea of actual relation; this union was an actual relation;     therefore its foundation naturally preceded it in actual existing. The foundation was the total [human] nature itself; therefore etc     .

24. There is a confirmation, because the soul naturally perfects the body first before the whole nature would be naturally fit to be assumed; in that prior stage the form was the act of the matter and was, as a consequence, giving it existence, and this existence was not corrupted by union [sc. with the Word].

25. [Against the reasons for the opinion] - Against the reasons for this opinion.

Against the first [n.13] I argue as follows:

If the Word only has a new relation to the nature, and if it will be a relation of reason (the point was plain above, n.13), then, since a subject is not said to be formally anything by a relation of reason, the Word - as he is man - will not be formally anything. The consequent is contrary to the Decretal On Heretics [1177 AD, Gregory IX, Decretals 5 tit.7 ch.7], “Since Christ is perfect God and perfect man, it is remarkable by what temerity anyone dares to say that Christ is not anything according as he is man... As for the rest, no one is to dare to say that Christ is not anything according as he is man.”

26. Further, a part that comes to a whole does not give existence to the whole but receives it, for the reason that it is perfected by the form of the whole; because if it remained distinct like before, it would not receive the existence of the whole but would have either its own existence or none; but human nature united to the Word does not receive the form of the Word but remains simply distinct;     therefore either it has no existence or it has some existence of its own.

27. Against the next argument, about accident [n.14], I argue as follows:

An accident has its own being of actual existence, because it can per se exist and because it has its own essence; therefore etc     .

28. Again, an accident is the term of generation in a certain respect [sc. alteration];     therefore etc     .

29. Further, when bread becomes by transubstantiation the body of Christ, the quantity is actually existent there, and it acquires no existence through the transubstantiation of the subject, because not through any positive change (to wit generation or creation);     therefore it had actual existence before in its subject, and had the same existence (as is plain); therefore etc     .

30. Against the third piece of reasoning, about quantity [n.15] - if it were valid it would prove that the human nature was formally existent with an uncreated form; for if human nature in Socrates is formally a quantity by the same quantity that Socrates is a quantity by, and if human nature in the Word is formally a quantity by the same virtual quantity that the Word is a virtual quantity by, then the nature would be formally good and infinitely lovable by uncreated goodness (and so on about truth and the rest).

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

31. I concede the conclusion of the above reasons [nn.16-24], that this nature, from the fact it does not exist only in the intellect nor in its cause but outside its cause, necessarily has its own actual existence just as it has its own quidditative being; but it does not have its own being of subsistence, because subsistence states - over and above existence - nothing other than negation of double dependence, as was said about personhood in d.1 nn.44-47 supra. Now this existence [sc. subsistence] is not dependent, just as neither is the nature it belongs to, but such existence is that of the Word; so there is here only one subsistence.

32. The reply is made [Aquinas] that a prior can be separated from a posterior without contradiction; existing is prior and absolute.

33. On the contrary: the question is not about a new miracle other than the assumption, but if the nature is not deficient, it does not lack its own existing; proof has been given that it does not lack it [n.31].

34. And proof is given in another way, that then depending would be repugnant to the act of the creature; for nothing depends save according to its existing.

35. Likewise, our nature would be formally less perfect in Christ than in Peter, because existing is posited as the ultimate perfection.

36. I say further too that there is an existence, different from uncreated existence, that is the existence properly and simply of this supposit [sc. the supposit has two existences even though it has one subsistence, n.31].

The first point [sc. ‘properly’] I make clear through the opposite: for the existence of my foot is not the existence of me, although it is in me, for the reason that I am not my foot, nor subsistent with respect to my foot the way my supposit is with respect to my nature; but the existence, contrariwise, of my foot is not different from the existence by which I exist, but is only some partial existence in the existence by which I exist. But the opposite is the case here: for the Word subsists in human nature as a supposit in that nature; and, because of this, the Word is properly called ‘man’, and so he is existent with the existence of that nature.

37. Second [sc. about ‘simply’] I also say that he exists simply with that existence; for although Socrates formally exist with the existence of white, because he is formally white, yet he only exists with that existence in a certain respect, because that existence is existence in a certain respect, and especially in regard to the existence of Socrates which in itself is existence simply. But in the issue at hand the existence of the human nature is in itself existence simply, insofar as being is divided into ‘simply’ and ‘in a certain respect’; and ‘being simply’ is substance, while ‘being in a certain respect’ is accident, according to the Commentator [Averroes] Physics 1 com.62 [cf. Aristotle Physics 1.7.190a32-33, Scotus Ord. 4 d.1 q.3 n.45].Text cancelled by Scotus, “now the existence of human nature is the existence of substance; therefore, since the divine Word is a man simply by that existence, he exists simply by that existence.” ⁵³

38. And if you say [Godfrey of Fontaines] that it is true that the nature’s existence in itself is existence simply but not so in the Word - on the contrary: the sort that the existence is in itself is the sort that it gives to whatever exists through that existence; the Word exists with that existence, namely through human nature.

39. And this last point [n.38] was perhaps the motivating reason for others about this opinion [n.15], that this existence of the human nature was not the first existence of this supposit but comes to it when it already has perfect existing; therefore it seemed to be an existence of the supposit in a certain respect, so that, although one should concede that there are several existences in Christ, yet one should not concede that there are several existences of Christ, because only one of them, as being the first, would belong to him simply and the others would belong to him in a certain respect.

40. But this is not conclusive, because not every non-first existence of something belongs to it in a certain respect - but the existence that is of the sort that every substantial nature is, is not of a nature to give existence in a certain respect, however it be disposed to what it gives existence to.

41. But if dispute is made regardless that the ‘existing not first’ of a supposit and the ‘not existing simply’ of a supposit mean the same, then the contention is only in words, and the opinions, which seem to be opposed, are not in contradiction save verbally.Vatican editors: because everyone concedes that the first existing of Christ is the existing of the Word (Bonaventure, Aquinas, Richard of Middleton, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines). ⁵⁴ But “when the thing is agreed, one should use no force about the word,” Augustine Rectrations 1 [rather Against Cresconius 2.2 n.3, “The discipline of disputation teaches.. .that when there is agreement about the thing, one should not labor over the word”].

42. This second opinion [sc. Scotus’ own], as to what it maintains about double actual existence, is confirmed by Damascene ch.58, where he holds that in Christ there are two wills as well as two willings; but existing is more immediately related to essence than willing is to will; so there is a greater necessity for existing to be multiplied in accord with the plurality of natures.

II. To the Principal Arguments

43. To the arguments.

To the first [n.2] I say that although there are in Christ two willings, yet he is not two willers, because the concrete thing is not multiplied without multiplying the supposit - as is plain about someone possessing two sciences, who is not called two knowers; so it is in the issue at hand, that, if there are several existings each of which will be the existing simply of the supposit, it does not follow that the supposit is two things. And in the form of the reasoning, ‘existing constitutes a thing, therefore many existings, many things’, there is a fallacy of the consequent, from destruction of the antecedent and the consequent; for the dividing of the antecedent and consequent involves some negation about each of them.The conclusion ‘many existings, many things’ requires dividing up ‘existing’ and ‘thing’ so that each, by way of negation, becomes many (‘this existing or this thing is not that existing or that thing etc.’). The original premise, however, said nothing about how the multiplication of one term related to the multiplication of the other, so that to introduce multiplication into the conclusion is to destroy the premise, and thus the conclusion too that was depending on it. ⁵⁵

44. And as to the confirmation of the reason [n.2], when it is said that then Christ would be a per accidens thing, I say that if ‘accident’ or ‘per accidens’ is taken there properly, as they join together two genera or things of two genera, there is no ‘per accidens thing’ there, because the divine nature is not in any genus; human nature too is not an accident of anything, since truly it is a substance. If however ‘per accidens one’ means improperly anything that includes a two, one of which comes to a second possessed of complete existence and is not a form per se informing the second and constituting a third thing, then it can be conceded, though in the issue at hand it does not sound well.

45. But then there is the argument against the meaning of the term [n.2], namely that this unity [sc. of Christ] is the greatest unity according to Bernard: I say that a unity can be called greatest from the privation of distinction or from the perfection of the things united in the unity. In the first way, the unity here is not the greatest, because the distinction of natures is here the greatest; in the second way it can be conceded that the unity is the greatest after the Trinity, because the united things are most perfect, for one is infinite and the other is a substance perfect in itself; and the latter, from its unity with the former, is most perfect in the sharing of characteristics, for it is ‘God’ [d.7 n.51 infra].

46. To the next [n.3], I concede that human nature is potential, as an effect is potential in respect of its cause but not as perfectible by the Word, for the Word cannot be the form of anything; conversely too the nature is not the form of the Word, and so it does not give existence by informing but by union; for just as from this union the Word is man by this nature, so by this nature he is existent with the existence of this nature.

47. To the next [n.4] the answer is plain from the same point, that the infinite receives no perfection that may inform it; yet, just as this nature is united to the Word without passive reception of any of the perfection in the Word, so the Word is by this union existent with the existence of this nature.

III. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

48. To the arguments for the opinion, the answer is plain as to part [n.13], accident [n.14], and quantity [n.15], because these were rejected in the argument against the opinion; for this nature is not part of any whole [n.26], nor is it in itself an accident [nn.27-29], nor is it formally existent with uncreated existence [n.30].

IV. To the First and Second Reasonings in the Solution of the Question

49. The first and second reasons adduced to show the difference in the solution of the question [nn.36-37]: ‘[Christ] is different according to humanity and deity, therefore he is different’ - the antecedent is denied; nor does ‘he is of a different nature in humanity and deity’ follow therefrom.Scotus is not denying here what he said in nn.36-37, but denying that the difference he showed there of existences in Christ can be used to argue to a difference of subsistences in Christ, or to show that Christ is one supposit in one existence and another supposit in the other existence; for, on the contrary, he is not different even as to each existence but the same in both. Further, the difference cannot be used either to show that Christ is different in having two natures. Christ is, as it were, one supposit all the way through whatever the differences. ⁵⁶