C. Doubt

40. But there is a doubt whether this real filiation is the same as the foundation, namely as the nature received through generation.

41. And it seems that it is, because the respect of the creature to God as to its efficient cause is the same as the foundation, from 2 d.1 n.260;     therefore too a respect to the proximate efficient cause is the same as the effect. The proof of the consequence is that all ordered efficient causes have the idea of one total cause; one and the same relation is not consubstantial and non-consubstantial with the same thing; therefore etc     .

42. I reply that this relation is not the same as the foundation, because just as it is a contradiction for something to remain in a thing when that which is really the same as it does not remain, so it is a contradiction for something to be the same really as something and be able to remain the same without that other remaining - therefore, just as the first relation of something to that without which it cannot be is the same as the related thing, so a relation to anything without which the related thing can be is not the same as the related thing; but this nature [sc. Christ’s human nature] could be the same in number without the relation to the Mother and without the Mother as term, because the same nature could have been created immediately by God;a the same nature could also have been had through temporal generation from another mother, as was touched on in 2 d.16 [not in the Ordinatio; see Lectura 2 d.20 n.27], where it was said that the same person who is son of one father could have been son of another father;     therefore etc     .

a.a [Interpolation] because whatever a second cause can cause immediately, the first cause can cause immediately by itself.

43. If it be objected that ‘although the nature could have been produced in being such that filiation was not founded in it, yet, from the fact that this filiation is founded, it does not seem that the nature can remain without this filiation; on the contrary, if it does so, there will be a contradiction, because to be haver of this nature and to be son is to be generated in this nature by this Mother; but he who is generated in this nature by this Mother cannot not be generated in this nature by this Mother (for that anything that happened in the past did not happen in the past involves a contradiction); therefore that the haver of this nature, received from this generator, is now not a son by this filiation involves a contradiction, which would not be the case if filiation was accidental to this nature’;

44. I reply:

Either [sc. in a first way] filiation is precisely a relation founded on a passive generation insofar as it is past, so that - whether in reality or in the intellect - something is said to be son because it was at some time generated, and thus ‘to be son’ will not predicate something of a thing really present, although it does verbally, but only something of a thing past; just as the proposition ‘Socrates is about to run’, although it seem to be about the present, yet in fact posits something only for the future, because it is equivalent to this one, ‘Socrates will run’, so the proposition ‘Socrates is generated’ is equivalent to ‘Socrates has been generated’, and the former, in this understanding, is equivalent to ‘Socrates is or was a son’. And in this way ‘son’ states a real relation, but not according to ‘is’ simply, namely not according to the ‘is’ of existence, but according to the ‘is’ of the past, which is an ‘is’ that is real in a certain respect, as is also the ‘is’ of the future - or rather, ‘son’ states a real relation in the way that potency before act in a potential nature states a real relation in a way, but according to a diminished entity of the thing.

45. And the objection [n.43] seems to proceed of this way, because according to this way ‘whatever once was a son’ cannot ever not be a son, just as ‘what was’ cannot not have been, in the way too that ‘what at some time is possible’ cannot not be possible when it is not actually present. In this way one would have to say that, if John was annihilated, he was still son of Zebedee [Luke 5.10] - nor could God destroy this relation however much the foundation were annihilated as to actual existence, nor would filiation state more of reality about an existing son than about a non-existing son.

46. It could, in another way, be said that filiation states the complete relation of a passive product as long as the actual existence - received through generation - continues without interruption; and in this way Christ would have been son of Mary up to his death and would not have been her son after the resurrection, because the actual existence of the human nature received through generation from Mary would have been interrupted by death, and the existence as it was received a second time after the resurrection was followed by a different relation to God who resuscitated it. In this way too no one would be son of anyone after the general resurrection - and this opinion seems absurd.

47. It seems then that one should, in a third way, take the mean between these two extremes [nn.44-46], namely that filiation states the relation of generated to generator as founded on the actual existence of the nature generated, or as founded on the actually existing generated nature itself - and this whether the nature was continuously preserved without interruption after being received, or was with interruption preserved the same after being received, such that both preservings are accidental to it.

48. And one can in this way reply to the argument [n.43] and say that although this nature, received through this generation, could not have the same numerical being that it received by not founding this numerically same relation, yet this relation itself is not consubstantial with the nature, because the numerically same existence was absolutely able to have been had without the relation and without the generation, if the existence had been received from a creator or from some generator immediately.

49. As to the argument touched on for this doubt [n.41], I reply that the relation of a nature to the first efficient cause is consubstantial with the nature, because the nature could not be the same if it did not really have for itself the same relation to the first efficient cause; but its relation to a second efficient cause is only an accidental relation, because the nature could remain the same without a relation to any second efficient cause. And as to this subject there was discussion at length in 2 d.1 nn.261-275, about how the relation of the creature to God as efficient cause is the same and not the same as the creature: the same truly and really, not the same formally; nor is the relation any the more the same in this way because it is the validityVatican editors: The Latin is ‘ratitudo’ from ‘reor’, to think or validate or ratify, and signifies a thing as certain. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5 q.2, “The first..most common concept, common to this concept and to that, is the concept whereby a thing ‘res’, as said from ‘reor’, is conceived, which ‘thing’ contains under it ‘imaginary thing’, which is a pure non-being. But if a thing has being in God according to exemplar idea, not only does one say that it is a thing or ‘res’ as taken from ‘reor’, but also that it is some nature and essence, and so it is called a validated thing, or ‘res’ as taken from ‘ratitudo’.” ⁸⁶ or firmness of the foundation.

50. Nor are these claims contradictory; for although truth and goodness are really the same as absolute entity, and although this truth and this goodness are the same as this entity, yet they are not the same formally or quidditatively [cf. 1 d.8 nn.191-209], because truth and goodness are as it were properties of being, Metaphysics 4.2.1004b10-17 [cf. 1 d.3 n.134]. So it is in the case of the reality from which genus is taken and from which difference is taken, and likewise in the case of quiddity and individual entity and many other things that have been touched on frequently as to this difference on the part of the thing, namely the difference whereby this reality is not formally that reality although it is identical with it [cf. 1 d.3 n.133, d.11 nn.51-52, 2 d.3 nn.176-179, 187 etc].

51. Nor, further - according to him who saysVatican editors: Probably Richard of Conington, an Anglican Minorite, said by contemporaries to have been a follower or disciple of Henry of Ghent; his commentary on the Sentences is missing. ⁸⁷ that the vestigial respect is the validity of the foundation [cf. 1 d.3 nn.302-309] - is there any contradiction in something’s being the same as the foundation (which was conceded in 2 d.1 nn.261-271 ‘On the Relation of the Creature to God’), and yet not being the same as the validity of the foundation (which was denied in 1 d.3 nn.310-323, in the question ‘On the Vestige’), because he posits [sc. Richard of Conington, along with Henry; cf. 2 d.1 nn.241-242] that every relation of the creature to God is the same as the foundation, yet not that every validity of the foundation is the same as the foundation; but he distinguishes, on this point, the vestigial respect from the other respects [cf. 1 d.3 nn.302-304].