Question Four. Whether Christ’s Soul was Able to Enjoy God supremely without the Highest Grace

23. I ask fourth whether Christ’s soul was able to enjoy God supremely without the highest grace.

24. That it was not:

Grace is required for an act of merit when one is on the way to the fatherland; therefore it is required for the act of enjoyment when one is in the fatherland.

Proof of the consequence: When a form is required for some operation because of imperfection in another cause that is a partial cause of that operation, then the more excellent the operation the more that form is required; but grace along with the will is required for an act of merit it because of the excellence of that act;     therefore grace is more required for the act of enjoyment, which is a more excellent act. Further, otherwise [sc. if grace were not required] someone could be supremely blessed, without charity, because he could have the highest enjoyment without charity.

25. Further, just as natural existence is required for natural operation, so supernatural existence is required for supernatural operation; therefore the highest existence is required for the highest operation; the highest existence is had through the highest grace; therefore etc     .

26. On the contrary:

Grace is not related to enjoyment in any class of cause save in that of efficient cause (the point is plain by running through the kinds of causes); but whatever God can do through an intermediate efficient cause he can do without it;     therefore the highest enjoyment, which God can make through the medium of the highest grace, he can make without it; therefore etc     .

I. To the First Question

27. To the first question I say that ‘highest’ can be taken in two ways: in one way positively, for exceeding everything else; in another way negatively, for not being exceeded by anything else. In the first way there can be only one thing that is said thus to exceed. In the second way there can be many such things (as the most general categories being of are because they do not have a genus above them).

28. When speaking in the first way, I say that God could not have conferred on Christ’s soul the highest possible grace to which he could not create an equal, for he was and is able to assume another nature equal to that one and to give it an equal grace; in the second way I say that he was able to give the highest creatable grace to Christ’s soul.

29. To show this I prove two things: first that the highest grace could in this way have been created at once in a single creation; second that it could be conferred on a creature.

A. The Highest Grace could have been Created

1. Scotus’ own Reason

30. I prove the first: taking some determinate grace, say a, I ask by way of progressive ascent: either there is a stand at some highest grace, and then the conclusion is gained; or there is no stand and an infinite process is possible. And then it follows, in the latter case, that the more some grace exceeds a certain grace a the more perfect it is; and so a grace that exceeds infinitely is more perfect infinitely and will thus in itself be intensively infinite; and since it would be seen by the divine intellect as a single creatable thing, it can be created in a single creation. And thus, setting aside what the inference shows to be impossible, namely that there does exist such an infinite grace [sc. a grace to which there can be no equal, n.28], the conclusion is gained that the highest grace can be created by a single act of creation [cf. n.16], just as it is seen by the divine intellect to be a single creatable thing.

2. Others’ Reasons

31. [First reason]. From this reasoning two other arguments get their evidence, one of which is taken from the Philosopher Physics 3.7.207b17-18, the chapter on the infinite, that “as much can be in act as can be in potency”, and so there is no process to infinity when advancing toward form; and for this reason it has been necessary to posit for any form however perfect a completion that is somehow possible

32. But an objection is raised against this position [n.31], that in the case of numbers it is possible to advance toward a potential infinite even though no number is actually infinite; so it is not true of numbers that as much can be in act as can be in potency.

33. I reply in accord with Averroes [Physics 3 com. 67] that addition in the case of numbers is by division of the continuous; but in the division of the continuous the advance is made materially [sc. by division in the matter]; consequently numbers increase by an advance that is in the matter; but the continuous grows and increases by an advance toward form; now in an advance toward form there must be a stand, and a stand that is as much in act as in potency; but there is no stand in an advance that is in matter; and so there is a stand in the quantity of continuous things but not in a multitude of numbers, just as neither is there a stand in the division of continuous things into lesser and lesser quantities.

34. But an argument against this is that if number is per se one and is not like a heap (Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7-10, b23 - the Commentator Averroes says the opposite in Physics 3 com.68), then any number has its own proper form. Therefore in advancing to a greater number there is a progress toward a form that is proper and includes the preceding forms virtually; so there is no progress to infinity in numbers.a

a.a [Interpolation] Note on this point Augustine City of God 12.19, and the Commentator on the chapter on the Infinite, Physics 3 com.33, who says that every number is divisible; so see Metaphysics 2.2.994a11-19 on the Infinite, and note that the Commentator says the opposite, Physics 3 com.68.

35. I say, then, that the Philosopher’s argument here [n.31] is only conclusive about quantity of bulk, and according to this sort of quantity ‘a thing can be in potency as much as it can be in act’ - in fact it is in act because, according to the Philosopher, a quantum cannot grow in this way unless the parts taken from one continuous thing (by way of removal or division) are added continuously to another that is growing; and so, although these parts could never exceed the divided whole nor the increased whole, yet the divided whole can go to excess by addition of these parts; for if the whole quantity, to which addition is being made, could be actually greater than the whole potentially divided thing is and can be growing accordingly, then it could be bigger than the heaven.

36. The provability of the Philosopher’s statement is that a natural agent (without whose action he supposes nothing new can come to be) cannot make something bigger unless it takes parts from one quantity and adds them to another quantity. According to the theologians, indeed, this is not true when speaking of divine power, because there is some quantity potentially bigger than it actually is, for God can make it larger without adding to it parts that have been taken from another quantity [cf. Ord. 1 d.42 n.9].

37. In order, then, to apply the stated proposition of the Philosopher [n.31] to a virtual quantity, one needs to have a different proof from the Philosopher [sc. a philosophical and not theological proof], and in the place cited [n.31] the only proof is that, just as in the case of some permanent things something finite can be makeable by a single making, so too if one of the infinite things were makeable by a making, it would be makeable by a single making, and so something highest could be made, yet if there can be a process to infinity it would not be infinite.

38. From the fact, then, that charity or grace is something permanent, even as to any degree, the result is that if there is a process to infinity then any degree that has been made will be further perfectible; and so there can be at the same time as much in actuality as there can be in potency, for the possibility for such form is not a possibility for something that is only in a state of becoming but for something that is in a state of having become.

39. And this interpretation is touched on by the Commentator in Physics 3 com.69, that all powers that are in increase belong to one definite or demonstrated power; that is, that there is one power for a highest act in which are contained all the acts the many powers are capable of that are reduced to act one after another. But in the case of the division of the continuous, the many powers are not parts of one demonstrated or definite power, that is, there is not in their case some single act in which are contained all the acts completing the powers that are reducible to that act in turn; and so they are not parts of one demonstrated or definite power. This seems to mean only that in all ordered acts where there is, according to each degree, some act that is per se makeable, there is a highest in potency that can at the same time be in act, because it can be reduced to act by a single power; but in the case of acts that are only of a nature to exist in coming to be and where there are many ordered powers, there cannot be some single highest thing that can be in act as much as it is in potency but, beyond any potential coming to be, there can be something greater, although not something makeable by a single making.

40. [Second reason, n.31]. There is another reason posited for this conclusion [sc. that the highest grace can be created, n.29], namely that God can create as much charity as he can create (the subject of this major includes the predicate). Posit then that in fact ‘he creates as much as he can create’; therefore he cannot make anything greater; therefore the conclusion is gained that a highest creatable degree can be created.

41. Here the response is that the first proposition [sc. he can create as much as he can create, n.40] can be a hypothetical conditional, or a categorical proposition about a conditional predicate [sc. when the statement is conditional only about the predicate; William of Sherwoode Introductions to Logic pp.33-34, Syncategoremata pp.79-80].

42. In the first way the proposition is necessary because the antecedent includes the consequent: ‘if he can create so much, he can create so much’; and in this way one must suppose that it actually holds, so that both the antecedent and the consequent are posited as holding; because if the consequent is posited as holding and not the antecedent there is a fallacy of the consequence. For it need not be that what the antecedent follows on the consequent follows on, and this proposition about the holding of the antecedent [sc. ‘he can create as much as he can create’] is related to one about the possible holding of the consequent, and the inference ‘if man is an animal it is possible that he be white, therefore every animal is white’ is not valid. The first proposition therefore [sc. ‘he can create as much as he can create’] would have to be posited as holding in this way: ‘he creates as much as he creates’.

45. But if it is taken in the second way (when it is a categorical about a conditional predicate), the sense is, ‘he can create as much as he can create, that is, he can create a highest creatable’. And if a single power is indicated as modifying the whole proposition, it is, in its form, not true; and so the subject does not include the predicate, for the predicate is specified by a determination that is not per se known to be present in the subject, but it is true only by reason of the matter (for in the case of permanent things, however far one proceeds, the highest possible is as makeable by a single making as is anything else).

44. And these two reasons [nn.31, 40] get their evidence only from the first reason [n.30]

B. The Highest Grace can be Conferred on the Soul of Christ

45. Secondly, and more to the question, supposing that a highest grace can be created by a single action, I prove that it could be conferred on the soul of Christ.

First, because a subject fitted to receive an appropriate accident that comes in degrees (although not a subject that is of itself determined to any particular degree) can, considered in itself, receive that accident according to any degree; the soul is such a subject with respect to grace; therefore it can, considered in itself, receive any degree of grace.

46. The major here is clear from its opposite: for water is for this reason not able to receive any degree of heat, that heat is an accident unfitting to water in any degree, and there is a degree of it that could not exist in water while water remains with its nature as water, but the water would be destroyed;Scotus is following here, and throughout this argument, the traditional Aristotelian analysis of the material elements, according to which earth is cold and dry, water cold and wet, air hot and wet, fire hot and dry. ⁹³ air too, for which heat is an appropriate accident, cannot receive just any degree of heat for the reason it is determined by its nature to have a definite degree of heat; the same too of mixed bodies. But when there is an accident in a certain degree, and it is appropriate to a given subject and the subject is not determined to having any definite degree, there seems no reason for any degree to be unable to belong to the subject; for no greater contradiction at all between accident and subject is found in one degree of the accident than in any other, and the existence of what contains no contradiction is absolutely to be posited as possible.a

a.a [Interpolation] Or the argument [n.45] can be formulated in this way: Further, a subject able to receive a form that comes in degrees where no degree is repugnant to the subject, can receive any degree of it; the soul is disposed to grace in this way. Proof: if some degree of grace is repugnant to a subject that is as such receptive of it (the ‘as such’ excludes from the subject all accompanying idea of the subject’s being an active principle with respect to grace), then that degree of grace is also repugnant to any subject of the same nature, for anything capable of grace is capable of it under the same idea (from the second argument, n.47 infra). But no degree of grace is repugnant to whatever subjects are receptive of grace. So not to any particular one of them either.

     I reply that a greater degree is repugnant to a subject that has a lesser capacity. Therefore the minor [sc. ‘no degree of grace is repugnant to whatever subjects are receptive of grace’] is denied. The consequence proving it is likewise denied. But the inference does indeed hold that ‘if a degree of grace is repugnant to any subject of such and such capacity, then it is repugnant to any subject of equal capacity’, but not that it is repugnant ‘to any subject of the same idea, but of unequal capacity’. An example: if surface contains body then any surface contains any body, but a greater surface contains a greater body; and a smaller surface is not able to contain as large a body, and yet a smaller surface is of the same idea as a larger one.

     And then in reply to the third reason about first extremes in a proportion (n.48 infra, which would be against the above solution) I say: form and subject are adequate extremes when taken proportionally, and otherwise they are not (as a subject with a capacity for such an amount and a form with a degree of such an amount or a lesser amount).

     If a proof from surface to color is given (or a proof from first matter to all material forms) I reply that there is an equality of capacity there, but it is not so in the case of angel and soul, nor yet does the difference exceed the difference [sc. ‘intellectual’ as to angels, ‘rational’ as to men], but the idea of the genus does that is common to the differences [sc. angel and soul are both spiritual beings as to genus, and spiritual is common to the differences of intellectual in an angel and rational in the human soul; but an angel’s spirituality has no relation to a body while the soul’s does]; and so their greater and lesser capacity are of the same idea, although the differences are of a different idea.

47. Further, angel and soul are related to grace according to the same idea of receptivity, because grace, as it is received, is a form of the same idea, and so the receivers - insofar as they do receive - are of the same idea. An example: just as white is of the same idea in stone and in wood, so stone and wood are not related to white as they belong to different natures; on the contrary it is accidental to them that, as they receive a form of the same idea, they belong to different natures. Now grace in soul and angel is of the same species, otherwise one grace would determinately surpass the other and thus all grace in the soul would be greater than grace in an angel or conversely, and both of these are false. Therefore the two are not related to grace as subjects of different nature, but this difference is incidental to them insofar as they receive such accident; and thus the soul can receive as much as an angel can receive. But an angel can receive the highest creatable grace; therefore the soul can, and therefore also can the soul of Christ.

48. Further, when there is a proportion between common extremes, as between the first extremes of the proportion, it is between whatever is contained under either extreme. An example of this: what heats and what is heatable are the first extremes based on ‘having heat’, namely actually so and potentially so; thus, wherever the ideas of actually hot and potentially hot are found, there what heats and what is heatable can be found. But the first extremes of the proportion in question, namely ‘supernatural perfection and supernatural perfectibility’, are (in the present context) grace and intellectual nature; so the idea of this proportion is present in whatever is contained under either extreme; and therefore any grace whatever is the perfection simply of any intellectual nature whatever as that nature is perfectible by grace. An example of this: if color is related in first place to surface as perfection to perfectible, and if it is not determined by the nature of either extreme to some genus beneath it in order to be one extreme of the proportion, then any surface can be perfected by any color; but if the extremes are made determinate by something else, as that the surface, because it is the surface of a stone, is the determinate extreme of such and such a color, then that surface cannot receive any color whatever - but this is not because the surface is perfectible by color but because that whose surface it is determines a certain species or degree of color for itself; but if the surface were perfectible absolutely, and if the perfection were too, then anything with that surface could be perfected by any color in any degree.

C. A Doubt

49. There is a doubt here about the second member of the distinction, namely when ‘highest’ is expounded in the negative sense [sc. ‘highest’ as ‘what is not exceeded by anything else’, n.27]; the doubt is whether by God’s ordained power some other grace could be equal to this one [sc. the grace of Christ’s soul].

50. And it seems it could not:

For no other nature could be head of those who have grace, for there cannot be two heads, just as there cannot be two things that are highest in the same order.

51. Likewise, if the same amount of grace could be given to someone else, then this someone else could advance to the same extent in merit, which seems absurd.

52. Here one could say that although God could by his absolute power confer the same amount of grace on another nature, whether the nature was assumed or perhaps not assumed, yet he could not do so by ordained power because (according to the laws already set down by divine Wisdom) there will be only one head in the Church, from whom graces will flow to the members.

II. To the Second Question

53. As to the second question, about the fact of the matter [n.11], it is probable, according to the Master [Lombard] that God conferred on Christ as much as he could [n.18]; but, from the preceding question [nn.30, 45-48], he was able to confer the highest creatable grace; therefore he did so confer it. I prefer, in commending Christ, to go to excess in praising him than to fail to praise him as is his due - supposing that, because of ignorance, one must fall into one or other extreme.

54. This response is confirmed by Augustine’s remark On Free Choice 3.5 n.45, “As regards whatever occurs to you by true reason to be better, know that God has done it rather than not done it.” Now it seems, according to right reason, to be simply better that the highest grace has been conferred on someone than not conferred, for thereby is displayed the highest mercy of God in giving the highest good of grace without preceding merits;     therefore it is probable to say that he did it, and not to any but the soul of Christ; therefore etc     .

III. To the Principal Arguments of these Two Questions

55. To the arguments of these questions.

A. To the Arguments of the First Question

56. [To the first argument]. It is said [Aquinas, Bonaventure] to the first argument [n.2] that, although Christ’s soul was not the highest thing capable of grace, yet it was united to the person of the Word, and by this union its capacity was so enlarged that it could receive the highest grace, which it would not have received had it not been assumed.

57. Against this:

Nothing absolutely new was put into the soul’s nature by the union, because its being united to the Word states only a special dependence of it on the Word; so just as the nature remains the same as to all its absolute properties, so it remains the same as to having the same capacity, for its capacity is its nature.

58. Further, if an angel had been assumed, it would have had a greater capacity by force of the union than it now has, according to you, so that there would have been as much, or more, increase beyond the angel’s natural capacity by assumption as there is by union now increase beyond its natural capacity on the part of Christ’s soul; and accordingly the angel’s nature could receive more grace than Christ’s soul now has, and so grace would not be the highest in Christ, the opposite of which is here [n.56] maintained.

59. One can say briefly that anything capable of grace is in potential obedience to receiving any amount of grace, or to receiving any degree of any amount of grace; for with respect to this per accidens (yet fitting) accident nothing whatever that is capable of grace has of itself a reason for being determined to a certain degree of it - nor is any such degree introduced according to any alteration caused in the patient by a natural agent, but only absolutely according as the subject is capable of grace and God is able to impress on it grace.

60. The proposition then that ‘there is a proportion between perfection and perfectible’ [n.2], if it is understood as to precise proportion (namely that a more perfect perfectible is capable of a greater perfection) is false; on the contrary, the whole of the perfectible in general and in particular regards the whole of perfection in general and in particular. But this proposition about proportion has some probability as to subjects and the natural accidents they cause, because the perfection of the effect follows the perfection of the total active cause. But it has no probability as to substantial forms in matter, because then a more perfect form is sometimes received in a more imperfect perfectible subject, because the form gives a simply greater and prior perfection. But there ought not to be any objection here about matter and substantial form, because here the discussion is about subject and accident, and an objection ought to be made here only because of the accidentality of such accident, for the accident has in itself no reason to limit the subject to such and such a degree.

61. [To the second argument]. To the second [n.6] I say that the meaning is either that beyond that finite degree there could be another degree of grace which was greater; or that there is some degree in the nature of a more perfect supernatural perfection that is greater, although it is beyond the species of grace; or that some degree is absolutely superior.

62. If in the first way, I say that this is impossible, or rather that it involves a contradiction, because the grace in question is completed. And when you say that ‘if a finite degree is understood to be added to it, it is not infinite’ [n.6], I say that there will be something imcompossible involved, for an intelligible finite perfection can be repugnant to another intelligible finite perfection (as when white is understood to be added to black), each of whose components is finite and yet no such thing can be made, because things that are understood to be composite are incompossible when the understanding of them includes contradictories [sc. as in the case of black and white]. Hence in such cases it is not valid to say ‘I can understand this because it is not an infinity, therefore it can come to be’; for this statement is only understood according to a concept that is false in itself and that includes a contradiction; and though it thus be understood not to be infinite, yet it has another incompossiblity within it, because it has a repugnance within itself.

63. If the point is understood in the second way [n.61] then, on the supposition that grace is the highest perfection, it will be understood in the same way as it is when understanding some degree of grace to be higher than the highest grace in the genus of supernatural perfection, for this is to understand contradictories (just as it is contradictory to understand some color greater than the greatest white). If, however, charity is not the highest supernatural perfection but enjoyment is, then one can allow that (beyond the highest degree of charity) there can be a higher degree beyond it in kind, namely some degree of enjoying.

64. If the point is understood in the third way [n.61], it can be said that, beyond the whole genus of the most noble qualities (of which sort supernatural perfections are), the lowest degree of a higher genus, as the lowest substance, can be supposed, because the whole genus of substance surpasses the whole genus of quality; nor is it unacceptable that the substance lowest in essential perfection should surpass any accident whatever, though some accident, as it exists in supernatural and accidental perfection (that is, in being joined to a supernatural object) surpasses substance; for such a perfection is not said to be perfect save by the fact it is joined immediately to the perfect object.

65. In these last two ways [nn.63-64] there is indeed something higher than the highest grace, but it is not to the purpose.

66. [To the third argument]. To the third [n.7] I say that the soul of Christ, in whatever way one considers it, has grace in its completed term such that it cannot have a greater grace. And from this third argument [n.7] three arguments to the opposite of what it says can be constructed:

67. The first is as follows: for because grace is a certain participation in God, it is for this reason necessary that it receive a part of infinite perfection according to some determinate degree, so that it necessarily includes, as it is itself a determinate participation, a determinate degree with respect to infinite charity; otherwise one could conclude that heat and any such form was infinite because any form is a participation in something infinite.Sc. any form is a universal and can inform any number of individuals. ⁹⁴

68. Similarly on the part of the efficient cause, that this cause makes a nature from nothing that is limited.

69. Third on the part of the capacity that, though it is a capacity with respect to any degree of the form, it is not a capacity of something finite for something infinite. And when the statement is made that it increases the capacity, it is clearly false, for when two causes come together to constitute a third thing, the later and second of them does not give the prior anything pertaining to the prior’s proper causality; matter is in some way prior to form, at least as to origin, in constituting the composite, and prior in particular to an accidental form that only constitutes a per accidens being with the subject; therefore the form does not give the matter anything pertaining to the matter’s proper causality, and so it does not increase in the matter any potentiality or capacity (which is matter’s potentiality).

70. But if you say that charity in one degree increases capacity not in itself but relative to another degree - on the contrary: charity is a form of the same idea in anything whatever, and so the capacity for it is also of the same idea in anything whatever; therefore no capacity can be increased by any charity received, but the whole of it is naturally presupposed. For this reason I say that the highest and lowest capacity exist in the nature of a thing before the reception of any form; nor is the capacity increased or lessened whatever form is received, for ‘being able to have grace’ is, according to Augustine [Predestination of the Saints ch.5 n.10], present in man by nature, so that this potentiality is founded in the nature of the soul as something essential and eternal to it, so that it does not change it.

71. [To the fourth argument]. To the final argument [n.8], it is plain that its conclusion is about the highest taken in the positive sense [n.27].

B. To the Arguments of the Second Question

72. To the arguments of the second question:

I say [to the first, n.12] that the blessed has, not by absolute power but by ordained power, whatever he can rightly will. Or if he has it by absolute power this must be understood in the sense of ‘whatever he can absolutely will rightly’, that is, what God wills him to will; but God does not will that any will wills freely to have a greater glory than he has conferred on it; and so it cannot rightly will a glory other than what it has.

73. And when you say in proof: ‘through a natural will, which is always right’, I say that the natural appetite of any will is for the highest glory such that the will could be naturally perfected by that much glory; however there is not there any natural inclination for the highest glory such that the opposite of that form, that is, non-highest glory, would be in it by force (in the way that a heavy object is naturally inclined to go downwardsa such that the opposite - namely being up, or not being down - cannot be in it save by force). For any soul is naturally inclined to have the highest grace, and yet it can be at rest in a smallest grace, because there is no intrinsic principle in it determining it equally to any determinate degree of grace.

a.a [Interpolation] because that inclination [sc. natural appetite in the will] does not have an intrinsic principle necessitating it toward that for which it is the inclination.

74. But when you say [n.12] that a free will will be right if it accords with natural will, I say not always so but only when it accords with the superior will, namely the divine will (when it wills what God wills it to will); but sometimes God wills the will to will freely, because he wills natural will to exercise its appetite; but sometimes he does not, but he wills free will to be in accord with his own will and not in accord with natural appetite. And for this reason is blessedness rightly desired freely, because God wills natural appetite to desire this and free will to be in accord with him. But God on occasion does not will free will to love immortality, and yet he does will natural appetite to be for the opposite of death - and then he does not will free will to follow it but to follow his own will, which is a higher rule, because God by his own will, which is a higher and the highest law, has prefixed on any created will that it not will more than the divine will has conferred on it and wants it to will.

75. To the next argument [n.13] I say that although Christ’s soul has supreme inclination for the highest grace as far as concerns the foundation of the inclination (so that any other grace less that the highest grace would be in by force), yet it has supreme inclination for the highest grace whereby it can be joined in the highest way to the object; and so, although it could be at rest in any grace whatever (as any other soul also can), yet it would not be at rest in the highest way without the highest grace, nor would it be joined in the highest way to the object (wherein is perfect rest) if it did not have the highest grace.

76. To the next [n. 14] - if the antecedent is conceded (which however seems doubtful and against the authority of Augustine On Free Choice 3 [n.54]), the consequence can be denied.

77. And when the cause is asked for as to why God made the highest grace but not the highest nature [n.14], I reply that the highest created nature, if it existed, would not have influence over all natures, just as now too a higher species in the universe does not necessarily have influence over a lower; but the highest grace has, according to the being of grace, influence over lower things; and so there seems to be a greater necessity to posit something supreme possessing grace than for some nature that is supreme. But if, just as God supplies the influence of a higher nature, if there is one, over a lower one (because God has influence directly over everything), then he could directly supply the influence of the highest grace, because he pours grace onto all.

78. But another reason could be given [sc. to the question posed in n.77], that, in any work of nature whatever, divine power and wisdom are manifested, because they have produced things from nothing; and divine power and wisdom belong to the whole universe, both as to the hierarchy of corporeal natures and as to natural existence. But mercy and justice, which belong to the hierarchy of intellectual natures as to moral existence, are not manifested supremely in every work of grace; on the contrary, it seems that the highest mercy is not manifested unless the highest grace and glory be given without merits.

IV. To the Third Question

79. To the third question [n.19] I say that the phrase ‘the soul being able to enjoy supremely’ can be understood in two ways: either formally or elicitively, that is, either that supreme enjoyment informs Christ’s will (by whatever cause), or that his will elicits this enjoyment and is the active cause with respect to it.

80. In the first way, it is possible for the highest creatable enjoyment to be conferred on Christ’s soul, because his soul is receptive of any accident that befits him whatever and in the highest degree (if his soul does not determine for itself a definite degree), just as was proved in the first question about grace [nn.45-48]; and enjoyment is a certain absolute accident, capable of being created by the first cause immediately without the action of the created will.

81. In the second way, it seems probable that as the human will cannot have as much active force as another created will can have (as an angel’s), it cannot elicit enjoyment as perfectly as some other will can; for although it could have the highest grace, which, as partial cause with respect to enjoyment, would equally cause enjoyment in itself and in an angel (if the angel had enjoyment), yet the other partial cause, namely the will, will be unequal; but when one of two causes is deficient, the effect is deficient, if the remaining partial cause is equal. But now in fact Christ’s soul is elicitive to the greatest extent, because although his will is not as perfectly active as an angel’s will, yet along with supreme grace - as the other active partial cause - it has power for a greater enjoyment than the will of an angel with less grace has, because the excellence of grace in it surpasses the efficacy of the will of an angel.

V. To the Fourth Question

82. To the fourth question [n.23] I say that God could confer the highest grace on Christ’s soul without the highest grace (as the argument to the opposite says [n.26]); because grace has only the idea of a second efficient cause with respect to enjoyment, and so enjoyment is possible without it.

83. But whether Christ’s will could, on its own part, act for the highest enjoyment as much without grace as with grace is dubious.

84. For suppose that the enjoyable object is present to the intellect, and that the will, without the object being present to any habit, could so elicit the act of enjoyment that grace was not required for eliciting any perfection of the enjoyment (as holds of any other partial cause that gives some perfection to the effect but does not give the will any causality proper to itself - rather the will has of itself its own causality as to proximate power, or at least as to the remaining cause). If so, then either a necessary connection of second causes is being posited, such that none could cause a determinate effect without a determinate second cause (in the way that a father, as father, cannot act for the generating of a son without the mother acting as second cause); or God is being posited as supplying the causality of any second cause whatever (so no causality of another cause is being posited), and then he could supply the causality of the mother and leave to the father his proper causality for being true father of his son (though no one would be the mother).

85. If the first of these [n.84] is held, then one must say that the will without grace cannot act for as much enjoyment as could be elicited by the will with the highest grace, although it could receive that enjoyment without grace.

86. But if the second [n.84] is held then one must say that God could supply the action of the highest grace, and the will without that grace could act for the highest enjoyment according to its own causality, while God supplies the action of grace as grace is a second cause.

87. However, by ordained power, Christ’s will cannot have the highest enjoyment actively or elicitively without the highest grace, because the ordaining is that the first cause, which naturally gets some action from the second cause, does not have power for the highest effect of both causes without such action of the second cause [cf. Ord. 1 d.2 n.129, d.42 nn.9-15]. Likewise, the ordaining is that no will is perfected to the highest, even as recipient in highest second act, unless it has the highest first act - and so it is not possible by ordained power that it should have the highest enjoyment without the highest grace.

VI. To the Principal Arguments of the Third and Fourth Question

88. To the arguments of these two questions.

A. To the Arguments of Both Parts of the Third Question

89. The first two arguments [nn.20-21] show that the will of Christ’s soul cannot elicitively have the highest enjoyment, and this insofar as the action is due to second causes, with God not supplying the action of any second cause.

90. The argument to the opposite [n.22] shows that Christ’s will cannot have the highest enjoyment formally - which I concede. However the argument fails in that it seems to prove that enjoyment is from grace as from the total cause, which is false; hence although grace is disposed for enjoyment by nature, yet the will, which is the other partial cause, is not but is disposed freely; however in the fatherland the will always cooperates, according to the utmost of its power, with the action of grace according to the utmost of grace.

91. And if it be objected against the distinction set down for the third question [n.79] that then Christ’s soul could, by its union, have enjoyment without grace (the opposite of which was stated in d.2 [nn.18-22]) - I say that God could cause enjoyment immediately in any soul, and thus the soul would have enjoyment formally without habitual grace; but no soul could be disposed to enjoyment actively according to the order of causes now in place [n.87], unless it had grace as the second cause for it to be able to use in its acting; therefore enjoyment could not, by force of the union, belong more to Christ’s soul than to another soul, unless by force of the union enjoyment belonged to it elicitively according to the established order of second causes; but it could only do so if God supplied the action of grace, which would naturally be the will’s second cause in producing the effect - and God could supply it in this way for some other will. The will could also have enjoyment formally if God caused enjoyment in it immediately; but this would not be by force of the union, because God could cause it as immediately in another will. So this does not contradict what was said there [d.2 nn.18-22]; and also the enjoyment would not be praiseworthy if it were only caused immediately by God in the will as in a subject, because it would not be in the power of the will of the enjoyer, for it is not in the power of a second cause to use a first cause but conversely.

92. And therefore both for the wayfarer and in the fatherland some created form is posited, so that the will can use that form in its operation, and so that the form is in the will’s power and may thus be used in a praiseworthy way.

B. To the Arguments of the Fourth Question

93. To the arguments of the fourth question.

To the first [n.24] I say that grace is required for merit, because merit formally requires that the act be freely elicited by the will, and that it thus be in the will’s power; and in this way too grace is required for enjoyment, so as to be elicited actively by the will; but to have formally from God the act that is called merit, or the act that is called enjoyment, grace is not necessarily required; because grace is not the reason for receiving the form but the will itself is (and I say this about God’s absolute power).

94. To the second argument [n.25] I say that its conclusion concerns having enjoyment elicitively not formally, because in order to cause the highest effect (according to the now established order of causes [n.87]), both partial causes must have the highest perfection; it is not so for passive reception of the highest form, which form can be immediately caused by God in a passive subject without the prior perfection of that passive subject, or without any partial second cause.