II. Scotus’ own Response to the Question

89. To the question then one must say that hope is a single theological virtue, distinct from faith and charity.

90. The fact is made convincing thus: we experience in ourselves the act ‘to desire that the infinite Good be good for us, and that by God conferring it on us freely - not indeed first but because of something ordered to it that is accepted by him, namely because of merits’; this act is good when with its due conditions; therefore there can be a virtue for it.

91. The assumption is plain from running through the circumstances:

The object indeed of the act is the infinite Good; the first circumstance is included in the word ‘desire’, which is an absolute willing, not of anything, but of something absent; God under the idea of an object perfectly to be possessed is absent from the wayfarer;     therefore a willing that tends to him under this idea has, on this point, its due circumstance.

92. Also the addition ‘to be good for us’ is a circumstance due to you, because the good is fitting for the one for whom it is desired as good; but no good sufficiently quietens the desirer save an infinite one.

93. The addition ‘by God conferring etc     .’ notes the due circumstance on the part of him from whom; for the good in question cannot be communicated save by God freely conferring it.

94. The addition ‘not first     etc .’ notes fitting disposition on the part of that by which the good is reached, because it notes a disposition that is fitting according to the way God orders the pursuing of the good; for divine wisdom has made disposition not to communicate itself perfectly to anyone save to one who is accepted beforehand for virtue.

95. Therefore      it is plain that the act is right, because it has its due circumstances; and so there can be a virtue inclining one to it, and this an appetitive virtue, because the act is an express act of appetite and the circumstances are the circumstances of an act of appetite.

96. This virtue is also a theological virtue. The proof is that it regards God as immediate object; for the idea of object as it is object is not taken away by any of the things that are added to the object [n.90]; for that I desire a thing for myself as being qualified by such or such does not take away the fact that I desire it as object - but what the act of desire is about is infinite, therefore it is also eternal; therefore it is a theological virtue.

97. But if it be said that desire involves absence of the thing desired, and so a condition of time in the object - it seems improbable, because hope and tending regard the object according to the same formal idea of it as object [n.19], just as there is the same formal idea of object insofar as there is a tending to it and a resting in it. But the difference is that the object is approached in diverse ways, because an absent thing that is imperfectly approached is desired but a present thing or thing that is perfectly approached is loved. Just as fire in the natural world causes, when approached, intense heat, but a distant fire or one approached less causes a cooler heat; but not for this reason is there less of the idea of being active in a distant fire than in a close one; just as the sun too, being more and less distant, causes direct and reflex rays.

98. From this one can argue in the issue at hand that, just as in the case of effective things what does not belong per se to the idea of being effective does not vary the idea of being effective, so in the case of ends what does not vary the idea of being an end does not vary the idea of end; such is how it is with being present or absent in the way said above [n.97];     therefore presence and absence do not vary the formality of the object.

99. There is also confirmation of this, that such absence or presence exists only as mediated through an act of intellect; for what is intuitively seen is present to the will as lovable, and what is seen as in a mirror is present to it as desirable; but the diverse way of an object’s being present to some power does not vary the formal idea of the object; therefore etc     .

100. If too it is said that ‘to desire the good for me’ varies the formal idea of the object, because it changes the honorable good into the useful good - this is false, for the condition or circumstance ‘for whom’ is not a per se condition of the object; rather such a condition can be added to the object while the formal idea of the object remains the same, as is plain in the case of faith: for in believing that God the Savior is the beatifier of all the good, I do not have an object formally other than God about whom I believe that he is three and one and all the other articles, but by the former I only compare the eternal to something temporal, and the comparison only states a respect of reason; and the same with ‘desire for me’, which only states a respect of the will, and on this respect I am now touching. Indeed every comparing power can compare its object to something else, and can cause a respect of reason in what is thus compared that is not present in it by the nature of the thing in itself but from the act of the comparing power; and so, just as reason, by comparing its object, can cause a respect of reason in it, so the will can, by comparing its object, cause some respect in it that can be called ‘a respect of appetite’. But such a respect is caused in a usable object by an act of use, when the will uses something; and such a respect can be said to be caused in God by an act of will, when I will the good ‘infinite in him’ to be good for me, because the appetite compares that good to another - namely to itself - by a certain comparison that is not in it from the nature of the thing.

101. But if it be objected that ‘therefore the will is evil when it hopes, because it uses what should be enjoyed, by referring it to something else’ - I reply that not every comparison of one object to another object made by the will is a comparison that is use, but only when the object is compared to another as to a lesser good ordered to something else as to a greater good to be attained through it; but it is not so in the issue at hand, but the will compares the greater good as abundant to a lesser good as what is to be perfected in it; and this is the comparison of liberality of which Avicenna speaks in his Metaphysics 6.5.

102. But if it be objected against this that to have the uncreated Good for object does not suffice for having a theological virtue, because then acquired faith and acquired charity would be theological virtues (for they have the same object as the faith and charity that are infused virtues, and have it under the same idea of object) - I reply that there are three conditions that are set down as belonging to a true theological virtue or to the first Truth. The first of these conditions is that it regard God as first object; second that it have for rule, that is, for first rule of its human acts, the first rule of truths or the first Truth, and not an acquired rule; third that it be immediately infused by God as by efficient cause. These three are distinct in that one is the idea of the object, the next the idea of the rule, the last the idea of the efficient cause. If all three are required for something’s being a theological virtue, it is plain that acquired faith and acquired charity are not theological virtues because they are defective in the third condition; by parity of reasoning neither is acquired hope a theological virtue, if the first condition alone is sufficient for it or the first along with the second. In that case acquired hope can be set down as a theological virtue from the fact it is immediately about God as object, by desiring this object for him who hopes; for even if he not hope that it will exist in him, yet he hopes for it (that is, he desires it) and not for something else for himself. But if the second condition for it to be a theological virtue is there as well, then he who has acquired hope relies immediately on the first Truth as the first rule of human acts or of our acts; for he does not desire it because acquired prudence tells him it is to be desired but because the first Truth supernaturally known shows him it is to be desired - and that is the first rule of our acts.

103. And if it be objected that, with respect to acquired hope, acquired faith is the rule and not the first Truth supernaturally known, one can reply that acquired faith is not the first rule in itself; and if it is not the first rule in itself nevertheless it regards the first rule. And so every virtue having it for first rule does not have natural prudence for rule but the first Truth - and if it does not have it in the idea of habit yet it has it in idea of the object that regulates the habit.

104. And if these two conditions do not suffice, one must say as a result that theology itself is not a theological habit; for it can be theology and not be immediately infused by God but acquired, and this both as to actual and habitual assent (which is acquired faith), and as to the apprehension that comes from teaching; and then one must tightly narrow down theological habit.

105. But if the first two conditions (about the object and the rule) do not suffice without the third (which is about the efficient cause), then one must concede that hope, although it require the first two conditions in order to be a theological habit (and to this extent a part of the proposed conclusion is obtained, in that it has the first two conditions), yet it gets completely to be a theological virtue from the third condition, namely from the fact that it is of a nature to be infused immediately by God. But if it is not infused, it is not had as perfectly as it is of a nature to be had by infusion; for the supreme part of reason, since it is subject immediately to God, is not most perfectly perfected by any created agent but immediately by God perfecting it. Now a habit that is of a nature to concern God immediately as object and to rely on him immediately as first rule is of a nature to perfect the first and supreme part of reason; therefore, although some habit could be had, yet not the most perfect one. And so, as was said above about faith [Lectura 3 d.23 nn.48-51], that although there is also an acquired faith, yet along with it another infused faith is necessarily posited (though the necessity of this infused faith cannot be proved by natural reason [Lectura ibid. nn.56-57]), one must speak in the same way about the matter in hand. And just as theological faith is preserved there because of the object and rule and aptitude to be infused (which are consequent to the superior part of reason), so is it argued here in the matter at hand as well, although some hope could be acquired as also could some faith.

106. The first conclusion, then, of the solution to the question is that, with respect to the act of hoping, there can be a theological virtue. To this I add that it cannot be faith or charity; therefore it is a third, distinct from them.

107. Proof of the minor [n.106]:

As to the part about faith, because every act of faith is a believing and no desiring is a believing.

108. As to the other part about charity, the proof is that charity is supreme affective virtue and consequently is supreme habitual love; but love of friendship is more perfect simply than love of concupiscence;     therefore charity simply inclines one to loving with love of friendship. But ‘to desire the infinite Good to be my good’ is not an act of friendship, nor is it the most noble act, because that object (the infinite Good) has a nobler being in itself than is the comparison of it to anything other than itself; therefore to desire something else, which is the first conclusion, is not the noblest theological act; therefore etc     .

109. This point about charity and desire is also proved because without such desire the act of charity can be most intense and can be weak and can be in the middle. The weak act is plain, for I can will that God in himself be good without desiring him for myself. The like is plain about the middle act. Proof of the supreme act is that God loves himself supremely, for he is supremely blessed in himself, and yet there is not included in this that God will himself to be good to another who loves him, nor need a freely acting power act necessarily as much as it can. These points are also proved by this, that it is not necessary for the will to have two acts in itself; but the act of loving God in himself and of desiring him for oneself as loving him are two acts; therefore one act can be without the other.

110. The point [that hope cannot be charity] can also be proved by the fact that in the will, according to Anselm, there are two affections, namely the affection of justice and the affection of advantage (he deals with them in Fall of the Devil 12, 14 and On Concord q.3.11). The affection of justice is nobler than the affection of advantage, understanding not only acquired and infused affection but also innate affection, which is congenital freedom, according to which the will can will some good that is not ordered to itself. But according to the affection of advantage it can will nothing save in order to itself - and it would have this if it was precisely intellective appetite following cognition without liberty, as sense appetite follows sense cognition. From this I wish to get only the following: since ‘to love something in itself’ is a freer act and more communicative than ‘to desire it for oneself’, and since the former act agrees more with the will insofar as it has at least the innate affection of justice, while the latter agrees with the will insofar as it has the affection of advantage, the consequence is that just as these affections are distinct in the will, so the habits inclining toward them will be distinct in the will. I say therefore that charity perfects the will insofar as it is affected by the affection of justice, and that hope perfects it insofar as it is affected by the affection of advantage; and so there will be two distinct virtues, not only because of the acts, which are ‘to love’ and ‘to desire’, but also because of what is susceptive of them, which is the will insofar as it has the affection of justice and of advantage.

111. The virtues will not be distinguished by the objects, which are the arduous and the delightful, as the preceding opinion said [n.28]; rather there is here altogether the same formal idea of object, although some things are added in one case and not in the other. Indeed ‘to be excelling’ states the condition that is ‘to be by whom’, but ‘to be absent’ states the removal of the object, which is a concomitant condition both in the efficient cause and in the end, and is not the formal idea of the object; ‘to want for me’ states the condition that is ‘for whom’, but ‘to will on the basis of merits’ states the condition how, as was expounded before [nn.90-95].